Episode 87: 7 Essential Steps to a Fascinating Multi-Person Sales Meeting

Aug 19

Communication during the meeting with our colleagues is helpful. So having a couple of subtle signals to communicate to each other, that could be something as simple as a nod to indicate that you're ready to jump in. If you want the other person to take point on something, maybe you have a signal there.

The goal is to ensure smooth transitions without awkward interruptions.

Welcome back to another episode of Prospecting on Purpose. Today we're talking about the Four-legged, Six-legged, or Eight-legged sales call. This is where two or more people team up to present to a client or a prospect together. Hence the leg count. But here's the thing, multi-person sales calls can either be massive successes or a tangled mess.

And the difference is preparation. And that's exactly what we're breaking down today, how to prepare for a meeting where more than one salesperson is presenting. Let's start with the basics. You know, a six-legged sales call is where you and maybe one or two other sales professionals, multiple salespeople are attending a client meeting together.

And ideally, you know, maybe one person is more technical. The other might have a relationship with the prospect. Perhaps you're bringing different areas of expertise to the table. You're pulling in a subject matter expert for this meeting, or maybe you need someone who is more senior than you to be at the meeting.

Maybe your boss wants to be included in your meeting, whatever the reason. Ideally, the point is that you're teaming up to deliver a more robust presentation and demonstrate to the client the value that your company and your team bring. But here's the trick. If we don't coordinate ahead of time, we run the risk of stepping on each other's toes or worse.

Confusing your client. So how do we avoid all that? And it really starts with our first tip. We're going to get into seven tips on the multi-person sales call here. But the first tip is to clarify roles. So to really get an understanding of who's doing what in the meeting. So think about it this way. If everyone's speaking over each other, or they're trying to make the same points, you lose focus, you lose coherence.

Okay. It looks like you have two quarterbacks on the field at the same time. So this is why it's really important to designate roles. Some questions you can ask yourself is, who will be leading the conversation? Who's the quarterback? Maybe it's the person who set up the meeting. Maybe that person just introduces the subject matter expert, and then they're the quarterback throughout the duration of the presentation, who's handling specific sections of the pitch and why.

It's really. Key to play to each other's strengths. So in my past experience, I am not an engineer. And oftentimes if I knew there were going to be very technical questions, I would bring in my technical colleague and then I would almost view my role as the translator between the technical person and my client and their projects and their priorities.

So I might not be the person driving that particular meeting, but my role there is to be the translator. Capture the action items and then continue to maintain that client. So just getting really clear on that is going to help you avoid overlap. Two people are chiming in at the same time. It's diluting the message.

You know, preparation here is making sure everyone knows their lane. And if it doesn't make sense to have a certain teammate in the meeting, it is appropriate to ask them to step down. Sometimes that's tricky, especially if they're, they're an elite senior role, but if they don't have value or a clear reason to be on the meeting that you can communicate to the client, then ideally that person isn't on the meeting.

So the last thing we want is 1 decision maker and 6 people from a company. So we have to edit ourselves. Tip number two is to plan ahead. Coordination. Once you understand your roles, it's time to sync up on the details. This means we're holding a dedicated planning session before the meeting, so sit down with your coworkers, map out exactly how you want the sales call to go, understand what the agenda is, who's going to introduce the company, who's diving into pain points, who's talking about solutions, who's closing it out and getting to the next step.

You know, this may sound simple, but the pre-meeting alignment is crucial to making sure that everything flows smoothly and that you show that you have your act together. Obviously, if you're presenting something to a high-stakes environment, rehearsal is great. You know, nobody likes to role-play, but a quick run-through can reveal potential issues before they arise.

And it also ensures that you have your transitions between your teammates natural. You don't want awkward pauses and clunky handoffs, and this is true whether you're virtual presenting or in person. And then that really leads us to tip 3 when we're putting together our agenda, what is the actual goal coming out of it?

So tip 3 is to be very intentional. That won't surprise anyone if you listen to this show. We must be intentional about the goal that we are collectively as a team working towards. So we must know who's doing what and what are we trying to get out at the end of this meeting. And then the whole time as we're running this meeting, we're working towards those goals.

I know this tip is important because I kind of had a rude awakening coming out of the pandemic. You know, we got used to virtual selling. We could text our teammates if they were, you know, speaking to a point that wasn't relevant. We could text someone saying, Hey, I want to answer this question. We could instant message.

I guess a little bit easier to coordinate virtually because our customer wasn't in the room with us as we were texting each other. Well, coming out of the pandemic. I just forgot to do a pre-planning meeting with one of my colleagues. I had a plan of where I wanted this client to go, but I hadn't had a six-legged sales call in a while.

So I'm talking and my teammate just throws such a curveball question and he took this client way off the path of where I wanted him to be and it was because we didn't coordinate, we didn't prepare ahead of time. So just the little bit up front and then having a goal and intention is what's going to make the difference.

Tip four is that we are allowed to share our roles and the agenda with our client. So when you hop on a call and there are four teammates and one customer, I suggest doing a quick round of introductions. Sometimes I just take point and do all of the introductions myself for the sake of speed, you know, for lack of a better word.

Sometimes when you go around Robin and everyone's saying their roles, it may take away time from that meeting. So it's up to you and your pre-planning how you handle that. But really the goal is to set context as to why that individual person is crucial to that meeting. Why are they in this space with us?

Because if we can give context to the prospect if it's done right, it shows how well they'll be supported once they become a client. But again, clarifying roles is gonna help that customer think, okay, do I have to go to four different people if I need help? No, usually there's one quarterback, one support system, and one single point of contact.

But we're demonstrating to the client that this single point of contact has all of these resources available to them. Tip number 5, now that we have a plan, we have alignment, and communication during the meeting with our colleagues is helpful. So having a couple of subtle signals to communicate to each other, that could be something as simple as a nod to indicate that you're ready to jump in.

If you want the other person to take point on something, maybe you have a signal there. The goal is to ensure smooth transitions without awkward interruptions. And so the way that you might do this is maybe you just verbally say, “Now I'm letting my colleague so and so speak to this”, just verbally transition to the next presenter.

This is also helpful if you happen to be the one presenting and your client interrupts you with a curveball question. If your coworker is better equipped to answer that question, Then you need a game plan for that. And it could be something as simple as that's a great question. I think so and so can shed some light on that and then gracefully hand it over.

I think so and so may be more equipped to answer that question in more detail. So the goal is to really just avoid fumbling and make it seem like you're aligned throughout. And then remember, with this communication style, we want to always keep our client at the center of the conversation. Sometimes it's easy to get back and forth, caught up with your teammate, and vibing with your co-presenter, but the focus should always be on Getting to that goal, what's the intention we're working towards not taking us off course, and then of course delivering value to the client, not just showcasing your teamwork.

So we're pausing, we're listening, we're asking appropriate questions, and we're staying in the driver's seat as a team. Tip number 6. Sometimes your co-presenters are actually your clients or your prospects. So one thing that we forget is we might have contact with someone at a company. They're kind of our internal champions, but they need buy-in from other departments or senior leadership.

So they set up the meeting. These same rules apply when your co-presenters are now part of your prospects. So if it's a big stake meeting, it may be appropriate to ask to hop on a quick call to get alignment and really make sure that we're prioritizing what our client, who our internal champion is, what they need us to prioritize, or minimalize, and then how we include their work into our solution.

So, it's the same structure as everything that we laid out. Maybe it's us rehearsed or practiced because they're not an internal teammate. But our job is to make the person who set up that meeting look good. And the only way you can do this is by knowing what the goal is operating intentionally and preparing as best you can.

And then the 7th and final tip is. To follow up appropriately and following the meeting, you know, what's next? It's the follow-up. And just like with our presentation, this needs to be coordinated too. So, after the meeting, I would like, to debrief with my colleagues and discuss what went well, and maybe what could have been improved.

And most importantly, follow up and next steps. How are we keeping the business moving forward? So assigning responsibilities for any follow-up text, whether it's setting over additional materials, recapping action items, answering questions that we needed to clarify, or setting up the next meeting. So the goal is to really continue that same level of collaboration after the meeting as you did during it.

And this way, you maintain that strong, united front and you're ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. So just to wrap up with a quick checklist to recap when we're preparing for our next multi-person sales meeting. Tip one, clarify roles, know who's leading, and who's supporting, and avoid overlap. Two set the agenda, plan speaking points, and plan transitions.

Step three, know your intention. What is the goal you're collectively working towards? Step four, it's okay to share your roles and your agenda. with the client. Do not skip this run-through. It makes all of the difference. And then number five, have verbal and nonverbal clues with your team. So we're communicating subtly to keep that presentation seamless.

Number six, remember sometimes that our co-presenters are our prospects or our channel partners and the same rules apply. So if you prep with them, gives you an additional touch point. And it also is going to make your presentation more seamless. And then finally, number seven, debrief and follow up and coordinate that next step after the meeting to keep this momentum going.

If you follow these steps, you'll be well on your way to executing a flawless multi-person sales presentation. And ideally we're leaving our clients impressed and ready to move forward. Thank you so much for tuning in. I know the six-legged sales call can be a lot, especially if there are eight legs or 10 legs, but as long as we're being intentional and really planning this out, it can actually really serve to our benefit and it makes work more fun.

So I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll see you next week.

Thank you so much for listening to the Prospecting on Purpose podcast. If you loved what you heard today, subscribe to the podcast and please rate and leave a review. For more info on me, or if you'd like to work together, feel free to go to my website, Sarah Murray.com. On social media, I'm usually hanging out at Sarah Murray sales.

Thanks again for joining me and I'll see you next time.