An incredibly important component of engaging with prospects – and too often overlooked – is meeting prep. Proper preparation is crucial to advancing any opportunity.
Strategic business development is a multifaceted process. It requires time, curiosity, commitment, research, meaningful continued engagement, collaboration, tracking, and, always, follow up. Because of its complexity, business development needs a process; one that is measurable and allows us to understand the mindset of those in your network and their priorities.
An incredibly important component of network engagement and opportunity pursuit is meeting preparation. In my consulting practice, I often see very poor prep habits, even though we are living in a time when, with a few keystrokes, we can learn quite a bit about our prospects, targets, and their concerns. In just minutes we could come to a meeting better prepared, with our best resources and the best questions to learn what is most important. Proper preparation is crucial to advancing any relationship and or opportunity, and it is well past time to adopt some new habits in this regard.
The first step when scheduling a meeting or engaging in a pursuit is to make sure you have identified a goal and intention. Depending on where you are in the process with a client or target, how well you know the folks with whom you are meeting, and whether there is an immediate need for the meeting will instruct many of the questions you must ask yourself to best prepare for that meeting. In business development, it is often not finding the right answers, but the right questions. These questions are those you ask yourself about how best to proceed and those you ask of those with whom you are meeting.
Below, I have a checklist that can be tailored to best fit your practice and needs.
1. Purpose & Outcome
☐ What’s the single most important outcome I need from this meeting?
☐ What’s the best format/location/tone for the meeting? Formal, over lunch, golf, cocktails, Zoom?
☐ What decision(s) will need to be made, and who has authority to make them
2. Research: What & Where
About the organization
☐ Company website, AI search, investor materials, annual report/SEC filings (if public) press releases, analyst commentary, trade press, industry publications
☐ Who are the stakeholders, influencers, decision-makers, and what can I learn about their mindsets from research?
☐ LinkedIn: company page, recent posts, hiring trends (what roles are they hiring for tells you what they're investing in)
☐ Published strategic priorities (shareholder letters, investor decks, ESG reports, conference keynotes)
☐ Have I set up appropriate alerts, dingers, on the company and on key individuals at the company?
Public vs. private
☐ Confirm status as public or private company
☐ If private, check press, trade associations, any private equity/venture capital ownership
☐ If private equity/venture capital, understand the portfolio, their strategy, plans for growth, their trusted advisors/deal teams and how they work with their management teams
The relationship with our firm
☐ Have we worked with them before, either directly or through another office/practice group?
☐ Check CRM/conflicts database for prior contact history
☐ Any past proposals, pitches, or relationships that didn't convert? If so, why? Are any lost clients?
Conflict check
☐ Has a formal conflict check been run and cleared?
☐ If there is a potential conflict, have I reached out to the relationship partner who owns the relationship related to the conflict?
☐ Can the conflict be resolved? How/when?
3. Understanding Mindset & Priorities
☐ What are their published priorities and challenges
☐ What are their likely unpublished priorities?
4. What High-Level Questions Need to Be Asked in the Meeting? (Here are a few ideas)
☐ What’s driving the meeting – why is this a priority today rather than six months ago?
☐ How are you currently handling the matter, internally or with an existing adviser?
☐ What does success look like to you, concretely?
☐ What’s the timeline you're working against, and what's driving it?
☐ Who else is involved in related decisions, and how does that process typically work?
☐ Have you worked with a firm/adviser on this before – what worked, what didn't? How do you envision the ideal relationship now?
☐ What would make this a clear win for you personally – not just for the organization?
☐ What should I know that isn’t obvious from the outside?
☐ What’s the cost of doing nothing / staying with the status quo?
☐ If you could design the ideal outcome with no constraints, what would it look like?
5. Relationship Intelligence
☐ Connect your own dots: Who in my network knows this person or company well? If this was a referral, have I spoken to the referrer to gather as much intel as I need? Who can help with this pursuit?
☐ Who do they currently work with? Why?
☐ How are they currently handling the challenge we’ll be discussing?
☐ What would make them switch or to bring someone new in alongside the incumbent?
Per-attendee mindset
☐ For each attendee: their role, what they personally care about, their stake in the outcome
☐ Who is skeptical, who is a likely champion, who is neutral?
6. Proof Points & Positioning
☐ Do I have a list of representative clients/transactions in their space, or similar in size/complexity?
☐ Can I tell two or three concrete stories of how we've helped similar clients with similar
☐ Do we have any strengths or weaknesses compared to our competition? Can I articulate our real value proposition?
7. Attendees (From Our Side) and Meeting Choreography
☐ Should I go alone for an initial meeting, or bring someone? Who should I bring and why?
☐ Who is leading the meeting (opening, driving the agenda, and closing)? What is everyone’s role and are they essential?
☐ Who owns follow-up communication?
☐ Is a team debrief scheduled immediately after (while the conversation is still fresh)?
8. Understanding & Managing the Agenda
☐ Do I know their “real” agenda for this meeting (not just mine)?
☐ Have I asked, or inferred, what they most want to get out of this conversation?
☐ Should I prepare and share written agenda in advance
9. What to Bring, Send Ahead & Leave Behind
What to bring / present
☐ Is a formal deck needed, or is a one-page leave-behind more appropriate for this stage?
☐ Firm overview / credentials materials / confirmed references
☐ Relevant case studies or representative matter summaries, tailored to their situation
☐ Team bios for anyone attending or proposed for the engagement
☐ Sample work products, templates, or frameworks relevant to their need
☐ Draft fee structure or engagement letter, if appropriate at this stage
What to request from them ahead of meeting
☐ Document checklist (what we'll need from them if this moves forward)
☐ Org chart or internal decision-making structure
☐ Existing agreements, policies, filings, or prior work product for us to review
10. Before Leaving the Meeting — Must Confirm
☐ Their true priorities, long and short-term objectives stated in their own words
☐ Their timing and enough detail to work backward from their goals and timing into a milestone schedule
☐ What investment of time is required from them, and what info they'll need to gather
☐ A clear split of what we will do, what they will do, and by when
☐ Do you have enough intel? If not, what questions still need answering about why they’re doing this?
☐ What they lose if this doesn't happen/if they don’t act
☐ Whether there’s an incumbent, and who else they’re evaluating
☐ How they’d like to move forward – preferred next step, format, and pace and style of communication
☐ Concrete next steps, with owners of tasks and dates. Never leave without this.
These are some suggestions to help you consider the many things you should be thinking about, asking yourself, and pulling together prior to any meeting. For a more extensive checklist, please reach out to me directly.
Dorothy Potash is the president and co-founder of Development Dynamx in Radnor, Pa. She can be reached at dorothy@developmentdynamx.com.
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