Which communications do you do your best prep for?

Which communications do you do your best prep for?

Most people’s answers to this are:

• On a first date; and
• In a job interview!

They then tell me about all the time they invest in choosing carefully how they’ll ensure a great first impression. Also: deciding what topics to talk about, which questions to ask, the best anecdotes to ‘spontaneously’ drop into conversation. Choosing what to wear. Ensuring they arrive early… All the stuff you’d expect.

I then say to them “if that level of prep is your best – and we give it a score of 100% – what % score would you give your prep for your daily business communications – your meetings, presentations, etc?”

Their answers to this are a lot smaller than 100%!

And that’s OK. Some communications are more important to them than others.

But, when they’re being really honest, they often tell me their preparation score is 5%-10%.

In other words, they “show up and throw up”. No prep. No consideration about first impressions, questions, anecdotes… They might even turn turn-up late for their own meetings! Or quickly throw together a few wordy slides, then force people to watch as they read the content out loud to them.

(Doing this might be a Prep Score of less than 5%!)

So what about you and your prep?

1. What are the communications where your Prep Score is 100%?
2. Comparing your typical prep to this ideal of 100%, what’s your average % score for your daily business communications?
3. Do you think this % score is high enough?
4. If it isn’t, what simple changes could you make, to prepare better?

Of course, it doesn’t make sense to score 100% for every communication. We don’t have the time. Some comms just aren’t worth it.

But, as a minimum, it’s always worth preparing the most important bits – including:

1. The start – how will you give a great first impression?
2. The end – how will you ask people to do what you want?
3. Your questions – what will you ask, to uncover the info you want?
4. The value-add – what will you say, so the other person will be pleased to have seen you?
5. The “dread responses” – what are you most dreading them asking/saying… and how will you respond when they do?

Hopefully, I’ve done all five in this Tip. Apart from the second one – what I want my lovely audience to do next. So, here we go…

Action Point

For your first communication today, do the right amount of prep for it. This will be somewhere between 0% and 100%. Nailing the five points above will make a huge difference – and they won’t take long.

So, my ask of you … well, please do that!