Mindless small-talk!

You have a pitch at 2:00pm today.

You jump on the call, spend 7 minutes chatting about the weekend, the BBQ you hosted, the unexpected warm weather for this time of year and...yada yada yada.

You then spend 3 minutes telling them about the benefits of your current hybrid working arrangement.

What have you achieved so far...aside from them knowing you like working from home twice a week, and that you love a bbq'd sausage!

Your time slot is 30 minutes and you've already wasted 10.

Can you really squeeze everything into 20 minutes?

Probably not.

You'll get to the point of excitement in seeing a good fit and it'll be 2.27pm.

You'll then rattle through the various issues you solve by spewing up your main product features.

Next time try this:

- 30 seconds of platitudes

- No weather chat

- No mention of the weekend or your bbq'd sausages

- Straight into your agenda

- What you want to get out the call

- What they want to get out of the call

Don't mistake rapport-building for wasting time because that's usually what it is.

You'll build more rapport if you show them how you'll solve their problem.