There’s a Speed Dating 101 mini-course inside Kate McEnroe On Demand with frameworks that help make the most of the limited time you often have to talk with an individual site selector.The first thing to figure out is who your audience is and what the environment will be – one size does not fit all.
Then, it’s important to set your intention. Do you want feedback from them about your community? Do you have a specific thing to pitch that they may not know about? Or, are you trying to mitigate an experience they may have had or something that is being covered in the news? If you are in a situation where you will meet with a number of people, your intention should probably be different for different people. There is no point trying to pitch, for example, if what you really need to do first is mitigate some negative experience, or even to assess what their interests and roles are.
Then, there are worksheets with specific pre-work you can do, questions you can ask, and tactics you can prepare. If these become a habit, they build your knowledge base over time, and create institutional knowledge for your current and future colleagues.
Remember “Relationship Building” is an objective, it’s not a plan.