Distraction-Proof® Advisor Ideas

Huddle’s devastation. (Picture: AP)

Your meeting has been going well. You feel you’ve really connected with your prospect or client. The end is in sight, and you start anticipating how successfully your time with this person will finish. Confident that you know how the next steps will unfold, you start to relax and begin coasting to the finish line.

This is where you move into the danger zone. It’s easy to get caught up in the progression and pace of a meeting, believing all is proceeding wonderfully. Then you begin thinking about telling your partner that you signed a new client and start mentally celebrating.

It’s presumptuous, which leads to sloppiness, which often ends in carelessness.

Rather than remaining wholly engaged, you momentarily get distracted imagining the next steps as your prospect becomes a client. You don’t fully hear a seemingly simple, but important, question. You respond with a faster tone than you should have, or you seem distracted at the moment when your prospect needed to feel you were entirely engaged with them.

Getting distracted by presuming success and celebrating before your event is actually over can cost you dearly and lose you business.

We had a heartbreaking illustration of this a couple of weeks ago at the World Track and Field Championships when Molly Huddle’s premature celebration just before the finish line cost her a bronze medal. (If you missed the details in the news, you can see the video and Molly Huddle’s bitter disappointment with herself here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7KKySANnxQ).

If some of the world’s greatest athletes can make this mistake in the midst of competition, we can make it too. Presumption builds bad habits. Maybe you’re not allowing the person you’re meeting with to complete their sentences, even though you know exactly what they are going to say. Or perhaps they catch you looking at your watch while they’re telling you something personal. Maybe you’re mentally drifting, thinking about your next appointment who will be arriving soon. While first impressions are important, people also remember their last impression of you.

Remember Huddle’s anguished look to help keep you fully focused until the end of your “event.” Just like an athlete prepares and trains to finish their race strongly, you also must prepare a strong finish to your meetings. Strategically plan ahead and develop a set process for closing your meetings as purposefully as you start them.

Finishing a meeting strongly means you:

1. Ask if they have any questions. A person’s silence doesn’t necessarily mean he or she is tracking with your thinking. Give people the opportunity to ask questions and welcome the opportunity to explain anything more fully.
2. Clarify next steps. Don’t assume people know what will happen next. After taking the time to see if you need to provide any further explanations, let the person you’re meeting with know what the next 2 or 3 steps are for you and them to move forward together.
3. Set dates. Let them know when you’ll get back to them with relevant follow-up information. Give them specific dates, and then immediately put those into your CRM so you remember to follow through. Likewise, when you ask them for any needed documents such as statements or copies of W-2s, give them a date by which to send this to you. Then you don’t need to feel awkward with a follow-up call.
4. Put it in writing. Summarize the meeting in a one page email, using this to clarify next steps, what you need, and when you’d like to receive it.

Keep focused until it’s over!
Paul

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