How to get booked with Sales Meetings

The most talked-about part of the sales is the act of closing a deal. Unfortunately, people have a misconception that sales are all about closing. However, you have to do a lot to reach that stage. One has to go through prospecting followed by outreach to make it to closing. Before the final stage, you have to fix appointments with prospective customers. Sales meetings are not that easy; not everyone will give in to a meeting easily. It takes a lot of effort from the sales rep’s end to make a meeting happen.

As a sales rep, you must know exactly how to book sales meetings. Along with the ‘how’, the ‘when’ matters too in your approach for an appointment. Here are a few useful tips,

1. Gather enough information about the prospect

If you are not successful in fixing sales meetings with prospects, you should look at the email template or cold call script you are using. Even after a consistent follow-up, if you cannot get what you want, then it is time to make radical changes. Most emails requesting an appointment sound too similar, so most prospects seem to get annoyed and don’t want to proceed further. So, to bring a sense of exclusivity to your emails, you should personalize them.

For personalizing the email copy, you require substantial information about the prospect at hand. You have to carry out a decent amount of research to gather details of prospects for which you have to go through their profiles on social networking websites like LinkedIn. Look for their role in their company, latest achievements, promotions, and personal interests. Try finding a topic to start the conversation between you and the prospect. When you present yourself as a sales rep who has put in the effort to learn about the prospect, the chances of getting chosen are higher.

Don’t just stop with LinkedIn. Try using Google and find them on social media to get to know them more personally.

If you want to give your best in trying to impress them, you should look at their company’s website and find out about the latest releases and statements about the company.

All of it can help you infuse personalization elements to your emails and make prospects want to fix a meeting with you.

2. Keep your focus on the right goal

As a salesperson, your ultimate goal is to make a sale, but your immediate goal is to take the prospect to the next stage of the sales process. While both the goals need your attention, there are chances that you look at the ultimate goal of closing the deal as soon as you reach out to prospects. Along with that comes the desire to make the sale as quickly as possible. However, if you focus only on taking the prospect to the next stage, which is setting an appointment, you will get better results. So, look at the immediate goal first of taking the prospect further down the sales funnel.

3. Be confident about yourself

When you sound confident to prospects in your emails or during a call, it leaves a good impression on their minds. Opposed to that, if you seem to be too desperate or needy, it will tarnish your image, and the prospect would feel that they are doing you a favor by letting you fix a meeting with them. So, start believing in yourself and the product or service you have to offer. When you strongly believe that your offering can help the prospect overcome their challenges, it will show in your email or call. You will sound convincing enough to secure more sales meetings.

4. Start slow

Most often, sales reps request a meeting too soon in the conversation and end up getting disappointed. You must aim at keeping the first two emails or calls towards building a bond with prospects. Keep conversing with the prospect while keeping your sales rep aura away. You have to trigger their interest in you by paying attention to their needs. The first rule to win as a salesperson is that you have to be an active listener. An active listener doesn’t listen to respond but listens to understand the prospect’s challenges.

On similar lines, you should not be pushy in any way, or else you might lose the prospect. Instead, you have to try your best to provide the information the prospect needs. Ask questions as well so that the conversation flows in the right direction. It will also help you determine whether the lead has the need and the potential to purchase your product or service.

Always give examples of your other clients who benefited from your product or service. When prospects know that other people found your offering helpful, it piques their interest, and they would want to give it a shot. As a result, they will be more inclined towards setting sales meetings with you to know more about your product or service.

6. Ask prospects for a meeting

After you manage to create a good impression, you can take a step ahead and ask the prospect for a meeting. There is also the option to make the prospect ask for it, but most salespeople make a move first. Just make sure that you are clear about why you want to meet the client and provide them the details of the meeting.

You have to try your best to be reasonable while asking for sales meetings. Don’t take more than 15 to 20 minutes of the prospect’s time. Try to shorten your pitch so that it fits nicely into that time frame. If this meeting is a hit and the prospect wants to meet you again, you can then plan a more prolonged discussion session.

To make the potential customer ask for a meeting first, you have to put up the right questions and focus on the prospect’s challenges instead of the product/service or appointment. You have to trigger their curiosity tactfully, build suspense, and sound credible till the other person asks for a meeting.

7. Follow up after booking an appointment

It is not enough to get a meeting booked. For a B2B appointment setting, you have to follow up to remind the prospect of the meeting. It can be a follow-up email containing something worth sharing. Try your best to stay on the top of the prospect’s mind so that they remember about the appointment with you. Apart from following up with email, a little nudge on social media will also do the trick. Consider following them on Twitter and connecting with them on LinkedIn.

Ideally, you can send them a gentle reminder via emails 24 hours before the meeting. It gives the prospect a chance to inform you beforehand if they can’t make it for the meeting and want to reschedule it.

Your follow-up has to be even more active when the prospect doesn’t show up. While such no-show scenarios are not uncommon in sales, it takes effort from your end to handle them. You can reduce the no-shows by mentioning the agenda of the meeting in the invite so that they get reminded why they booked the meeting in the first place.

8. Ensure that you are connecting with the right person

Make sure that you are pursuing the right person. If you are on the wrong track, there are more chances of the prospect not showing up for the meeting. For example, let’s say you are looking for a decision-maker in the accounts department but have booked a meeting with a lower-level employee. The person may have no say in purchasing your product or service. Therefore, he would need to involve the decision-makers to take the deal ahead. It means that it would be better to reach out to those who have the authority to make decisions with them. It will help speed up the whole process.

9. Consider time zones

While booking a meeting with prospects, it is necessary to consider the prospect’s time zone. It shouldn’t be that you choose a convenient time for yourself but not for the prospect. Instead, you have to decide on a time that works for both of you.

10. Use tools for scheduling meetings

After all your hard work, you would want some help with scheduling the appointment seamlessly. Usually, you would suggest a date and time and ask the prospect if it is suitable. But, unfortunately, the prospect might be occupied and would instead give you another date. So it can go on till you finally manage to agree to a date and time. To avoid all this unnecessary conversation, you can go for a tool that helps you with the scheduling.

SalesBlink’s Meeting Scheduler

SalesBlink has a meeting scheduler to help you make the entire process of scheduling meetings seem super-easy. The tool syncs with your Google calendar and allows you to mention when you are available for meetings. You can then share the calendar link with prospects so that they can check when you are available and choose the date and time suitable for them. There is also no need to worry about time zones as the tool takes care of all that. In addition, you will get a notification when the meeting gets fixed. Thus, it saves time and effort for both parties, and there are fewer chances of losing the prospect.

Here’s a step by step look,

The shareable calendar link will sync with your Google calendar.

1. Click on ‘Continue with Google’ and give SalesBlink.io permission to access your Google Account.
2. It will redirect you to a calendar settings page where you have to fill in your details and mention your working hours. You can then click on the Save button.

You can share the calendar link with prospects in your emails or LinkedIn messages to let them book meetings with you hassle-free.

The meetings will appear on your calendar.

How to create a meeting event?

It is easy to create a meeting event manually using the shareable calendar link.

Here’s how,

1. Copy the calendar link and paste it on the search bar of your browser.
2. A page will appear to help you schedule meetings.

1. Choose a time zone.

1. Select a date for the meeting.

1. Select the time of the meeting from the available options.

Once you schedule the meeting, you will get a confirmation of the same.

For an comprehensive in-depth tutorial on how to use Salesblink’s Meeting Scheduler, you can refer to the following video.

The Final Takeaway

While it is not easy to say whether the prospect will appear for the sales meetings, a few tips and tricks work in making the prospect interested in your offerings.

First, you have to show genuine interest in the prospect to book meetings successfully, which can happen when you do your research.

Second, sound confident, but at the same time, don’t try to push your product to the prospect. Next, follow-up consistently and set reminders so that the prospect doesn’t forget about the appointment. These may be tiny things, but they do matter. Finally, to wrap it up, use a meeting scheduler to get your meeting fixed because not only will it make you look tech-savvy but also someone who values their time.