With all the doom and gloom in the air. Sales Reps are becoming more and more short sighted. 90% of success is just showing up. Whether it is a conference call, a web conference, or a face to face meeting – just show up.
Over the past three months, I have seen more Sales Reps only want to go on a meeting if there is a contract at the end of the meeting. They don’t want to go on discovery meetings anymore. The Art of Building a Relationship is dying. You can’t have someone else build a relationship for you – you have to do that yourself.
With the cost of airfare going up, it’s harder to do discovery meetings face to face; the teleconference has now become the norm for discovery meetings. I got several calls in the past month about the fact that the prospect didn’t show up after 5 minutes, so the Sales Rep hung up. When I called one of the prospects back to reschedule, they apologized because they were called into the boss’s office and they were ten minutes late for the meeting. However, they were dumb founded that no one left a voicemail on their machine asking where they were. . . If you have scheduled a 30 minutes conference call, stay on the line 30 minutes! You have already booked the time in your schedule.
While you are a waiting for prospects to get on the bridge number, you can use other telecommunication means to find out where the prospect is. Use your cell phone is call the main desk and ask for the prospect; ask for the assistant to the prospect; or ask for a person who sits next to the prospect.
Typically, when the prospect loose track of time they are either A) deep in a spreadsheet and forgot to check the timer pop ups; B) got called into the boss’s office for an impromptu meeting and will be ten minutes late; or C) had a catastrophe that couldn’t be avoided. More importantly they need to know you showed up. If you still have not heard from the prospect after 30 minutes, call the prospect again and relay the message that the time you had arranged is up and that you can be reached to reschedule the appointment. This let’s the prospect know that you value your time as well as the prospect’s time. Prospects need to know that you are willing to work at their pace. If you are the type of person who would bale on them after five minutes, what does that say about your company when there are real issues to be addressed?
If the Prospect lost track of time, it is appropriate to leave a message after five minutes asking when they plan to log in. It is not uncommon for company meetings to run late and the Prospect does not have your contact information on hand to tell you that they are running late. If the Prospect had a catastrophe (personal/company reason), it is important to know that when you call back to reschedule. Most receptionist/AAs can tell you up front why the Prospect is unable to make the conference call today.
The five minute rule becomes even worst when there are other members of your team sitting and waiting for the conference call. When they are support staff, they are more likely to press you into hanging up early. This is time to give the speech that “first impressions cannot be duplicated”. If they need to check their voicemails or read computer documents they can do so, but be ready at a moment’s notice.
Finally, imagine the impression you will make when the prospect shows up 10 minutes late, “through no fault of their own”, and your entire team are still waiting and enthused about starting the discussion. I have a client who had scheduled a 45 minute introductory conference call with a CIO. The CIO was 10 minutes late, but my Sales Rep and his support staff were ready to go when the CIO showed up. 35 minutes into a deep discussion my Sales Rep boldly told the CIO “I know that we asked for 45 minutes of your time and that time is nearly up, I am prepared to continue this discussion at another time, unless you would like to continue talking now. . .” The CIO stayed on the phone for another 2 hours. A proposal is in the works.
