Power Play: Do some deep background on your audience
This sounds a little CIA, but the really, really impressive Power Players always have a decent chunk of background on the person they’re meeting for the first time.
Power Players get that it’s smart to know who’s sitting across the table. I recently went to a meeting with a Power Player who (I think) is pretty scary.
His assistant took me into his big fancy office and as I stood there waiting, he walked in and said ‘latte, half a sugar – right’? How he found out, to this day, I’ll never know.
He then went on to recite parts of a speech I once gave at a breakfast many years ago. He made me feel like I was the only person in the world.
That’s exactly what background information does. It makes the Power Player charm and in the process, disarm. Know your audience just a little bit better than everybody else. It’s the best preparation you’ll ever do.
Rose Herceg
Entrepreneur, strategist and author Rose Herceg co-founded Pophouse, specialising in social forecasting, market research and business strategy in 1998 before selling it to STW in 2006. Until recently Rose was strategy director of the STW Group, working across 70 companies on strategy, social forecasting, trends analysis and innovation. She is currently developing several online start-ups in media and media content.
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