John Chambers was the CEO of Cisco Systems for 20 years. Ten thousand of his employees became millionaires.
Chambers has a playbook for every meeting.Before meeting with anyone, Chambers makes sure he's well informed. He has an assistant or publicist create a 1-inch-thick binder — a playbook — for the day's meetings, presentations, sales calls, or press interviews. It contains bios of every person he's scheduled to meet, data on what his company is doing for that person or community, background clips, a summary of objectives for every meeting, and speaking notes for presentations.
Chambers has used the same strategy for every trip, every event, and every customer meeting, and he's done so for more than two decades. "I'm the best prepared at every meeting, almost without exception," Chambers told the CEOs at the Battery Ventures conference. After the conference, his next stop would be a guest appearance on CNBC. He was prepared for that interview, too."When I meet with CNBC later today, I not only know the three announcers, I know exactly what's going on in the market ... I go into meetings very well-prepared.
I was on the receiving end of the playbook earlier this year when I sat down to interview Chambers at his home in Palo Alto. He had just written a new book,." A black binder sitting on a nearby table contained my bio, my background, and some articles I had written. Within minutes of meeting Chambers for the first time, he made me feel like we had known each other for years. He builds instant rapport. And rapport, he says, leads to trust."Trust is everything.
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