The unproductive meetings that appear valuable.

in meetings •  11 months ago 

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does anyone else have the problem of taking meetings where at first it seems like they are going to give you value, but then it turns out to be the opposite?

As a fund manager, this most often happens with someone coming in under the guise of a potential investor - like, it's on their linkedin that they invest, they message me saying they'd like to talk to me about my fund...and then they try to sell me a service or ask me to invest in their company totally unrelated to my narrow thesis.

Another example is media brands "interested in charter cities content", where I foolishly assume they want to create content about us because we are so super-fascinating, but they actually want to sell us their content marketing platform or paid promotions or whatever.

It's jarring & it feels really black & white in that me writing a check to you, and you writing a check to me, are REALLY REALLY different. I know some of the time it's my own hopeful assumptions, and it seems like the answer is to focus on what's in my control and ask clarifying questions that get at the question of: If this meeting is successful, who sends money to who? After all, destined-to-fail meetings are a waste of both people's time.

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