Scheduling Meetings

Discovery Call

A sales consultant must set aside a time for him with a prospect to qualify as per BANT. During the discovery call, you must talk to a strong influencer and recommender and uncover the needs part. Once they see the value, you convince prospects for a deep dive demo with a wider audience.

Invite With Agenda

After the SDR confirms the best time and date for a demo, he or she should send the calendar invite to the prospect while still on the phone and let the prospect know to expect it in the inbox. You then politely ask the prospect to accept it while you are still talking. That way nothing goes to spam or otherwise goes missing. In the meeting invite, provide a short summary of key talking points discussed.

Use Automated Reminders

SDR must always follow-up with the prospect the day before the scheduled appointment. Confirming via phone is best, but you can’t reach the prospect live, be sure to leave a voicemail stating that you would like to confirm the availability and follow up with an email.  Be sure to templatize your reminder emails so that you won’t have to reinvent the wheel all the time.

Communicate Discussion Summary With Others

Transparency plays a big role in closing any deal effectively. It is important that the sales consultant provides ample resources to the closing rep a few days before the call so that the closing rep knows where to focus their time and how best to prepare.

Join As A Cohesive Team

The best way to book a sales appointment that happens is to ensure that all the members on the sales side of the meeting have an equal stake in it being successful. To achieve this, both parties should join the call together and if necessary, SDR must provide a soft introduction and hand-off at the start of the meeting.

Sync up Between SDR and AE

The closing representative should be responsible for following-up with the sales development rep after the meeting to discuss next steps and review why the opportunity was a good fit or why they were disqualified. This kind of feedback will be useful for future appointment setting opportunities.

Dealing With No Show

Sometimes, no matter what you do to prepare in advance, a prospect doesn’t show up to the appointment that was scheduled. That’s okay, it happens.

Here’s what you would do:

1. Stay calm. You should call the prospect and re-start the process of getting time on their calendar for the meeting. Be sure to confirm if an appointment is something they are still interested in.

2. Ask for clear input as to how they would like to be reminded about the rescheduled meeting. Do email reminders work best? How much advance notice would they need? It’s okay to imply that everyone’s time is valuable, and we absolutely want to make sure meetings do happen.

3. Give the prospect something to be excited about. Let them know what to expect during the meeting. Everyone wants value from time.  If a prospect is consistently a no-show, then go back to the basics of qualifying and understand what the underlying issue could be. Maybe they aren’t ready to buy/move forward yet.

Dealing With Objections

You may encounter some objections or bottlenecks while scheduling or rescheduling an appointment. Here are some tips on how to deal with them.

1. ”I spoke with my boss and I no longer feel like this is the best time to have a conversation about your offering. You could try back in 6 months.”

This kind of objection means several things. It could be budget related, a project or initiative has been pushed indefinitely. Or, simply no longer interested in a meeting. However, you can still reiterate what you discussed about their current challenges during the first conversation and how would it impact their business if they don’t do anything to solve their problems.

2. “Oh man, I have got tons of work on my plate, so, I’m going to need to reschedule. You know what, I’ll get back in touch with you.”

The classic, “Don’t follow up until I reach out to you” blows off. This one is dangerous because you’re leaving the ball (a.k.a leverage) in their court. Use the objection handling technique such as – “I totally understand your situation, even I have to juggle several responsibilities. When we discussed your challenges around managing [Insert challenges]. you mentioned this goes on your top of priority. Can you carve out 15 mins next week to discuss this with my senior colleague? This way, we can determine if we are even a good fit or not.” Something along those lines.

3. “I don’t remember committing to a meeting with you. Take me off your list.”

Sometimes, if you push too hard for the appointment that the prospect is not ready for, they will agree to a next step just to get off the phone with you and then blow off the meeting altogether.

4. Radio silent: This one is the toughest to flip. You try to remind prospects about the meeting, and you hear nothing. In this scenario, you have to prove the meeting will yield positive results. So, acknowledge the objection, connect with the value proposition and progress.