Think about the last time you set up a casual lunch with a business client to go over some “things” and at the last minute you decided to make it into a “cross-selling” call by bringing along a few other lawyers from your law firm—a tax lawyer and an IP lawyer.
Your rationale was that all business people have taxes and most have intellectual property issues, right? And, since the law firm has put a significant emphasis on cross-selling lately, why not? Although the client was probably polite about the two new “products” you introduced, they really weren’t interested because they didn’t anticipate the scenario or want what you were trying to cross-sell.
Quite possibly they were expecting the meeting to be about their agenda, not yours, and they were disappointed. In that case, hopefully the cross-sell moment died a quiet death. But, don’t believe for a minute that the client didn’t leave the lunch feeling confused or even frustrated because they didn’t accomplish what they anticipated.
