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I had a business meeting in my office last night. Saturday night. The meeting started at 8 o’clock, right after a 2 ½-hour dinner. There was no beer, no wine and no alcohol at the dinner. This was business. And everyone wanted to be at their best.

This meeting came about because I accepted the word of a 20-year friend who not only recommended that I take the meeting, but also attended. A group of business people were trying to persuade me to buy into a software product that would help salespeople sell.

The subject of this piece is: who grants you a meeting, and why. Like any CEO or entrepreneur, I only take the meetings that I deem are important to my company and me. My time is valuable. These days it takes a lot to get to see me for an hour. I’m eager to see what’s new. But I tend to take meetings through third parties. Referrals and testimonials. Never from a cold call.

Think about how you try to make important meetings happen. Meetings with decision makers. Meetings with executive officers.

I’m going to share scenarios with you from this meeting – what happened and why it happened – so that you can try to correct, or at least upscale, the way you make an appointment with, and speak with, a chief executive decision maker.

Here are the four scenarios by which meetings occur:

Scenario One: The company CEO knew of me, knew that we would be a perfect fit, and chose NOT to call me because he knew that was the weakest way to try to get to me.

Scenario Two: The CEO had a salesman working for him who was a fan of mine and a business friend of mine, but he chose not to utilize that resource because he felt it would not be a very powerful introduction, and that I would turn the meeting down. (Correct assumption on his part.)

Scenario Three: One of the CEO’s best customers is a lifelong friend of mine whose opinion I greatly respect. The CEO asked my friend if he would set the meeting up. I got an e-mail from my friend and a phone call telling me this meeting would be worth my while, that he thought the CEO’s idea and product were a perfect fit for my business, and that I should take a meeting with him as soon as possible. My business friend indicated that he would like to be present at the meeting as well.

REALITY: I couldn’t turn the meeting down. I respect my friend. He was enthusiastic and willing to physically be at the meeting. Scenario four did not enter into this process. It is when the person requesting the meeting is a “bigger name” than the person he or she is asking. If Donald Trump or Warren Buffett called me on the phone and said, “Hey Jeffrey, do you have a little time to meet with me?”, I would fly 5,000 miles to make either meeting.

Think about how you make your meetings. I know some of you will e-mail me and tell me that cold calls still work and that you make sales from them. But ask yourself seriously, would you rather have 10 appointments set up by scenario three, or 10 cold call appointments that probably required 500 actual calls.

MAJOR CLUE: The stronger the relationship, the higher the listening factor. If you make all your meetings by scenario one or scenario two, the potential customer will still have a high degree of skepticism, and you’ll have to arrive with your sales gun loaded.

When my 20-year business friend walked in with this potential new relationship, I was listening to their every word, gave them my undivided attention, and followed up with a deal.

The entire selling cycle was less than eight days.

1. How long is your sales cycle?

2. How powerful are your referrals?

3. How open are the doors to your prospects’ offices?

3.5. And how open are their wallets?

Jeffrey Gitomer can be reached by phone at (704) 333-1112 or by e-mail at salesman@gitomer.com. © 2009 Jeffrey H. Gitomer