BE READY WHEN YOUR CUSTOMER THROWS YOU A CURVE BALL

You’ve prepped for today’s important customer meeting.  You know the topic, their needs, and how you can help.  Suddenly, sitting across the table from your customer, they throw you a curve ball.  “We’ve decided to move in a different direction,” they say.  You start to stew inside and wonder (to yourself) “why couldn’t you have just told me that in an e-mail and saved us all time?”  In addition, the person that you thought was going to be in the meeting may now be, “down the hall” and you’re actually meeting with people you may not know as well.  It’s always good to have a Plan B, or even a Plan C, when meeting with a federal customer.Not only should you be prepared to talk about the stated purpose of the meeting, you should also be ready to discuss related needs, and to have that discussion at a level appropriate to the people in the actual meeting.  Prepared contractors can actually come away with action items for new prospective business.  As recently as this week, one company with which we work was able to turn what could have been a ten minute “thanks for coming by” discussion into an hour-long meeting that ended with three solid follow-up action items.  The customer was impressed and no one’s time ended up being wasted.  Federal customers most certainly approach business from a different perspective from contractors.  Make sure you’re prepared for more than what just meets the eye