Transforming Your Sales Process: Best Practices to Follow After Booking a Meeting

Have you ever wondered what happens after you finally get that “yes” from a potential buyer, and they agree to meet with you or your AE? While it may seem like the hard work is done, there are still crucial steps in the sales process that you need to navigate to close the deal successfully.

The first step may not necessarily have anything to do with you.?

Depending on your sales process, your SDR may take the first meeting, or they may hand it off to your AE. The decision typically comes down to an efficiency equation, as every additional step in the process can result in a drop-off in overall volume.

Here are some examples of situations where SDRs may or may not take the first call:

• For shorter sales cycles and lower-value deals, it's often best to remove friction for the buyer and book directly with the AE.
• When booking high-level executives, they will likely land directly on an AE's calendar.
• The SDR is expected to take the call for higher velocity sales motions that generate multiple meetings daily for one rep.
• Sales cycles with technical salespeople are likely to have the SDR take the first meeting.
• In sales cycles where AEs invest heavily in discovery, the SDR may take the first meeting to double-check if the prospect is a good fit.

If you're not running the first call, joining and listening are essential.?

This will help you understand how your booked meetings are going and give you a sense of what works and what doesn't. It's also an opportunity to shadow your AE, learn from them, and get feedback on improving the quality of the prospects you're targeting.

For the first ten meetings you book, I recommend following them to close.?

In most cases, I recommend that SDRs continue to join the first call with their AEs to ensure that everyone is on the same page and that the sales process runs smoothly.

Back to that magical “yes,” what do you do next? Here’s our process for when you get that yes on a cold call:?

1- Tell them you’ll send the calendar invite and ask them to accept it. Here’s some language that’s worked for our Director of Coaching: "Just making sure that comes through on your end. Do you see it? If that time works for you, would you mind accepting it?"

2- Confirm next steps ("I'm going to shoot you an email introducing you to my colleague, X. You’ll meet with them on Y day at Z time. Did I get that right?")

3- Fill in your notes for the AE. Include qualification criteria and anything that will help them prepare for a great meeting. The most important thing you can do for your AE is to help them understand the context of the call, how interested they seem, and what piece of your pitch they seem most interested in.?

4- Send the introductory email. “Hi {Prospect}, please allow me to introduce you to AE {Name}. They’ll join our call at {Date and Time.}.”?

• The intro is an opportunity to ‘sell’ your AE; if there’s something relevant or interesting about them, you can add it here.

5- If the meeting is over three days, follow up the day before with something useful as an excuse: "I pulled this article/case study/blog I thought you might find useful/interesting in the meantime. See you tomorrow!"

6- If you couldn't get them to accept on the call and they haven't accepted, make sure they do. Email/call/LinkedIn to confirm. If they didn’t accept on the meeting day, send them a follow-up the next day to ensure they received the invite. “Hi {Prospect}, I noticed you haven’t accepted the invite. Does that time still work for you?”?

• You can try variations of the ask here like, “Does that time not work for you?”, “Did you see the invite?” etc.

7- Be ready when the meeting is scheduled - if the prospect is late, call/email/LinkedIn. If they are no-shows, get them into a no-show sequence with call/email/LinkedIn to get the meeting back into the books.

I know the sales process can be challenging, and there are often many moving parts to keep track of. I believe in sharing knowledge and experiences to help each other succeed.

I’d love to hear from you! Have you ever experienced a situation where you weren't sure who should take the first call? How did you handle it, and what was the outcome? Let me know in the DMs.