In a discussion with my colleague, Doug Fick of Retalix (www.retalix.com), a subject near and dear to me came up: face-to-face meetings.
Doug related a story from last year’s NACS Show (www.nacsonline.com) about a meeting he was actually dreading going into. A large client asked for a meeting at the show to “talk.” Experience with this client indicated that he was expecting to get yelled at and told what all they were doing wrong.
However, the tone of the meeting changed when they finally met. Their C-level execs sat with the account management team, probably for the first time in months face to face. In the span of an hour, the tone and conversation went from hostile to warm. And the client walked away having ordered more product (valued in the multi-million dollar range.
Here is the latest example of the value of a simple face-to-face meeting. So many times the translation is lost over the phone, in e-mails or written correspondence and certainly with social media. In that hour span, Doug and his team were able to connect with their client as they had not been able to do in the weeks leading up to the show.
Face-to-Face 101 continues.
Oh, and they have a similar meeting with a client at this year’s show. Hmmmm….maybe more summit meetings throughout the year are in order?
Relentless
