What to Do When the Decision Maker Doesn’t Show

Picture this situation: you are ready to make your IMPAX business presentation;  you’ve done your research; written your presentation; reviewed it  with a coach; rehearsed it last night until you could no longer see straight; you have arrived early; set up; and you are all set to go. Five minutes before you are supposed to start you find out that the decision maker, for any number of reasons, cannot attend your presentation. The good news (or bad news) is that everyone else can attend the meeting. What do we do now?

This is a tricky situation and one that is best handled when thought through ahead of time. One option is to conduct the presentation even though the decision maker won’t be there. This is fraught with risk. You could be stepping right into the lair of a gatekeeper. The second option is to walk away from the presentation opportunity and insist on rescheduling in the future. This is also  dangerous, as you could inadvertently insult others who have made time to attend the meeting. In the end though, this may be your desired strategy. You have written the presentation with that decision maker in mind and, as we all know, IMPAX business presentations don’t necessarily resonate well with evaluators. To go ahead and present to other people without the decision maker in the room could be a waste of time or worse yet, could be counter productive to your sales strategy.

A strategy that could be used to avoid making the presentation and avoid alienating everyone else is to be honest, state your concern and turn it into a research meeting. For instance, you could easily say, ãI am disappointed to learn that Mary will not be able to join us today, and in fact the presentation was really written with Mary’s objectives and issues in mind. What I don’t want to do is waste everyone’s time in presenting when I know I’m going to need to present again in the very near future. What would I like to do is take this opportunity to ask each of you some different questions to ensure that when I make the presentation I am really on target and make good use of your time.ä This strategy could result in a win-win outcome. You are able to defer your presentation, the other people have a shorter meeting, and their input is solicited and valued.