Sales Training Seminars and Tips

Confirming Appointments When Prospecting: Are You Asking For A Cancellation?

"Hi there, this is Bob Jones. We have an appointment tomorrow at 10 a.m. I was just wondering if you'd like to cancel?"

I know, I know. I exaggerate. No one would intentionally call a prospect and create such an opening. However, if you aren't careful when calling to confirm your sales appointments, you might as well be.

Remember, your prospects are busy, running here and there, putting out fires. If you have gotten far enough in your prospecting to schedule a face-to-face, then the prospect is interested enough to want to listen. Chance are you've done a lot of prospecting work to get to this point.

However, once the day rolls around, there will most likely be something more urgent that has arisen for the prospect. Calling to confirm can inadvertently give him or her the opportunity to back out of the appointment and put their new fires out. But at the same time, you want to make sure the prospect is expecting you, and that the appointment hasn't slipped his mind.

One easy way around this is to place your confirmation call after-hours the day before the meeting and leave your reminder on voice mail. He'll get the message first thing in the morning and be expecting you. Could he still call back and cancel? Sure. But if he hasn't gotten proactive and called to cancel before the day of the meeting, then chances are good that he won't do it on the day of.

One more thing to be wary of: trying to turn a scheduled face-to-face meeting into a phone conference. If it is a lead you are uncertain of, try to do a little better job of qualifying during the prospecting process before you set up a meeting. If you really don't think it's worth your personal time, why waste your time and theirs?

The prospect has overcome a lot of resistance to find time to meet with you. If you suddenly ask for a phone conference instead, he might think you aren't that interested in talking to him seriously, and he could decide that YOU'RE not worth HIS time.

If circumstances dictate that you can't meet face-to-face for some reason, suggest video conferencing, versus a simple phone call. It's the next best thing to actually being there (and you can actually be almost anywhere!).

Don't let your prospecting fall flat on its face by letting your prospect back out at the last minute.

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Article Content: Prospecting