The problem of meetings is to feel progress after them. Well, the best is when it depends on what you did about those before they occur.

In order to feel progress after meetings here is what I think you can do:

Value only this two kinds of meetings:

1. the meetings with the "I can buy from you" person
2. the meetings to show

Manage to make them happen. And seriously don't work for other kind of meetings.

The meeting with the "I can buy from you" person could be more difficult to appoint but is the only relevant for the decision taking process. If you want to be there to get progress then getting in a meeting with a person that can only say no is a lost battle.

You'll need to figure out how to get personally to the "I can buy from you" person.

In that meeting you'll have the opportunity to understood if you can help. Mostly by hearing. Be sure to hear more than you talk. No just to make the other feel heard but to make you authentically hear the real necessity of this valuable "I can buy from you" person.

When the meeting is over you read your notes and process all that until you find a way to authentically and clearly make all parties to win. If you don't find a way to help like this, then you need to communicate that clearly and take it as an investment in your reputation.

In the other hand, if you do find a gain for all, and you are convinced, you can move to the second and most interesting kind of meeting:

the meetings to show.

The meetings to show are those in which you demonstrate that you really can make this gain to happen.

When you show something magical happens: people starts to see your point so you don't need to explain. Things are explained automatically by facts. What you show explains more to them than anything you or others can say. They explain it to them. In their own words. That's really something.

I care about this meetings most because the compromise and the materialization stages of the sale will be just consequences of this two.

The good news is you can design the show. If you design a clean and easy to understand show you have good chances to make the "I can buy from you" person to get it.

Of course a good show means a lot of homework. But you'll love to do this homework because means you can communicate well how to do good business.

And interestingly that not only comes handy if you have to sell stuff, it's also needed to sell ideas, goals, movements or a political point of view to change things for the better.