M365 meeting prep

Meeting Prep — Pre-Call Intelligence Pack

Overview

The difference between a meeting that converts and one that wastes everyone's time is preparation depth. This skill produces a focused intel pack the user can read in <5 minutes before any meeting: who's in the room, what we know about them, what's happened between us, and the 3 things to ask / say / not-say.

Core principle: A great meeting brief has specific, recent, and actionable info — not generic "the company is in tech and has employees". The user already knows the basics.

What you need from the user

1. Who are you meeting with? (Names + Company)
2. Why? (Sales discovery / customer check-in / investor pitch / hiring / partnership / other)
3. When? (Today, tomorrow, this week)
4. Where are the source materials?
   - Calendar invite text
   - LinkedIn profiles (URL or pasted text)
   - Email thread
   - CRM record export
   - Notes from prior meetings

If user pastes raw material, parse it. If user says "everything's in [Notion / HubSpot / Outlook]", note that you can't access logged-in apps — ask them to copy-paste the key bits.

The 6-section brief

Produce this structure for every meeting. Adjust depth based on meeting importance.

Section 1: Headline (the 30-second version)

Two sentences max:

• Who: "[Name], [Title] at [Company]"
• What's at stake: "[Dollar amount / strategic value / decision needed]"
• The one thing to nail: "[Key objective for this meeting]"

Section 2: Attendees

For each person in the meeting:

**[Name]** — [Title], [Company]
- LinkedIn: [headline]
- Background: [most relevant 2-3 prior roles or things]
- Decision power: [Champion / Decision-maker / Influencer / Blocker / Unknown]
- Last contact: [Date, what happened]
- Personal notes: [Hobbies, alma mater, quirks from CRM]

If user can't tell decision power → note "Unknown" and add to "questions to ask".

Section 3: Company snapshot

- **Industry / model**: [SaaS B2B / e-comm / services / etc.]
- **Size / stage**: [Headcount, revenue if known, funding stage]
- **Recent news**: [Things from last 30 days — press, hiring, layoffs, product launches]
- **Their current pain (as we understand it)**: [from CRM notes or discovery]
- **Their relevant tech stack**: [What they use that's relevant to us]
- **Competitors using us / them**: [If known]

Section 4: History with us

- **First touch**: [When, how — inbound / outbound / referral]
- **Total interactions**: [N emails, M meetings]
- **Deal stage / status**: [Current pipeline stage]
- **Last meaningful interaction**: [Date, outcome]
- **Open commitments** (theirs and ours):
  - We promised: [list]
  - They promised: [list]

Section 5: This meeting's objective

- **Goal**: [One specific outcome — e.g., "Get verbal commitment on pricing", "Schedule technical eval", "Confirm renewal"]
- **Stretch goal**: [Bigger win possible]
- **Walk-away**: [Minimum acceptable outcome]
- **What we offer in this meeting**: [Concrete asset — demo, proposal, intro, etc.]

Section 6: 3 / 3 / 3

The actionable kernel:

**3 questions to ask:**
1. [Specific, opens dialogue]
2. [Surfaces budget / timeline / authority]
3. [Probes objection or risk]

**3 things to say:**
1. [Specific to their pain or signal]
2. [Demonstrates research / personalization]
3. [Differentiates from competitor X]

**3 things NOT to say:**
1. [Topic that derailed last time]
2. [Sensitive area — internal restructure, etc.]
3. [Premature topic — pricing too early, etc.]

Meeting types — focus shifts

See references/meeting-types.md for type-specific depth tweaks.

Sales discovery (first meeting)

• Emphasize Section 3 (company snapshot) — they're new
• Section 6 questions are critical

Customer check-in / renewal

• Emphasize Section 4 (history) — what have they used / not used
• Surface usage data, support tickets, expansion signals

Investor pitch

• Emphasize their portfolio, recent investments, sweet spot
• 3/3/3 should be "what they ask vs. what we say"

Hiring interview

• Section 2 (attendee background) drives everything
• Section 6 becomes "what to probe, what to highlight about us"

Partnership / BD

• Emphasize mutual value: how does helping them help us, what's their KPI

Anti-patterns

❌ Generic LinkedIn-scraped background

"Joined Salesforce in 2018, became Director in 2022". Useless — anyone can read LinkedIn.

✅ Instead: "Joined Salesforce in 2018; ran their SMB segment which is exactly our ICP. May know our churn problem from inside."

❌ Padding the brief with everything

A 4-page brief won't get read. Max 1 page printed.

❌ Using the brief to plan the conversation script

You're not writing a script. You're loading ammunition the user can pull from naturally.

❌ Forgetting time zones

Always confirm meeting time in both parties' time zones.

Red flags to surface in the brief

If any of these are true, surface prominently at top of brief:

• 🚨 No-show risk: Pattern of cancelling/rescheduling
• 🚨 Champion left their company since last meeting
• 🚨 Company laid off recently (>10% headcount)
• 🚨 Competitor's case study published with them recently
• 🚨 Long silence broken by them (>60 days then reach out) — usually means a budget cycle is reset, OR a problem with their current vendor

Quick reference

Meeting purpose	Single most important thing
First sales call	Their pain (Section 3)
Second sales call	Their budget / timeline (Section 6 questions)
Demo	Their use case fit (Section 4)
Closing call	Their objections (Section 6 "not to say")
Renewal	Usage data + ROI (Section 4)
Partnership	Mutual value (Section 5)
Investor	Their fund's portfolio overlap (Section 3)