What should a sales meeting brief include?

The business’s financial trend, its recent initiatives, the person you’re meeting, your history with the account, and the questions you can’t leave without asking.

How long should a meeting brief be?

One page. It’s a reference during the meeting, not reading before it.

What’s the first thing to check before driving to a meeting?

That the decision-maker will be in the room. Call ahead.

What if there’s nothing online about the person?

Use the organization’s wins. The person in charge takes pride in them.

Is a renewal brief different from a prospect brief?

Yes. A renewal brief pulls in last year’s conversations and emails and the carrier’s numbers, and leans less on public data.

I drove an hour to meet a manager six levels down. How to prepare for a sales meeting in 30 minutes.

Why do producers walk into meetings unprepared?

Producers walk in unprepared because prep takes time, and the meeting is already on the calendar. Confirming the decision-maker is in the room is one phone call, and it gets skipped. Reading a year of news on the business is an hour, and it gets skipped. So you show up, have a pleasant conversation with someone who can’t buy anything, and drive home. Time is money. Two hours of travel for a conversation that wasn’t a business meeting.

The other reason is that the information lives in six places. Last year’s emails are in the inbox. The renewal numbers are with the carrier. The person’s background is on LinkedIn. The initiative they announced is in a press release. Nobody has time to pull all of it before every meeting, so nobody does.

What do most agencies try first?

Most agencies try the 10-minute LinkedIn skim in the parking lot. You learn where the person went to college and nothing about whether the business is growing or shrinking. The other version is the account manager’s memory: “I think we talked about the deductible last year.” Both are better than nothing, and neither tells you the one thing that would change how you run the meeting.

Wanna fix it?

Unprepared meetings get fixed with a one-page brief built by three research agents, delivered 30 minutes before the meeting, that covers the business, the person, and the six questions you can’t leave without asking.

Signal data from the past year. Financial trends, up or down. Initiatives the organization has announced. Anything the person has said or done publicly.
Info on the person. Role, tenure, and what they take pride in. Even when there’s nothing personal to find, there’s organizational data, and the person in charge of the business takes pride in the organization’s wins.
Six questions you cannot leave without asking. Mine are modeled on the Sandler pain funnel. They’re on the page so the meeting doesn’t end without them.
Three agents, one page. One agent pulls the news and financial trends, one pulls the person, one pulls your own history with the account. The output is one page, distilled. My first briefs were way too verbose. A brief is a reference point during the meeting, not a report to read before it.
9:30 for a 10:00. If the meeting’s at 10, the brief shows up at 9:30, on whatever screen I have in front of me.

What does it look like once it’s running?

Once it’s running, the brief is waiting before you think to ask for it. For a prospect, it’s public data: the business, the person, the questions. For a renewal meeting with a client, it pulls in the conversations and emails from the prior year, and I add what the carrier sent and what I personally know about the person. Client briefs lean less on public data, because you already have the real data.

You read it once at 9:30. You glance at it during the meeting to check the six questions. That’s the whole routine.

Can you do this yourself?

Yes. With a browser and 10 minutes, here’s the order:

The company website first.
Then News, Jobs, and People. What did they announce, who are they hiring, who’s in charge.
A straight Google search of the buying team.
See what comes up, and see whether the AI answer at the top of Google has anything relevant.

Even if you find no data on the person, you’ll find organizational data, and the person you’re meeting takes pride in it. Ask about it.

Where DIY stops is volume and memory. Ten minutes works for one meeting a day. At three meetings a day, or a renewal season, the agents pull the year of emails and the carrier numbers that a browser can’t. If you’ve got one meeting, do the four steps. If you’ve got a calendar full of them, build the brief.

Quick answers

What should a sales meeting brief include?: The business’s financial trend, its recent initiatives, the person you’re meeting, your history with the account, and the questions you can’t leave without asking.
How long should a meeting brief be?: One page. It’s a reference during the meeting, not reading before it.
When should the brief arrive?: 30 minutes before the meeting.
What’s the first thing to check before driving to a meeting?: That the decision-maker will be in the room. Call ahead.
What if there’s nothing online about the person?: Use the organization’s wins. The person in charge takes pride in them.
Is a renewal brief different from a prospect brief?: Yes. A renewal brief pulls in last year’s conversations and emails and the carrier’s numbers, and leans less on public data.