Business-owners often under-prepared at pitch meetings
Aug 09 2007
Many small and medium-sized company owners are wasting valuable time and money - as well as squandering possible future earnings - by not preparing properly for sales meetings designed to help them pitch their business, according to a new survey.
Research on nearly 200 small business managers conducted by marketing specialists theseed.com found that 70 per cent of meetings designed to engineer new sales failed to produce any tangible results.
Many of the managers quizzed in the poll were found to be badly underprepared at such meetings, with 58 per cent reporting that they often attended these events without fully qualifying their business pitches and a further 40 per cent admitting to not fully assessing what budgets their potential new customers were operating to before turning up.
'In the current market SMEs have a range of techniques available to them for winning new business - everything from networking to pay-per-lead marketing solutions,' says Keir McConomy, managing director of The Seed.
'The secret for all of them is to qualify the prospect properly and prepare a pitch that meets the brief. This will not only increase the chances of winning the business, but will save on time, money and effort in terms of attending the pitch.'
Despite three-quarters of small business managers stating attending pitch meetings cost as much as £500 a month, the majority admitted they spent less than a day preparing in advance.