My first story is about time and the importance of this in my life. I have no idea when this obsession of mine with time has started. It could have been cultivated in my high school years, when I was a Boy Scout and I am in-charge of planning the activities and programs of the entire scouting community. I hate being late. I like to be at the meeting place at least 15 minutes before the actual start of the agenda. I know I have been very stupid about this, because 90% of the people I meet will not show up in time, but I really don't care.

But this was so early days of my sales life. I am now far from being ideal. But on this entry, I will give you some tips on how to manage your time and be an effective scheduler. And hopefully I could convince you to force yourself to be always on time.

1. Avoid setting up meeting or any agenda in extreme times. By extreme times, it means 9AM and 5PM. These windows means that the meeting will never ever start on time.

2. Stick to the window. If it is one-hour, tell your partner that you are working in an allowed period of time because you are expecting another agenda after the meeting. It is not embarrassing to tell your client or your partner that you have to finish the meeting because of another commitment. The sad thing nowadays is that people are no longer sympathetic to the time of other people, they always think that there are so many time in this world and waiting is free. But the truth is, money, energy and even physical strength are wasted in prolonged meetings and agendas that are not executed in time.

3. Be direct to the point, except if the meeting or the agenda is to promote camaraderie or to cultivate relationship, be frank and straightforward in breaking the ice. My usual spiel is (1) Hi, Thank you for accommodating my request, I am here to discuss the proposal I have sent you online and answer all concerns that you may have with regards to the price or the products, can we start discussing the scope? (2) Thank you for meeting me, I am meeting you to inquire if you were able to make a decision, I am confident that I have provided you with all the details that you need to evaluate our value proposition, I am hoping we could start working on the paperworks.

Meetings nowadays start with the usual hellos and 'find a common interest' thing in order to connect with your partner. My take on this is that you're not coming for a business meeting because you want to make friends, you're meeting them because of your business agenda. Always mean business. You can do the camaraderie bullshit afterwards. First thing first, set the business tone, your goal is to partner with them and you have to discuss the commercials