Salespeople, One Mistake I’m Sure You’re Making
Early in my career I went on a sales call doing the usual amount of prep to hold up my end of the conversation, expecting that the prospect would have prepared something of their own.
I was wrong. They had nothing. They wanted me to direct the whole thing. Luckily I pulled it all together and sailed the ship through for the both of us, but it could have all been avoided if I had done one simple thing: confirm the meeting. (Which I would have done if I had Spiro back then to help remind me of this crucial step.)
If You’re Not Confirming Meetings, You’re Making a Big Mistake
Meeting confirmations aren’t just another box to be checked on your to-do list. They’re a huge opportunity to influence your prospect or customer.
In the case above, confirming the meeting would have put thoughts into both of our heads beforehand and the meeting could have been more productive.
I could have sent them a list of the things I wanted to talk about, they could have researched my questions, had hard numbers ready, etc. But instead, we had to take follow up time to get all that done.
Turn Meeting Confirmations Into Sales Engagement Moments
Taking a small amount of time out of your schedule to confirm the meeting can actually save you a lot of time and effort. Instead of seeing it as a pain, look at the ways you can use the meeting confirmation email as another opportunity to sell or to gather information on the prospective client.
Gather information on your client and what they hope to get from the meeting by asking questions like:
- Who else is coming to the meeting?
- Do you think we should invite Todd from the accounting department?
- Who else at XYZ Corp should I be meeting with while I’m there?
- Are there other people in St. Louis you think I should see while I’m in town?
- Do we have the right agenda for the meeting?
The personal interaction will be much more useful to you than what you would get from some relationship app.
Confirming Meetings Makes You Look Professional
Meetings take planning and effort, but a successful meeting can go a long way to building lasting relationships with your clients.
One of the things the Spiro app does for salespeople is make sure they confirm upcoming meetings. Spiro automatically reads your calendar and, boop, you see a prompt (and even a convenient email template) to confirm your meeting.
Meeting Confirmation Emails Have a 90 Percent Open Rate
The meeting confirmation emails I send out have a 90 percent open rate, how many other times in your life can you say that’s true?
It’s proven that people retain information through repetition so now’s the perfect time to reinforce your core sales message.
If your financial services software enables companies to trade faster, for example, your confirmation email should say, “Looking forward to showing how we can improve your trading time next Tuesday. Are we still good for that meeting?”
Not Confirming a Sales Meeting is a Missed Opportunity
It comes from my experience from prospects that not confirming a meeting through email can result in a prospect being confused or not prepared for a meeting. That’s a waste of both of your time.
Not only will confirming a meeting avoid any misunderstandings, it is also an opportunity to reinforce your value proposition and influence the direction of the meeting.
Think of that little email confirmation template you use in Spiro as that extra step that makes all the difference to get the big deals you’re after.
Photo of Dwight from The Office. Courtesy of NBC Universal.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2016.
