đ¶ If youâre all alone...
Pick up the phone and callâŠ
Ghostbusters Your prospects! đ¶
^ Yes, that cringy intro just happened, and no, you canât unread it.
To be fairâŠ
It was between that and a play on words from Apollo 440âs âStop the Rockâ - so here we are!
Anyway, letâs leave the singing to the professionals and get back to the B2B sales stuff!
So, youâve called your prospect, made your sales pitch, and booked your meeting.
Great!
But, what happens when they donât show up?
đ¶When a prospect ghosts you, who you gonna call?
Your sales manager? đ¶
Sure, perhaps if this happens once or twice.
But, if it keeps happening, you need to change your strategy before it affects your performance as a rep.
We spoke to our SDR Manager, Hugh Campbell, and our US SDR Team Lead, Tim Miller, to get the tips you need to stop the drop off in meetings attended.
Scroll đ to get the pointers you need the most.
Why prospects are no-shows | Time is of the essence | Confirm, confirm, confirm | Donât ghost them | A checklist on how to hook âem | More sales content from Cognism
If youâre following your meeting booking process, often you can gauge whether the prospect will show up to your meeting or not.
You get a sense of whether theyâre that interested or not.
This will lay the foundation for how you follow up with the prospect, but weâll dive into that later.
First, we must take a look into why prospects donât show up for your meetings.
Hugh runs us through these:
âWhen prospects donât attend meetings, itâs often to do with things that are out of our control. Their child could be ill, or they have a last-minute meeting that they have to jump into.â
âItâs rare that a prospect will flat-out cancel your meeting unless theyâre found another vendor. Youâve got to remember that itâs often last-minute things popping up that contribute to the reason theyâre not turning up.â
What we want to focus on though is ensuring they show up!
So, where do you start?
With your timing, of course! đ
If you want your prospects to attend your meetings, youâve got to act quickly.
One of the biggest mistakes SDRs make when booking meetings is openly scheduling meetings too far out.
Tim explains why you shouldnât do this:
âIf itâs Tuesday, you canât book the meeting for next week. The prospect will forget, lose urgency, and be more likely to not show up to the meeting.â
When asking for the meeting itâs crucial to give the option of the same day (later in the afternoon), or tomorrow.
By offering to meet later than that, you're relinquishing control of the most important part of booking the meeting: timing.
âDo your best not to make concessions here. Iâve heard other SDRs say their AE canât meet weeks down the road because theyâll be out of the office, even when it isnât true, just to book them in.â
âEthical? Your choice. But it does go to show how important it is to book meetings as soon as possible, so the prospect doesnât forget the urgency and interest you worked so hard to create.â
Hugh agrees that timing and urgency are everything too.
âYour starting point will always be to get the meeting booked as quickly as possible so that youâre top-of-mind, and so that they donât forget about you. You should also avoid booking meetings first thing on a Monday or last thing on a Friday.â
You need to remember that on Monday mornings, people are busy and playing catch-up.
On Friday afternoons, people are wanting to go home early and the last thing they want to do is attend a meeting.
Once youâve drilled down the urgency of the meeting, youâve got to đ
As an SDR, you need to remember that decision-makers are incredibly busy.
Theyâre in all sorts of meetings all day. Theyâve got emails to follow up on, decisions to make, things to buy, etc.
That said, things get moved around.
And youâre not a priority.
But, Tim reminds us of how to become that priority:
âThere are too many moving parts to remember to attend a meeting with an SDR who hasnât reached out in six days.â
âMake sure you confirm the meeting the day before or the day of. Have your AE reach out. Let your manager or someone similar send a message or give a call to express excitement and gratitude.â
âMake your prospect feel like the most important person in the world. Being different is rare, and doing so makes it really hard for a prospect to turn you down.â
Hugh echoed Timâs sentiments:
âYou should get the prospect to accept the calendar invite while youâve got them on the phone. This way, youâll know that theyâve received it and that theyâre essentially locked into the meeting.â
You can also reach out to the prospect to confirm your meeting.
Whether this is via email, telephone, WhatsApp, or other messaging platforms, donât shy away from ensuring theyâll turn up!
And, as much as you donât want your prospects to ghost you, youâve got to ensure that you...
All too often, reps get upset about prospects ghosting them, when theyâre guilty of ghosting them first!
Tim explains how to avoid this:
âEnsure you send an email recapping the call you just had with them when booking. If the meeting is multiple days out, send them another email or two with a blog or something that provides value to them.â
âBy booking the meeting and not providing any value until that meeting begins, weâre serving ourselves. Donât serve yourself, give to your prospect and theyâre more likely to give back.â
âYouâd be surprised how often a prospect simply accepts a meeting invite after sending a quick, two-line email with an article attached.â
Hugh also thinks sending valuable content to your prospect is incredibly helpful in ensuring they attend your meeting.
âYou want to keep them engaged until your meeting takes place. If you do have to book a meeting thatâs far out, you need to double down on this. Connect with them on LinkedIn, engage with one of their posts, and send over case studies or other company materials you have that you feel will benefit them, like a Cold Calling Handbook, for example.â
âWhat you're trying to do is pique their interest, keep them engaged, and most importantly, keep your company top-of-mind, right up until you meet.â
Itâs incredibly important to choose the content youâre sending your prospect on a case-by-case basis.
So, when youâre deciding what to send over, youâve got to ensure that what youâre sending is relevant to your prospect.
What this comes down to is evaluating their pain points on your initial call and addressing these in the content youâre sending over.
So, if theyâre trying to improve their cold calling, send them over a cold calling piece.
If itâs their marketing that needs work, send over a marketing playbook, a case study thatâs relevant to their industry, and so on.
When youâve got these bases covered, youâll want to go over đ
Of course, there are many different ways to ensure your prospects attend your meetings.
Hereâs a checklist of all the really important points.
The more important the meeting is, the more likely it is for someone to attend it.
The way to up the ante?
Explain the process.
This means telling the prospect:
Hugh explains that you want to add weight to the meeting you want them to attend.
âYou can also send a handover email to your prospect to introduce the AE whoâs going to run them through the meeting. This will make the process seem more formal, bring in the senior colleague, and again, add weight to the meeting.â
A demo sounds like something you can get out of.
Instead, youâll want to refer to your appointment as a screen-share meeting.
Hugh explains the reasoning behind this.
âYou have to avoid using the word demonstration. We found that prospects didnât find this very binding and it sounded like something that didnât seem too important. When we changed to calling it a screen-share meeting, just from adding the word meeting, it sounded more important and attendance went up.â
Hugh stresses the importance of contacting your prospect the night before and the morning of your meeting.
Check whether they have everything they need for the meeting, and ensure that theyâll be attending.
If you canât get hold of your prospect, Hugh outlines the various ways in which you should persevere:
Tim adds one final point to our checklist:
Discovery calls in sales arenât just for fact-finding and uncovering pain.
You should use discovery as another tool in your belt throughout the journey of getting your prospect to the meeting.
âWhen closing, itâs important to use a different approach for each prospect. Your solution solves multiple problems. Pitch the prospect on the problem theyâve admitted theyâre having.â
âThis allows the meeting to be stickier in the prospectâs brain. They wonât be as interested in what your solution does. They will, however, care about the problem you aim to solve for them.â
And when theyâre focused on what you can do for them, theyâre far more likely to attend your meeting!
Right, now that weâve got more prospects attending your meetings, youâll want to look to other areas to Improve upon đ
And thatâs where we come in!
Cognism has a whole range of tips, resources and guides that you can use to up your sales game!
Get all the tips you need by checking out our blog.
You can also follow us on LinkedIn:
And, as a bonus, you should follow Tim Miller on LinkedIn for even more relatable and actionable content!