As amazing as this may sound, I've actually spoken to, and hear of owners and operators of Companies/Businesses, that appear to be proud and take delight in boasting about what success they've have had with little or no presentation materials or general preperation for client meetings.
It's almost like adding in additional risks of failure to make the whole thing more challenging. If it's not that, then it's just stupidity or laziness. I'm fairly sure it's the latter.
Whats worse than this, is using this an example to your employees, in a way that sets this up as some kind of standard benchmark of excellence that should be looked up too and aspired too. "You can also learn to bluff your way through it like me"! Wow, thanks.
Imagine standing at the bottom of a climbing rock face on a staff team building exercise. The boss decides he'll climb it without any equipment, ropes or safety gear just to show you how it's done. He makes it to the top but no one actually knows whether it was skill or luck. Either way, who cares, it doesn't really matter if it was skill. The point is that he should have used all the equipment. There was no positive reason not to. He'll still be able to climb it, but if it wasn't skill and his luck changes then at least he has safety fall back plan.
Nothing is taken away from you by wearing the safety gear. You just have all the tools at your disposal to be successful, should you require them. If you slip, you won't fall and you can get your footing back and continue forward to the top.
This is how you should train staff and support them. Give them all of the equipment and tools that you can, so they can be successful. Why risk losing business! Equally, it's far easier to evaluate your staff when you know they had all the resources and support that was available to them. Just like rock climbing, if they have all the equipment but they physically don't have the fitness and strength to complete the climb. At least you can rule out equipment and you know they need more physical fitness training. Without the right training and resources, if they slip, you'll never know whether they would have still made it to the top.
Whether it's business or sport, all the hard work and training takes place over many hours, for a performance that may be 45mins. So make sure your staff turn up well trained and prepared.
If you like the maverick gung ho approach to meeting clients and selling your products and services, thats fine, but don't make that part of the staff culture. By doing this, you are failing your staff and jeopardizing your business for nothing.