Recently my lead generation colleague was able to get a meeting with a high level operations executive at a large corporation. I was walked up to his office by his assistant (which later turned out to be the Director of Operations). As I walked in to his office it was quite obvious that my presence was a distraction at best. He reluctantly shook my hand, avoided eye contact, sat down in his big chair, leaned back and folded his arms. He then gazed at me as if to say "Well?? Why the hell are you here?"
Two of the Ki principles for leading others is to "Respect your opponent's (partner's) Ki" and "Put yourself in the place of your partner". After doing my best to assess the situation in these terms I opened the conversation:
"Jim, I know you are very busy so thanks for seeing me. The reason for my visit is two-fold. First, I want to see whether or not there is a fit between your goals, strategies, and operations and our capabilities, and second, if so, set up an additional meeting with you or one of your people to vet that out."
I wish I could say that he jumped up out of his seat and embraced me with open arms. He did not.
However, I could tell with my direct statement of purpose, I gained credibility with him because I was very clear on why I wanted to see him. He gave me a slight opening and I took it.
The result of the meeting was that I was to set up an additional meeting with his Director of Operations to further the discussion. The meeting lasted 19 minutes. Now, it is up to me to create a sponsor and advocate out of his Director.
Based on where we started, I was VERY pleased with this outcome.
