Get smart before your next meeting or presentation

Never have a meeting or make a presentation without doing your homework. 

What is your homework?  Context.  This is a habit I developed at Yahoo!, and recommend to everyone I know.  When you are going to make a sales call or take a meeting with a new company/person - do some background research so you know the context of the situation. 

For example, at Yahoo!, every time we'd engage with a new prospect, we'd fully research their history (via Hoovers, stock ticker, their website), news coverage of the company, bios of individuals in the meeting and the competitive landscape.  I'd budget about three hours for a thirty minute meeting.  I'd combine all the research into a 'parse' - short for a parsed up brief of the company and participants in the meeting. 

The point wasn't being a know-it-all, it was about knowing the context so I could tailor my remarks or presentation to the situation.  After a while, I started to send the parse to my contact at the prospect company to see if I got it right.  You'd be surprised that in many situations, my contact didn't know half of that I'd dug up!  In every case, my confidence was higher because I had the power of knowledge. 

Same goes with any presentation.  Always research your audience: Their emotions, the context they are working in, their competitive situation and trends in the industry that impact them.  Show up the night before and talk to your future audience to verify your understanding.  The most important piece of intel to gather is the business model they're operating under, and where their upside and leakage occurs.  This information allows you to point remarks to action items that make a difference.  This will dramatically improve the effectiveness of any presentation you make.

Comments

[Account Deleted]

Excellent tip for meeting prep Sanders. Often people believe that the time it takes to plan is a waste. However, if you put the effort in, it pays back 10-fold.
To your success!

[Finance Jobs]

nice post, wat about going for interviews? would it be sufficient to know the context, or its better to know it all? i guess if u r submitting ur resumes to job search sites (ie jobsdb.com, jobstreet.com, headhunt.com.sg) there would be no requirement to know it all. but i think its good to do ur homework about the job u r applying for. great post btw, cheers.