Top Tips for Phone and Web Meetings

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by georgetc

During the early days of Covid, moving from tried and tested face to face meetings to phone or web meets was an obvious necessity. Whilst we are firm believers in the mantra that people buy from people – and there are a lot of nuances that can be picked up in a face to face meeting to make it incredibly valuable – it is clear that phone meets, Zoom meets, etc are also here to stay. In order to boost your chances of winning new business from these meets, here are a few handy hints to remember.

Ensure you have a clear objective for the phone call or web meet – it may not be a face to face meeting, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a structured approach so that both you and the prospect get the most out of the valuable time that you are taking out of your day.

Prepare thoroughly for the call/web meet, just as you would for a face to face meeting:

1. Research the person you’re speaking to, look at their experience, previous companies/roles etc. as well as their interests – try and find a touch point which helps to build trust and confidence
2. Research the company and their recent/current marketing activity
3. Look at their competitors and see what they’ve been up to
4. Identify the key issues and challenges that their market sector is experiencing so that you have opinions and observations to share
5. Walk a mile in the prospect’s shoes:
   a. Consider why they might want to work with you – this ensures you highlight and focus on those relevant elements of your proposition, skill set and case studies
   b. Consider why they may NOT want to work with you (lack of experience in their marketplace, size, location etc.). This enables you to pre-empt any potential objections and consider how you’re going to deal with them during the meeting (NOT afterwards, it’s too late!)
6. Prepare a list of everything you need to gain from the call and then think of how best to ask those questions.
7. Always remember to qualify those tricky questions, for example, ‘Would you mind telling me your budget for this project, as that will help me come up with a proposed solution within your budget’

Set the scene at the beginning of the call – this should include the following:

1. Lay out a clear, well signposted agenda for the call and ask if they would like to cover anything else
2. Ask how long they’ve got for the call
3. Explain that the main reason for the call is to understand their specific priorities, challenges, objective to see if you can help solve these
4. Explain that you’re going to send them RELEVANT work/case studies following the conversation about their objectives/challenges
5. If the meet relates to a high value proposition (and in most cases of meetings we set our clients, it is likely to) you may want to suggest you would really like to meet them face to face following the call so you can show them in more detail how you can help them solve their problems

Summarise your understanding of the call before agreeing next steps – this ensures that you have heard AND interpreted everything correctly. It’s also an opportunity for them to add something into the mix they may have forgotten.

Close on agreement to the next stage, which in this instance should be a follow up push things forward with either a specific brief or at the very least a follow up meeting.