How To Set Follow Up Appointments
Never leave a sales call until you have set your next appointment.
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How To Set Follow Up Appointments
I recently asked a veteran sales manager what her biggest pet peeve was with salespeople. Her answer surprised me. I was expecting to hear a diatribe about how they didn’t ask enough closing questions or make enough cold calls. Instead, she said that her number one issue was teaching her salespeople not to walk out of sales calls without getting a firm commitment for a next appointment. She said:
You would not believe how many times I observe salespeople at the end of the meeting say to the prospect, ‘Can I give you a call next week?’ To which the prospect says, ‘That sounds good.’ No time, no date, no real commitment. Later, these same salespeople seem to be surprised when they are unable to get back in touch with the prospect and the next meeting never materializes.
Unfortunately I have observed the same phenomenon again and again. The salesperson leaves a sales meeting with a vague agreement to get back together with the prospect and subsequently is never able to reconnect. It is mindboggling. The same salesperson who persisted through gatekeepers and rejection to get the appointment in the first place allows the deal to just slip away because they don’t gain a clear commitment for a next meeting. I believe more deals are lost this way than from any other reason.
There are many reasons salespeople do this, from laziness to fear of rejection. Frankly it doesn’t matter. This failure to execute will not be resolved by delving into the psychology of salespeople. Instead, the fix is simply adopting a systematic approach to ending each sales meeting whether that meeting is by phone, video conference, or in person.
Before I go on though it is important to understand why leaving next steps open ended is bad business. Now you would think that if a prospect says, “Just give me a call next week and we’ll set a time to get back together.”, that they would really mean it. When we have this same exchange with friends it seems to work just fine. We call, they answer, we get together. But in sales this simply does not work. First, your prospects are very busy and there are dozens of other people, internal and external to their organization, vying for time on their schedule. The only way to ensure that you will have time on their schedule is to strike while the iron is hot which is when you have their attention. More importantly you must understand that what is important to you – your product or service – is not that important to your prospect. In fact there are hundreds of things they care about more than you and what you are selling. Add to that their natural instinct to avoid salespeople at all costs and it is easy to see why prospects with no real commitment on their calendar to meet with you can always find a reason to avoid your follow up calls.
However, despite all of this, the one thing that does remain true is most business people will honor a commitment they have previously made. What that means for salespeople is if you are inked in on your prospect’s schedule there is a high probability that they will honor their appointment to meet with you.
This is why top sales professionals never leave a meeting with a client without setting the next appointment. Now please understand when I say appointment that means that both the prospect and you have a set time written in on your schedules. Not a “maybe” or an “I’ll call you” or a “just drop by.” A real, in stone appointment you have both agreed to.
The good news is setting the next appointment is relatively easy. The key is to make setting the next appointment a systematic part of your call process.
The first and most important step is to simply make a point to ask for the next appointment at the end of each call. Do this by restating what you have agreed to do and what your prospect has agreed to do and then ask for a time to meet again. In most cases you and your prospect will come to a mutually agreed upon time and date. Once you have both entered the meeting on your calendars be sure to restate the time and day.
In some cases your prospect will object to setting a fixed time on the calendar for a follow up meeting. The objection will in most likely sound something like this:
“I’ve got a really busy week coming up. Why don’t you give me a call next week and we’ll see about fitting you in.”
Whatever you do, don’t take the bait. If you walk out of the office now without a scheduled appointment your probability of getting back in goes down exponentially. Instead respond with:
“You know I’ve got a full schedule with client meetings right now too. Since we are both so busy why don’t we go ahead and get something scheduled. I’ve got my calendar right here. How does . . . Wednesday at 3pm look for you?
Ninety percent or more of the time this will initiate a short conversation which will lead to an agreed upon time and date for the next appointment.
You’ll be amazed at how easy it is. Please note though that I did not say, “I’m wide open and can meet any time.” I created scarcity by saying my schedule is full. This takes advantage of the universal principle that people want what they can’t have.
Now in some cases your prospect will continue to defer to the I’m- really-busy- just-give-me-a call objection. If you get this or any objection the second time, say something like this:
“I really do understand how busy you are right now. I’m so busy with new clients that I can barely catch my breath. Just so that I can be fair and keep my commitments to my other clients let’s at least pencil something in for next week. What do you have available on Thursday?”
The Let’s-pencil-something-in tactic works with those prospects who continue to hold out. In a softer way it makes it easier for them to commit. But because you are getting them to actually put an entry on their calendar they will almost always honor the commitment.
Using this methodology you will walk out of almost every appointment with a firm commitment for a next appointment. And in the rare case that you don’t, you will at least know that your prospect has no intention of buying from you. Just remember the key is making this a systematic part of every sales call. When you do, you will quickly find that you spend less time chasing down appointments and more time selling, your pipeline will be more robust, you will close more deals, and ultimately you’ll put more cash in your pocket.
This is Jeb Blount, the Sales Guy. If you have a sales question please send it to salesguy@quickanddirtytips.comcreate new email.
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