Meetings. Meetings, meetings and more meetings. It’s easy sometimes to start to think of meetings as time sucks rather thanan investment in your business. Well, actually some meeting ARE time sucks, so just whack those out now, OK? But especially if you’re in business development, partnership or sales mode it’s so valuable to get in the car, train, bus, subway, Über or whatever and try your best to take these meetings in person. At their place of business.

It’s amazing how you can cut through the crap and make 10x the progress via just a phone call. It shows you value the relationship, and it’s amazing how often your prospect or potential partner will include additional decision makers when they know you’re showing up in person. People also tend to be more transparent in face-to-face meetings as well, and it’s typically easier to get a ‘read’ on the situation, opportunity, and how well the respond your solution.

I don’t know about you, but via phone, I get a lot of “yeah, that sounds interesting, let me double back with my team and I’ll get back to you in a couple weeks…” Yeah, right.

But in person, the discussions are typically are more driven from an honest reaction to how your solution fits or doesn’t fit into their business, and what their internal or external challenges are. And that leads to immediate discussion around those issues, with more people involved. And at that point what I’ve learned in they really want to work towards a solution.

I recently almost slipped into a ‘phoner-mode’ with a potential partner; I had a couple conflicts, it was the day before I was leaving for a trip, excuses, excuses. I thought more about it, called the guy back, and said “You know, I think it’d be way better to meet at your office instead of a phone call.” He really appreciated it, and included 2 additional decision makers that would not have been on a phone meeting. And instead of a 30-minute call it turned into a hugely productive 1 hour and 15-minute meeting with concrete takeaways and a solid action plan. And some great chemistry; we both really want to find a way to work together.

Is it a done deal yet? Not yet. But I guarantee it’s way further down the road toward a ‘yes’ and potentially much bigger, than we all originally thought!

Now, my startup lesson this past week? Time is valuable so Im not recommending in-person meetings for each one; just the ones you think are at the level of importance to get in there, show off your stuff and push the deal ahead faster.