You’ve finally got that meeting with who you believe could be a good prospect. You turn up at the appointed time, but they keep you waiting.
When you finally sit down, you realise the hour you’d scheduled is now 30 minutes. What would you do?
Here’s another common scenario. Two or more decision makers agree to be in the meeting. One says she has to leave early, so won’t be there for the full presentations. What’s your response?
Transcript
You’ve finally got that meeting with who you believe could be a good prospect. You turn up at the appointed time, but they keep you waiting.
When you finally sit down, you realise the hour you’d scheduled is now 30 minutes. What would you do?
Here’s another common scenario. Two or more decision makers agree to be in the meeting. One says she has to leave early, so won’t be there for the full presentations. What’s your response?
My name’s Rashid Kotwal.
In both these situations, it’s tempting to say, that’s fine. We’ll either hurry up the meeting or it doesn’t matter if one person leaves early.
But that’s a huge mistake and trust me, it’ll cost you. You’ll end up wasting your time and more than likely you won’t get the deal as you’ve either rushed things through or the person who’s left doesn’t understand the value proposition and ultimately kyboshes the deal.
How do I know? I’ve made this mistake more often than I’d like to admit.
All of which came from my own flawed thinking.
You see, it’s taken a lot of effort to get here. The people are busy, so it may be weeks or months before I get another chance.
So let’s make best use of the available time.
But frankly that’s a terrible business posture to adopt where you end up being a servant to their whims.
Always remember. You are there as an equal. You’re there to help them get an outcome they want by using your product or service.
So you’re not doing them or yourself any favours if you don’t keep control.
So here’s what I recommend you do instead.
Start as you mean to go on.
Decide how much leeway you’ll give someone with timing. If they’re more than fifteen minutes late, leave.
When you’re actually sitting down, confirm at the start of the meeting how much time has been allocated. If it’s now shorter for any participant, politely reschedule.
Your prospects have to understand that your time is just as valuable as theirs. That you are providing a service and must be respected as a peer.
Anything else and you’re setting up a relationship where they feel they can string you along and waste your time. And that will continue even if they eventually become clients.
Remember, in any engagement, both sides have to be accountable. You do your part providing the solution and they have to do theirs.
And finally, please don’t have meetings for the sake of meetings. Qualify prospects quickly over the phone first rather than travel miles to sit down only to find you’ve wasted your time.
If you’d like help with how to effectively prospect and then improve your sales closing rate, check out our PMS SalesAccelerator program at RevealedResources.com.
Till next time, this is Rashid Kotwal.
