The Second Meeting Test: How to Actually Build Momentum with Health Plan Buyers

Early in my career, I reported to a sales leader who managed large enterprise deals. He told me something that stuck:

“The first meeting tells you a little. The second one tells you a lot.”

I’ve come to believe that’s especially true in health plan sales.

A few weeks ago, a vendor I know met with a regional Medicare Advantage plan. The meeting seemed to go well, but two weeks later, nothing. No reply to follow-ups. No next steps.

The team assumed the buyer was just slammed.
Maybe. But in my experience, silence usually means something didn’t land.

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The First Meeting Isn’t Interest. It’s Access.

Look, I’ve worked with a lot of vendor sales teams. Prospecting is hard and often isolating. So I’m not here to dismiss how much effort it takes to secure a first meeting with a health plan. That part is real. It matters.

But enterprise sales usually take several ( often many) meetings. And the first one, no matter how promising it feels, is rarely a sign of buying interest.

Health plan buyers take first meetings for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes, it’s genuine curiosity. Other times, it’s professional courtesy (this is a relationship-driven industry, after all), and sometimes, an executive simply told them to take the meeting.

What truly matters is what happens after that first call. Do they ask insightful follow-up questions? Do they invite other colleagues? Do they push back on your claims or want to dig deeper?

That’s the Second Meeting Test.

Not “Did the meeting go over the allotted time?” or “Did they seem interested?”

Rather, “Did they care enough to want to continue and expand the conversation?”

If not, here are five common reasons why that second meeting never happens and what to do about each one.

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1. You Didn’t Give Them a Reason to Act

The second meeting doesn’t happen unless someone wants to pull others in. That only happens when the message sticks hard enough that it’s easy to repeat - and it’s worth repeating.

If your story can’t travel up or across the org chart, it dies in the recap email.

Instead of:
“We’re a multi-modal engagement platform using AI, real-time data triggers, and behavior science to improve outcomes.”

Try:
“We help MA plans get more members to act on measures that actually move Stars, even the members who ignore everything else.”

📎 (P.S. If your value prop isn’t landing, read my article: Why Your Value Prop Isn’t Landing with Health Plans)

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2. You Overestimated How Much They Remember

Your buyer has a day job that has nothing to do with buying your product. They got off your call and ran straight into the next fire. By the next morning, your pitch, and the value it was supposed to deliver, is a blur.

Instead of:
Sending a deck recap with 12 slides and a thank you note

Try:
Sending a two-paragraph note that reminds them:

• What you solve

• Why it matters

• What the next step looks like

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3. You Treated the First Meeting Like a Demo, Not a Discovery

Teams often try to show everything they’ve built. But when the meeting turns into a walkthrough of features, the buyer shifts from curiosity to judgment. They stop imagining possibilities and start scanning for reasons to say no.

The goal of the first meeting isn’t to impress. It’s to create just enough tension and clarity that they want to learn more.

Instead of:
”We support home health coordination across clinical teams, vendors, and workflows for better patient outcomes.”

Try:
“Your members are getting home health visits, but you don’t always know when or what happened. We close that loop so nothing critical gets missed.”

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4. You Left Next Steps Vague

You can’t expect the buyer to push the conversation forward if you don’t make the next step clear. A meeting that ends with “Thanks, we’ll let you know” isn’t progress. It’s the absence of a next step dressed up as politeness.

Instead of:
“We’ll circle back next week after you’ve had time to digest.”

Try:
“Usually, the next step is a quick follow-up with [their stakeholder] to dig into [the part they leaned into]. Want me to get that scheduled?”

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5. You Didn’t Make It Feel Urgent

Even if the first conversation was clear and well-received, momentum fades fast if the buyer doesn’t see the problem as a priority worth solving.

Urgency needn’t be about fear or pain. It’s about linking your solution to a specific problem the buyer is already being measured against.

Instead of:
“We help improve outcomes for members with obesity, prediabetes, and related chronic conditions.”

Try:
“Plans are spending millions on weight management and GLP-1 programs but have no idea which members are actually engaging. We give them that visibility and a way to act on it.”

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Final Thought

The first meeting opens the door. The second meeting tells you whether anyone actually wants to walk through it.

If you're not getting that next step, don’t assume it’s a bandwidth issue. More often, it's a sign the message didn’t hit hard enough to matter.

The five shifts above are built to fix that. When your message reflects the buyer’s priorities and gives them something they can act on, the second meeting comes far more naturally.

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Not sure what to read next?
Upward Growth has organized the most valuable content into a simple, searchable guide, grouped by the challenges health tech leaders are actively trying to solve.

Whether you’re refining your positioning, running better sales meetings, or scaling a repeatable growth motion, you’ll find focused recommendations by topic.

→ Explore the Upward Growth Starter Guide

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