Virtual First Meetings: How to Navigate Them

Transcript:

Sandra Ottinger: All right, welcome to our second video. And this is a follow up to our first video about virtual prospecting. And the purpose of this video is about holding that first meeting with your prospect, probably going to be virtually, because let's say you've held a virtual prospecting event, you've cast a really wide net for prospects, probably all not going to be local. And now you've generated a qualified prospect who wants to meet with you. How do you do that? How do you hold a virtual meeting with a prospect your first time meeting them and make it effective? So Linda, I just want to open it up with a question to you about how a virtual first meeting should be different from in person first meeting.

Linda Eaton: Well, let me start Sandra, by saying that we want to minimize the differences as much as we possibly can, that our objective here is really twofold to first of all, and I think this is the primary sort of objective to establish trust. And that's a little different, virtually, because we're without some of our most, I think, important cues. I know that most people listening are probably familiar with a very famous study that says that an enormous part of the impact of any meeting is what we have what we see visually. And what we see in a virtual meeting is not exactly the same. Let me give you an example of this. If we were sitting live face to face, I would be able to look at your body language, I would be able to pick up sort of nuances. And that is absolutely muted when we're working virtually. So here's an important tip. There's some research that suggests I think this is funny that some people spend as much as 80% of their time in a virtual meeting, looking at themselves, learn how to blur how to mute how to make yourself invisible, on whatever technology that you're using, so that you're not tempted to just look at yourself, and you can indeed look at the other person as you were alive. A second difference is, you know, when these meetings go well, and we'll talk about some some markers for establishing trust, and just a minute, but when these meetings go well, and the trust has been established, you all know that people's financial lives are intimate and private. And there are times that we want to make sure that we emanate the feeling that we are speaking directly to that person. And when you do that, you need to be looking into your camera. And I'm looking into my camera right now, I'm going to ask you to look at my eyes and watch what happens when I look at Sandra's image. Now you want to of course, be looking at the people that you're talking to. But there are times when you want to plan really looking right into that camera, when you want to establish trust, what are some of the ways that we can think of that helps establish trust in that first meeting? Sandra? 

Sandra Ottinger: I think I think there's a couple of things, Linda, and it goes back to the maintaining that eye contact. But the other thing that I really love is back to our chip in the prospect event is make time for small talk, you know, come in and chat with them just as you would as if they were sitting in front of you. Right. So make time for that small talk. I think the other key here is that we keep it a conversation. And it's so easy in these types of visual meetings, we want to we want to drop back into presentation mode. So you really want to work hard to keep this a conversation and make it a dialogue, not a monologue, right? And how do we do that? We do that by not using slides and props. So again, avoid presentation mode, don't come prepared with with slides that you're sharing your screen and all they're seeing is your screen, you really want to keep the focus between you and the other individual or individuals that you're meeting with. I think those are so key and asking them the questions keeping it a conversation as you go through the meeting, just as you would as if you were meeting with them in person. And I think Linda, to your point about eye contact about keeping looking Look at the camera like you're looking at them. The other thing that you're going to want to do in that first meeting is you're going to need to take notes, right? So at some point you will need or points during the conversation, you will need to break eye contact with them. So think it's always good practice again to say excuse me for a minute. If I look away, it's because I'm taking notes, because otherwise it feels why are they looking off to the side. When you would be sitting across the desk for someone it would be obvious that you were taking notes, but because you're meeting virtually it may not be so just let them know occasionally I'm going to be looking down because I'm taking notes to make sure that I can capture everything you know that we need to discuss in future meetings. Anything else? Linda, you want to add there?

Linda Eaton: Yes, as as we mentioned in our first video, it's a great idea to have somebody on your team as a backup. Now maybe less important in a one to one or one to two conversation than it is in a whole, you know, event that you're running. But it's a great idea in case your electricity goes out, or, you know, if there's some kind of snafu or just to have somebody else, another pair of ears. But on the other side of that, the last thing that you want to do in this first meeting is show up with an army. You know, and I see that I see. Virtually, oh, here I am with my team, and we don't know yet what you need, but I've got like 12 professionals who are ready to help you. For one thing, it's not a very efficient use of people's time. But many, many clients find this somewhat overwhelming. So you know, keep keep the cast to a minimum. Absolutely.

Sandra Ottinger: And I as I work with clients, I think that's the biggest issue that I see. People feel like I have to bring a cast of 1000s to the first meeting. No, you don't, because you don't know yet what they want or even need. And I think it's also Linda, well, you mentioned a minute ago, building trust. It's so much easier virtually for these individuals to begin to build trust and relationship with one person, which would be you then to try to figure out who are these other people? I don't know them yet. I really don't know why they're there. It's hard to build that relationship. So for a lot of reasons, it's best to keep your first meeting to one person. One final question for you, Linda, is, what are some best practices for follow up to these virtual meetings?

Linda Eaton: Well, again, as we said in our previous video, follow up immediately as quickly as you possibly can, you know, there are very few things in the world that build trust more effectively, than an honest interest in the other person. And so, you know, we you talked about, be ready with small talk. And I'm a big believer that in our industry, there really isn't any small talk, all of it is potentially useful to us. So we want to be looking for those little sort of what I'm going to call hooks that give us the easy gracious follow up. And sometimes that is going to be something very specific in terms of a financial need or situation. But sometimes it's going to be I'm going to send you you know, my top five places to dine in Bermuda, because we talked about that. But you want to make sure that you follow up immediately and personal.

Sandra Ottinger: Absolutely. And when we say personally, I think it's important for people to understand a voicemail isn't personal, an email isn't personal. So call them get in touch with him, you may have to leave a voicemail that you've spoken if they don't answer, but call them back. We want to try to make that personal connection. And you know, something that's the last art is writing a handwritten note. We don't do that anymore, we tend to turn right around and send them an email. Take an extra moment, say write them a handwritten note, great to meet you looking forward to working with you further. Follow up on a topic that you've discussed. But a handwritten note is critical again, to begin building a relationship. begin building trust so that they will continue to meet with you. 

Linda Eaton: Don't misunderstand this. There's there's a mythology that only old people want to see handwritten notes. And there is wonderful research that says nope, everybody likes it. You come home and you know, especially now when nobody's male is exciting. To have an actual note, handwritten, two things that people always tell me about handwritten notes. I don't have time and I have horrible handwriting. And my friends, I'm going to tell you the antidote to both of those. And it's only one thing slow down. Just write more slowly. Now in terms of I don't have time, you know, you can if you're a football fan, you know, rather than watching beer commercials, you can have a little stack of notes saying it was such a pleasure to speak with you Sandra and then fill in the the little missing parts. But if you simply make this a routine, you will find that it is enormously effective. 

Sandra Ottinger: Absolutely. And the other a bit of that is what is the first piece of mail that you always open when you get your mail because 99% of what I get at home or bills or junk mail. So when I get the odd envelope that is hand address, that's the first thing that I go to it right with everybody. I think one other thing that I wanted to address here while we're on the topic about virtual meetings are what about when you have a subsequent meeting with a prospect and you've uncovered what they want and they need and now is the time to bring in maybe more of your team members to you know that they need to know what type of administrative assistant they need or investment advice they're looking for. And you need to bring in others to help you. There are ways to manage that and I want to talk about that briefly if that's all right, and and the first thing that I would say here is preparation is everything for these meetings, preparation is more key than ever. And what's most important is that everyone that is joining knows their role. What are they going to talk about? What's the flow of the meeting, and everybody has a really clear understanding of the agenda. Right? So when to anything you want to add to that? 

Linda Eaton: Well, I do think it's important. And this is true for both live and virtual meetings, to understand how to position your team members effectively. And you know, we start with just a meeting between the you and the team member, Sandra, what is it that you would like me to say about you, but the other thing I would recommend for virtual meeting specifically, is cues, you know, all of us, we might have, I don't know, a portfolio manager or trust officer who's really passionate about what they have to offer, and maybe has a tendency to go on a little bit too long. Some of you have seen that in real life, have you not not a bad idea to have some kind of cue, if I adjust my earring, it means maybe you should wrap it up. So that we have that sort of established beforehand? 

Sandra Ottinger: Absolutely, I think that's so important, we forget that. I know, I've been guilty of it, where I haven't had a visual cue, and I've had a subject matter expert going on and on and on. And it's all I want to do is throw myself on the floor and slit my throat to get their attention. But had I prepared and had I already told them what I wanted to speak on and we had a pre arranged visual set up signal, then we wouldn't have had those kinds of issues there. I think the other thing to consider is, again, if you're doing this meeting virtually try to keep your use of slides to a minimum, again, you're trying to build relationship you're trying to build trust, you're introducing new people who may be working with them in the future. So try to keep the use of slides to a minimum. If you're talking about investment subjects, especially you might need to use a few. But instruct your portfolio manager, use your slide and then turn it off, use your slide and turn it off so that they can continue to talk to your face rather than a slide. That way you will get more, get more dialogue going get more conversation going, they're going to be more apt to ask questions, and engage with you, if you if you do it in that way. And I think the final tip on this one is it's really important here to have an administrative partner on the call, right? You've got multiple team members, you've got multiple moving parts, you've got team members who are really savvy with technology, and team members who may not be as savvy with technology, you may have more questions asked by the prospect or the client. So it's really important when you have this kind of meeting to include an administrative partner.

Linda Eaton: You know, something that we can and have been talking about for literally decades, is pre meeting planning. And I know that a lot of this stuff gets done in the real world off the cuff, my friends, it is so worth it for you to invest your time. Sandra, you're going to open it up and we're going to like you know, immediately switch to what Fred has to say. And then Fred is going to toss the baton to me and then I'm going to ask the client such and such, but even even a 567 minute rehearsal is so worth your while invest the time with the expectation of return.

Sandra Ottinger: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I hope that this subject has been of interest to you. And I hope that you will join us for our next video where we're going to talk about holding family meetings virtually. Thank you.