I learned early on in my career that bringing a product, brochure, testimonial or "prop" to any meeting, is absolutely necessary. Whether it's a sales call, interview or team discussion, keep in mind that people learn and absorb information in different ways. 40% of us are visual, 40% are kinesthetic (touch) and 20% are auditory. If we depend only on the sound of our own words, we potentially miss 80% of the audience.
With that in mind, let's dive into a painfully simplistic, often overlooked, but powerful tool known as The Agenda. Webster defines agenda as "the plan or list of things to be done".
In business negotiation training we utilize this concept as the final stage of aggressive preparation. It's called Create the Agenda. I've made over 5000 sales calls in my career. Many of those involved some type of negotiation. When I learned to always bring the agenda, my success rate increased dramatically. Here's what an agenda it does to the negotiation dynamic:
1) It's an immediate compliment to the Other Side. It essentially says "your time is valuable, so I've done this to make our meeting more valuable."
2) Rarely will the other side have one, so you've subtly gained control of the meeting.
3) This control allows you to set the pace and the sequence of discussion.
Agenda's don't have to be sophisticated. In fact, simple, one-page documents with bulleted points work best. Agenda's also tend to keep the discussion on point. In the Humble Confidence Negotiation Workshop we devote the majority of our effort to Aggressive Preparation. 90% of a successful negotiation occurs here.
