Do My Clients See Me as a Giant TimeSucker or as an Asset?

One of my biggest pet peeves is people who waste my time, know nothing about me or my interests and concerns and seem to take pride in doing all the talking.  Those who know me, joke that if they want me to read and respond to an email, it had better be less than two lines long and easy to read on my phone.  If a text rolls over to a 2 of 4, my eyes begin to bleed and my finger hovers over the "Clear All" button. Meetings with no clear objective and rehashing of topics with no decision in sight are cruel and unusual punishment and prohibited by the 8th Amendment of the Constitution.

Recently, I began to evaluate my own email, voicemail and meetings with Clients and Peers.  Was I becoming guilty of my biggest pet peeve? Was I preparing sufficiently for meetings and calls with Clients or was I just winging it and rambling on? Did I have valuable information that was relevant to my client and peers?

I am sorry to say that I was guilty about 50% of the time of being a TimeSucker.  I had not prepared ahead of time and felt I could wing it. As a result, I was finding it harder and harder to get meetings with top-level people and the objectives of the meeting were not being accomplished in the time allotment I was given.

I was finding that mid-level people were ok with minimal prep time and shooting the breeze, but that the C-Level people found it to be burdensome.  I started to think about how I could change my meetings and prep-time so that my meetings were more productive and brief.  Here is what I came up with:

1. Spend at least 30 minutes preparing for every 30 minute C-Level meeting. Think about what you want to accomplish and how you are going to bring it up.

2. Don't just talk about things that are on your mind.  Come with something that would be valuable to the person you are meeting with, regardless of whether it is something you sell or not. If you have read a good book that would be relevant to this person's interests and concerns, share it or better yet, bring a copy as a loaner.  If you happen to have highlighted it with portions you found interesting or your client would appreciate, all the better!

3. Hold firm to your calendar and the time limit you were allotted. Make sure and ask permission if you go over. Invitations from the client are the only reason you should go over time limit.

4. Have an agenda for meetings and include them on your Meeting Invitations.  Come prepared and try not to get distracted by other urgent issues that come up.  Table them and address them separately.

Personal Experience: In preparation for a meeting set up by a recruiter and with minimal information about where the meeting was headed, I made some guesses about what we were going to discuss and spent over 2 hours thinking and preparing for a discussion with a key partner's Owner and Business Manager.  I came with ideas about how to improve their business. I listed out 5 things that I felt could be accomplished and how.  The meeting was set for a lunch.  We had a vigorous conversation about each of the 5 points.  It ended up going an hour and 15 minutes.  I had an informal job offer as part of the discussion.  We set a follow up meeting for the next week, where we discussed more in detail the 5 points. Now I had a formal job offer.

While it was not my intent to find a new job, the opportunity to contribute and put my plan into action was irresistible. I was concerned about the partners business and spent time analyzing it and proposed some solutions.  Now I get to put it in action.  All for some prep-time and showing interest in my partner's business.

Think about what you could do for you client's business and the respect your would garner if you spent time thinking about how you could help your clients.    Are you a TimeSucker or an Asset?