As you progress through your career and business growth paths, you will often find it necessary to wine and dine your important clients, peers and associates. Admittedly, that requires a bit of capital investment, but as the saying goes, sometimes you’ve got to spend money to earn more money.
So What Should You Do While On An Outing With Your Clients or Industry Peers?
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Keep it Business
Depending on where you choose to entertain your prospects, there will be varying levels of temptation to drink too much, or engage in superfluous conversation. Train yourself to overcome these temptations by keeping in mind that despite the informal settings, you’re still in a business meeting.
Ideally, you should prepare for your informal outings just as you would for normal meetings at the office. Do a bit of research on your niche and prepare beforehand a list of questions, or topics you would like to discuss with your client, or peer. And for goodness sake, don’t show up in a t-shirt and sweats. If you’re trying to pull off a casual look, keep it classy with some khaki pants and a well-pressed top, or shirt.
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Know Your Guest and Prepare Accordingly
As soon as your guest accepts your invitation to the outing, perform some background checks on them to find out their interests, both professionally and personally. If, for example, you find that they are into classical music, get some tickets to an opera show. If they like the outdoors and you have some extra bucks to spare, you may take things a notch higher by booking a yacht charter cruise. However, it is important to establish a personal connection with your guests early on in your interactions to have more productive business deliberations.
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Keep Records
Every time you entertain a client or an associate, keep all the proof of expenditure safely. This includes restaurant or club receipts, parking fees, and cab charges. All these can be used for tax write-offs, which is especially helpful if your business is still young.
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Be Attentive
We live at a time where we have to keep looking at, and fiddling with our phone screens for text messages, calls or emails even when at dates or important functions. But as we discussed earlier, if you are having dinner with a prospective client or investor, you need to bring your A-game. They will be more impressed if you focused all your attention on them. Keep off your phone and don’t pick respond to calls and texts unless an emergency pops up.
Also, learn, and practice good listening skills, including paralinguistic and nonverbal cues. For the few hours the meeting will take, make your guest feel like they’re the only one(s) who matter to you at the moment.
One of the best, and classiest ways to entertain your clients and associates is by taking them in a luxury charter cruise. If you are in the New York City, Yachts For All Seasons will work with you towards making your corporate event outing an unforgettable, and productive experience.
