3 Tactics to book more meetings

I consider myself fortunate that I am in a position where I train and coach people who sell to people in my position. As such, I should be and have been, a key target to a ton of prospectors.

However, I have found that the folks prospecting me relinquish any power they have because they don’t do three things that have helped my team, past and present, book more meetings faster. Those three things are;

• Provide the value of a longer conversation,
• Text or call, and
• Presumptive close.

By applying these three tactics, my teams have been able to crush their booked meeting numbers and reduce the number of no-shows dramatically.

Provide the value of a longer conversation

Most of the people my team and I call on are busy high-level executives. Simply stated, sales cycles are profoundly elongated when you call low and work your way up. Starting high and moving down shortens the sales cycle significantly. There is likely a citation out there from Chris Orlob at Gong.io.

When you connect with a VP or Director they are running from meeting to meeting, fire drill to fire drill, and playing whack a mole along the way. While there are three reasons why they pick up the phone, (more on that here), more than likely they are expecting someone else.

When someone picks up the phone and is expecting someone else you need to get to your point fast. In this regard, my script is the unholy child of John Barrows and Jon Selig; a cutting reason why I’m calling, seasoned with humor.

Boom, got them listening, now time to drive home why a more extensive conversation makes sense.

Here is where I know, having been on the receiving end of a LOT of these calls since I’ve joined SkySync, reps fail. They start playing a feature dump or how much their product will help me.

Really? Help me? You don’t know anything about me or my current challenges, nor have you read my LinkedIn profile (hint: there’s a key in there to booking a meeting me for anything).

At FatStax we had a picture of a radio dialed to WII-FM, “What’s In It For Me?”, our iteration of WMWN, “Why me, why now?”. While that tried and true trope worked OK, we realized that wasn’t enough to seal the deal. There needed to be something more.

What we settled on was letting the prospect know what they would learn from the meeting for free.

Here's my big take home message;

The value of a discovery call for a prospect should be to learn something that will help them immediately.

The value of this tactic is two-fold. First, you get to position yourself a credible resource that has information your prospect finds valuable. Second, you get your prospect thinking about the problem in new ways, hopefully driving them to uncover a problem they didn’t know they had. Problems your solution can fit like a Bruno Magli.

If it is a follow-up call and you can’t book the meeting. Ask yourself, what new value am I bringing to the table that will make my prospect WANT to talk to me.

Time is the one thing nobody is making more of, so if you are looking to book a twenty to thirty-minute meeting, make sure your attendee knows they will be getting some tangible value from it.

Text & call

I get a TON of emails. I even jokingly call email the cockroach of the internet (thanks for that one Tony Scelzo!). You send me an email, I open, read it, mean to respond, then I get 200 more.

Sorry, your email is lost forever and I do not abide by inbox zero philosophy. Most people I know don’t.

In other situations, I see your email, click a button to open it, 90% of the time on my phone, I read it, then to respond I have to click 3 or 4 times. That is tiresome.

Also, when it comes to email, a psychological time investment bias I call the double investment theory that kicks in.

You send me a long email; I am compelled to respond in length.

Why?

You invested time to write; I should spend the time to respond. Double investment.

So I pin the email, with an intent to respond at length, move on, then a fire drill. Your email is lost in the recess of my inbox.

I am not alone in this situation. In the last dozen years of doing this job I’ve often heard execs say, “Yeah, I meant to respond to you, but s**t kept getting in the way, thanks for following up.”

If you have a cell number, call it.

Calls are live, you’ll get an up or out response quick.

If they don’t pick up the phone, text.

Texts are super easy to respond to in comparison to email.

Done.

Presumptive close

The presumptive close is a huge one and gets results ASAP and is surprisingly rarely used.

You’ve received interest via a call, text, or email, now it is time to find time for a more extended conversation so the game of calendar bingo begins.

If you’ve caught your prospect on the phone at their desk and in front of a computer, great, within one minute, you are done and moving on.

What about when you’ve caught them between meetings, in their car, on their cell, or not live via email, text, or LinkedIn mail?

As a prospect, I know my how far out my calendar is booked solid, so if what you are saying is interesting to me, I’ll recommend booking me on the first day that I’m sure I’m open. I don’t know exactly when I’m open, but I have a good idea where you can book it, such as in the late AM, or during the afternoon.

At that point do I we really need to go back and forth for a specific time? Just book it and stop frustrating me.

On the other side of the coin, as a hunter, when a prospect provides agrees to a follow-on meeting I try to identify an open block for them and book it. If they really don’t know their calendar, that is a red flag; a disorganized prospect tells me this deal will linger longer. Then, before I let the prospect off the phone, I’ll tell them, when they see the invite, if they are double booked, let me know, and recommend other times. As well, I’ll be sure to provide an agenda in the invite that includes what they’ll learn / why the meeting will be valuable to them.

Conclusion

Booking meetings with prospects is hard. Typically those booking the meetings are levels below in experience and rank of their target. Tipping the scales in prospector’s favor requires subtly applying pressure so your prospect knows you mean business and your time is worth at least as much as theirs.

About Mark

Following an academic career, Mark moved into business development and has been the critical early sales hire at start-ups that have grown to become global brands in scientific publishing and IT security. Currently, Mark is a Director of Inside Sales SkySync, the leader in content migration and synchronization used by some of the largest and most diverse companies in the world.

Read more of Mark's articles here and follow him on Twitter.

#sales #growthhacking #enterprisesales #prospecting