When I was headhunted along with a few colleagues to help start up the UK arm of a US consulting firm back in 2006 we ran into a whole bunch of problems.

In my previous role with a large global firm we found it relatively easy to get into the diary of client executives. We either had an account manager in place who knew the key people, or we used our team of cold callers to set up meetings.

When I moved to my new role we basically tried the same tactics and they failed miserably.

And by miserably I don't just mean a minor failure. We didn't get a single meeting.

We used pretty much the same lists and the same scripts to try to get meetings, but this time it just didn't work.

With hindsight the problem was that we were unknowns.

Back when we were part of a big global firm the executive clients had either had personal dealings with us, or knew of us. So a meeting with us was a relatively safe bet.

With our new unknown firm there was a big risk they'd be wasting their time or end up being pitched at.

And, of course, time had moved on. Our target clients were ever more pressed for time and so were having fewer meetings generally.

And since they could find out so much more online than before they were cutting out a lot of the meetings they used to have just to hear what was going on in the market.

The end result was our miserable failure to get meetings. In the 18 months I was there all our clients came from our existing connections and referrals. We just couldn't break into anyone new.

When I set up business by myself I was in the very same situation. In fact worse as I was targeting a different set of clients.

That's when the power of giving value in advance was really brought home to me.

One of the projects I started, almost on a whim, was to initiate some research into business development best practices for law firms.

I had targeted law firms as good potential clients locally but had struggled to make any headway getting meetings.

After all, the senior partners in the big firms I was trying to meet had no incentive for meeting me. They didn't know me, I had no track record to speak of. So from their perspective a meeting was unlikely to bring them anything useful.

But my research project changed all that.

The prospect of getting exclusive access to the detailed results got them interested in meeting me to take part in the research. And the research results were a great door opener to senior clients in other firms.

Because I had something of value to offer in the meeting itself, potential clients were much more interested in meeting me than they'd ever been when I was trying to get on their agenda to talk about working together.

But, of course, once we'd had that value-adding meeting they were much more likely to consider working with me.

It still amazes me how much time I'd wasted worrying about the perfect methods or scripts for getting meetings, when the key all along wasn't how I asked, it was the value I offered. 

Now my business has moved on a long way since back then and I'm much better known in some fields.

But the same principle still applies. If the value you can add in a meeting is clear, you're much more likely to get one.

And we're not talking about the future value they might get from working with you. We're talking about the immediate value they get in the meeting from the useful information and insights you bring.

That need to add value in advance is especially important when it comes to trying to get meetings with corporate executives. They're pushed for time and protected by a whole series of gatekeepers. It has to be very obvious to them that they're going to get a lot out of a meeting with you before they'll agree to one.

So, what value do you offer in advance that makes it worthwhile for a potential client to meet with you?

If you can answer that question well, you're on your way to getting many more of those meetings.