November and December are an optimal time of the year to conduct Business Review Meetings
with your current clients – especially your top clients. A business review meeting is valuable to your clients too! In my years in sales, I found this to be a game-changer to move my relationships from vendor to a more trusting partnership. You can even ask them to invite others from their company to this meeting –other divisions or department heads, perhaps their boss or even key employees.
Here are 7 reasons how a business review meeting can improve your sales results.
- It is a great opportunity to have a purposeful sales conversation with your valuable clients and find out what is working, what is not working and your recommendations to improve the relationship or the services you provide.
- Understand their goals & initiatives for 2015. This is most important – when they start talking listen for opportunities on how you can help them.
- Position you as a valuable resource to review the year and begin planning for the entire next year, rather than project by project or visit by visit.
- Many companies are in planning and budgeting mode, right now which makes it an ideal time to secure your services for next year.
- Your clients are challenged as to what they are going to do better or differently next year. A business review meeting is a great opportunity to brainstorm with them and provide recommendations. This positions you as a business resource, not just as someone who sells a product or service.
- Your competitors are not doing it!!! This is an incredibly effective way to keep your competitors from getting in the door with your top clients.
- Your client relationship might be a bit rocky. That means a pro-active approach on your part to discuss the current issues and how you can resolve them will position you more favorably.
Here’s how you position the meeting.
I recommend a personal telephone call and you can leave them a personalized voice mail message (yes – they still like it!) and then send them an email with at least 2-3 date options and times.
“We have been working with you during the past xxx years, we would like to schedule a Business Review Meeting with you to review the past year and your plans for next year…”
Business Review Meeting Agenda
Like the idea, but not sure where to start? We have created a Business Review Template for you to use. Click here to download it.
Now…create a list of your top 3-10 clients, pick up the phone and schedule this Business Review Meeting. You’ll be amazed at how well this meeting is received and how you’ll secure a stronger partnership (and revenue) for 2015…or fix a rocky client situation. Let us know how your Business Meetings go with your client. Email me at lisa@teneoresults.com
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.