☀️ I flew 8,000 miles for a deal and almost blew it before the meeting started

GM to the Top 1% 👋

In 2018, I was working at WeWork when commercial real estate was still the hottest industry on the planet.

We had a lead in Mumbai. A SoftBank-backed company looking to expand their office footprint across India. Fourteen floors. The kind of deal that changes your entire year.

My manager pulled me into a room on a Tuesday and said: "You're flying out Thursday. Meeting is Saturday morning. Don't come back without a signed LOI."

So I booked a flight. 8,000 miles. 18 hours of travel. Landed at midnight local time with a suitcase, a laptop, and a pitch deck I'd rehearsed 30 times on the plane.

And then I got an email from our local team that almost ended the deal before it started.

🎯 THE MISTAKE THAT CHANGED MY PREPARATION FOREVER

The email said: "Heads up — the person you've been emailing isn't the decision maker. Their CFO is. And the CFO cares about community programming, not price per square foot."

I had spent the entire flight rehearsing a pricing-focused presentation for the wrong person.

At midnight in a Mumbai hotel room, I had two choices:

I chose option 2.

I stayed up until 3am. Not building slides. Building questions.

Questions about their culture. Their growth plans. What "community" meant to a company scaling from 200 to 2,000 employees in 18 months. How their engineers interacted across teams. What their CEO said at the last all-hands about company values.

I sent one email to my team before I went to sleep:

🔑 WHAT HAPPENED IN THAT MEETING

I walked in with no deck.

Just a notebook, the email I'd sent my team, and twelve questions I genuinely wanted answered.

The CFO talked for 40 of the 60 minutes. I mostly listened. Asked follow-ups. Took notes by hand.

At minute 45, she said something I'll never forget: "You're the first vendor who asked about our people instead of our budget."

We signed the LOI two weeks later. Fourteen floors.

The deal didn't close because of the pitch. It closed because I threw the pitch away.

📊 THE FRAMEWORK I'VE USED EVER SINCE

Before every high-stakes meeting, I run what I call the 3-Question Prep:

Question 1: Who actually decides? Not who scheduled the meeting. Not who you've been emailing. Who signs? Who has veto power? If you don't know, you're not ready.

Question 2: What do THEY care about? Not what your product does. What keeps them up at night? What did their CEO say in the last earnings call, all-hands, or LinkedIn post? Match your conversation to their priorities, not your features.

Question 3: What would make them say "you're the first person who asked about that"? This is the unlock. Find the angle nobody else is covering. For the Mumbai deal, it was community. For your deal, it might be security, culture, speed, or something you haven't considered yet.

If you can answer all three before you walk in, you're already ahead of 90% of sellers.

🤖 THE AI ANGLE

Before any major meeting now, I paste the prospect's last 3 LinkedIn posts, their company's recent press releases, and any earnings call transcripts into AI and ask:

"Based on this information, what are the top 3 things this executive probably cares about most right now? What question could I ask that would surprise them and show I've done my homework?"

Takes 5 minutes. Saves you from flying 8,000 miles with the wrong deck.

✍️ YOUR HOMEWORK

Pick your most important deal right now. Run the 3-Question Prep:

Write down your answers. Bring them to your next call instead of your slide deck.

💬 QUESTION OF THE DAY

Have you ever had a meeting where you realized mid-conversation that you were pitching the wrong person or the wrong angle?

Hit reply — I want to hear the story.

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See you tomorrow,

Edward

Founder, Morning Sales

P.S. Tomorrow I'm breaking down the follow-up email that saved a deal after 3 weeks of silence. I'll show you the actual email and explain why it worked when "just checking in" never does.

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