When to Fly and Meet in Person

I distinctly remember our negotiation team getting on my client’s Gulfstream jet and heading to New York City for a 2-hour initial lunch meeting with the private equity group interested in bidding for his Arizona-based tech company.

It was a great trip – but also quite time-consuming. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

Why? And how should you decide when to hop on a plane and meet in person? Your answers can make or break your deal.

1. The size of the opportunity

Is the opportunity significant enough to justify the extra time and money to fly and meet in person? The bigger the size, the more likely it’s worth it. And vice versa.

I recently returned from an international trip after doing a full-day training program for a company’s highest end sales professionals. It has three levels of sales folks:

• those who regularly fly and meet in person with their best customers and prospects and who have budgets for lunches, golf, etc.;

• those who spend about half their time in online meetings and on the phone with medium-sized customers but occasionally meet in person; and

• “newbies” who set up meetings, do administrative follow-up, and spend almost all their time on the phone.

Structuring their staff this way makes strategic sense and recognizes the true value of in-person negotiations.

Note that this factor is not solely based on the size of the deal but instead on the size of the opportunity. The deal might be small dollar-wise but a huge foot-in-the-door opportunity.

2. Your relationship goal

What do you want to accomplish relationship-wise in that interaction? As I write in my new book Pearls of Negotiation Wisdom: 155 Strategies for Success in Life (now on pre-sale with a $10 discount):

The more your optimal negotiation result includes a relationship with your counterpart, the more likely you should meet in person, especially early on. Several relationship-oriented advantages exist to in-person meetings, including:

• it’s easier to build rapport and trust (we tend to gloss over this in online meetings);

• more effective brainstorming and exploring and finding common interests;

• it’s easier to discern and evaluate body language and facial expressions and pick up on behavioral cues;

• it’s less likely to result in miscommunication and misinterpretation;

• less lying; and

• it’s harder to say “no” in person.

To establish or continue a deep and meaningful relationship with your counterpart, fly away.

3. The timing and message to send

Many in-person meetings take place at the beginning and end of negotiations. And in between we use the phone, online meetings and email. Why? Because it’s easier to build rapport at the beginning in person and it’s harder to say “no” in person at the close.

Your substantive goal for the interaction and the message you want to send to your counterpart should also be evaluated.

A colleague tells the story of a U.S. company that wanted to be the exclusive distributor for a product developed by a European company. They reached impasse early on as the European company refused to provide exclusivity.

What did the U.S. company do? Sent its most creative negotiator to Europe to meet with the European CEO. He asked one question: why won’t you grant exclusivity? The CEO said he provided a small amount of product to his cousin in a nearby town and refused to throw his cousin under the bus.

Two points here. One, the U.S. company flying their negotiator halfway around the world communicated to the European company the importance it placed on the relationship and the deal and increased the likelihood it could get real answers to its questions (I doubt the CEO would have been as forthcoming in a call or online meeting).

And two, asking the simple question “why” can unlock interests underlying positions and lead to creative problem-solving (the parties did exactly this, carving out an exception for the CEO’s cousin).

Other factors to consider before making your flight reservations include tradition and culture (do these negotiations traditionally and/or culturally occur in person) and efficiency and cost effectiveness.

Latz’s Lesson: To fly or not – that is the question. Consider the opportunity size, your relationship goal, and the timing and message you want to send.