How To Write an Actual Recap Summary Email

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I hope you enjoyed the long weekend and found some time to relax and recharge a bit.

I had the genius idea to fly down to Florida with my family to pick up my RV and drive it back home on the business travel weekend of the year. 

The fact that we even have an RV is a story all by itself.  We’re not exactly RV people but COVID was a strange time for all of us.

Driving home for 3 days in the RV on Memorial Day weekend with my wife, 13-year-old daughter and her friend while trying to stop in places we’ve never been and have some fun along the way is not as simple as it may seem.  

It’s about planning (thanks honey), adaptability and expectation setting which leads me to this week’s newsletter. 

SALES FROM THE STREETS: Life is about expectation-setting 

TACTICAL TIPS: My favorite nugget 

SALES RESOURCES: How to Be Remarkable  

SALES FROM THE STREETS 

Life is about expectation-setting 

Think about the last time you were pissed off about something.  

I almost guarantee it’s because your expectations were not set correctly 

For instance, have you ever been driving and hit a bunch of traffic?

If it’s at 8:00 in the morning, you expect traffic. You might not like it, but you expect it so you deal with it. 

What if it’s 3:00 in the morning and you hit traffic that you weren’t expecting? You’re pissed, right?

We were 100% expecting traffic on the RV drive home, so we decided to pull an all-nighter and drove 12 hours home late Sunday night.  If we hit traffic at 3am we would have been pissed (thankfully we didn’t).  

Here’s another example of mis-set expectations - IN-and-OUT Burger

I know I’m going to piss a lot of people off with this one but you West Coasters talk about IN-and-OUT Burger like it’s literally the greatest thing anyone has ever put in their mouth. 

A few years ago I finally got around to going to IN-and-OUT burger. My expectations were through the roof and even though it was a “tasty burger” (in Samuel L Jackson voice), it fell waaaay short of my expectations.  

This is why I believe life is about expectation setting and so is business. 

This past week I had to deal with a partner who had wildly mis-set my expectations. 

They set insanely high expectations of what they said they could do, how much of my time I’d get back and how much revenue they would help me generate. 

I even told them about my whole philosophy around expectation setting and that they were setting what seemed to be very unrealistic ones with me. 

They pushed on and continued to promise the world. 

Well guess what, just like IN-and-OUT, they fell way short of expectations. 

I have a ‘3 strikes and you’re’ out policy that I apply to almost everything.

You screw up once?  Whatever, everyone screws up once. 

Twice?  We need to talk and I need to understand why.

3 times?  I’m out. 

Firing anyone (employees, partners, vendors) is one of my least favorite things to do but I had to make the choice and move on.  

Make sure you set clear and reasonable expectations and then meet or exceed them.

This holds true regarding what your product or service can and can’t do when you’ll be able to get back to the customer, what your REAL pipeline looks like if you’re running late to a meeting, and so much more. 

TACTICAL TIPS  

My Favorite Nugget  

If life is about expectation setting then it’s critical to document those expectations to make sure we’re all on the same page and we can hold each other accountable.

This is especially true throughout the sales process. 

How many times have you had a good conversation with a client about their specific needs, timeline, the impact of the problem, etc. You felt like your solution was a great fit and you had a strong chance of winning the deal.  Then, you find out a few weeks later they decided to go in a different direction with a totally different option.

What about when a client tells you price/cost isn’t the main driver of the decision and then you lose a deal because they said you were too expensive? 

Setting expectations and holding people accountable is critical in sales. 

That’s why I use my Summary Email after almost every call.  

Here’s how it works:

1. At the end of the meeting with the client say this: “Thanks for your time today.  There are some next steps and action items but before I do all that, I'm going to summarize what I was able to gain from our conversation today and send it over in a quick email.  Could you do me a favor and email me back to let me know it’s all accurate and if I missed anything?”

2. Right after the meeting, consolidate your notes into the key takeaways and put together a summary email that includes things like the Decision Process; Decision Criteria (prioritized); Timeline; Problem/Priorities; Impact of Problem; Next steps.

3. Send it to the client and follow up at least 3 times to get a response and their confirmation.  If they do respond, you should be in good shape. If they don’t I would be very nervous.  

4. On your next call, the first part of the agenda should be to review the items in the summary email to see if they are still accurate and if anything has changed. 

A lot of people use the Mutual Action Plan to set clear expectations and hold people accountable.  The Summary email is my way of doing that throughout the sales process without it feeling like a formal process the client has to go through. 

BONUS TIP: The Summary Email is also what allows me to avoid getting ghosted. See this post I did a while ago about the qualification call follow-up process and how not to get ghosted. 

P.S. I know there are a lot of AI tools that can record your call and then summarize the notes for you. If you use them, don’t try to automate that process.  Let the AI do most of the heavy lifting but make sure you review it in detail and put it into your own voice. 

SALES RESOURCES  

How to Be Remarkable 

If you’ve been following along, you know I recently interviewed Guy Kawasaki for my podcast (which I’ll be releasing in July).

The focus of the interview was his new book “Think Remarkable”

I read the entire book before our interview.  It had a lot of great stories and examples of ways we can each be remarkable in our own way. 

During the interview, he shared with me an online resource where I could learn the different components of how to be remarkable like:

1. Sweat the small stuff

2. Adopt a growth mindset

3. Embrace vulnerability 

4. Make yourself indispensable 

5. Do good stuff

6. Go beyond eureka 

7. Develop superpowers

8. Take the high road

9. Turn and burn 

Each one of these modules is super tactical and includes tips, quizzes and exercises you can do.  

He shared this resource with me so I could share it with you.

Here’s a link to where you can learn how to be Remarkable for free.  

Enjoy! 

ADDITIONAL WAYS YOU CAN LEVEL UP YOUR SALES GAME 

• The JB Sales Membership is where you’ll get access to my live training, workshops, AMAs and OnDemand catalog so you can level up your sales skills every day!  3000+ Sales pros have already joined. Are you next?

• The industry-leading Make it Happen Monday Podcast where you’ll get insights and inspiration from some of the most interesting and influential people in the world of Sales and business. (this is where you’ll hear the Guy Kawasaki episode on May XYZ)

• The JB Sales YouTube channel with practical tips that you can apply immediately to drive results along with interviews and content that is guaranteed to get you to think differently.