Navigating a Sales Meeting: How I Do It

When I was in high school, I ran track. One day I was about to run the 100-meter race. The gun goes off, and I run as fast I can. I can’t believe it when I’m in the first place. I cross the finish line and am super happy — until everyone keeps running past me. I quickly realize that I’m in the 200-meter race, not the 100. So, I keep running and end up in last place. So, why did I tell you this story? Because getting meetings booked for your business is like a 200 meter 300, or 400-meter race. It isn’t a 100-meter sprint. Getting the right prospect interested in your services on the phone is only part of the battle. The next part is qualifying them. The best way to do this is to gauge their interest on a phone call.

After we get a call booked on our calendars, there is still work to do before we actually meet with the prospect. We instantly go and make sure they are enrolled in our follow-up procedure. Leading up to the day of the meeting, we send the prospect info about our company, our clients, who we work best with, podcast episodes, blog posts, and more. This helps educate the prospect about us and our offering and helps build a repertoire between us and the prospect.

We then always create an agenda with questions that I want to get answered during the call. To create these questions, we have to do a little more research about the prospect, specifically focusing on what problem they solve and who they solve it for. We also gather basic information about their company to spend more time in the meeting focused on the important topics and questions we want to cover.

Sending all this information and doing all the background research sounds like a lot of work. You might be wondering, “why should I do this?”. We do all of this work to prevent no-shows. Setting meetings and having the prospect not show up is a waste of time and effort, so the more we can do to prevent no-shows is worth our time! Using automation helps a lot in staying engaged with prospects. We use automation to send information through email and text up to an hour before the call. This has been helpful in giving the prospect an easy way to reschedule if they realize an hour before the call that they can’t make it.

When the day for the meeting finally arrives, we like to jump right in and figure out where they’re currently at. For us, we ask where their leads are currently coming from. If you run a PPC agency, you might ask how they currently advertise their products. Knowing this baseline of where they’re currently at helps us understand what the goal is. It helps you figure out if they have a problem that you can solve. If they answer your questions and you realize you can’t solve their problem, make recommendations and referrals to someone who can.

Once you know their goals and KPIs and discover more about their problem, you can move on to walking them through your service and how you can help them. Tell them the steps you’ll take to meet their goals and end with a price. By this point, you’ll have done the work to show the value and quantified that value, making it much easier for them to accept your offer.

I know navigating a sales call can be daunting. But doing your research beforehand can really help you prepare and feel confident when meeting with your prospect. If you have any questions about how to automate your follow-up process or anything else, feel free to contact me at nico@getboundlessmedia.com!

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