“Good preparation is half the battle.”
These kinds of delicious tiles of wisdom are actually still applicable. Whether it’s a conversation with a potential partner or customer, renovating your home or a holiday to a distant destination, preparation is really recommended. Preparation is also very important for business conversations, or perhaps especially for more business conversations.
If you are well prepared for an appointment, whether it is in a personal meeting or a digital appointment, the conversation will go a lot better. Nothing is more annoying than starting a conversation with someone who hasn’t done their homework and you can explain everything from the beginning. But the other way around is of course just as true, if you arrive at your appointment well prepared, the other person immediately has the idea that you are a serious conversation partner. That’s nice if you want to build a business relationship with this person.
Research your conversation partner
So always do your research before the first interview. See if you can find leads or questions on LinkedIn. Maybe you have a common interest or she has written an interesting piece that you can refer to. On the one hand, this is of course a compliment for your conversation partner, but on the other hand, it also gives you insight into what she is doing, what she finds important or how she sees the future. This can help you make a connection with your conversation partner in your conversations.
Also, don’t forget to look at the company and do research on it. What do they do, what are they known for, what is the vision of the company and of course it could also be that you know people at that company. Whether it is a freelance consultant for Shell, both have a vision and a goal with which they present themselves. The first will be more extensive than the second, make sure you take note of this before you start the conversation.
When we write research, it doesn’t mean that you have to spend days scouring google looking for all the details, posting at the door (that’s called stalking) or putting an extreme amount of time into it. No, what we mean is taking some time, even if it’s only half an hour, to get to know your conversation partner. Trust us, that can be a very valuable investment.
After the first conversation, you will already know a lot more about your conversation partner and her company. First, you have done research before the interview. You know what she has put on social media such as on LinkedIn and maybe also written, you have gone through the company page. And of course you have had the conversation. The first part is easy to note in your CRM. Of course, you use a simple CRM system where you can easily save a link to your contact’s LinkedIn page, where you can leave some notes of your research, and where you can write down a small conversation report afterwards. You do this so that you can quickly grab this for the next conversation to be aware of exactly what you discussed last time.
What always works well, of course, is if you come across an interesting article in between and forward it by email. It is very useful if this email is automatically linked to your contact in the CRM, so that you also have it with you in the next conversation. Without you having to think about where you want to store it, but that the smart CRM system does it for you.
In short, do research on your conversation partner, write down what you think and make sure you go through it again just before the conversation so that you have a good idea of what you discussed and what your research has yielded. And finally, after your conversation, write down briefly what you have discussed and what you have agreed. Your own reflection on what you thought of the conversation is also very useful.
Good luck preparing for your next interview!