Picture this: It’s Tuesday afternoon at 2:00 pm. You’ve got a virtual appointment with a big prospect who seems like the perfect fit for your product. You take a deep breath, start up your Zoom meeting, and wait. And wait. And wait some more. Any minute now they’ll join.
Does this sound familiar?
In today’s virtual world of selling, this is a common scenario for a lot of sales professionals. Whether it’s because the prospect had an unexpected emergency or their calendar was simply overbooked with competing priorities, no shows do happen.
As virtual meetings have greatly increased, here are four tips to both prevent virtual no shows and respond to them when they do happen.
PREVENTION:
These four steps will help you be proactive in your efforts to prevent virtual no shows, but you still need to be prepared if and when it happens.
In the event of a no show, here is the timeline I follow:
5-minutes later:
Pick up the phone and call your prospect. Despite your best efforts, things happen and people forget or need to cancel. If they don’t pick up, here’s a sample voicemail you can leave:
“Hi John. This is Marisa Pensa. I’m on the Zoom link for our 10am this morning and wanted to make sure you had the link. If a phone call is easier for today, you can call me back at 678-574-6072. Otherwise, I’ll wait another 5-minutes in case you’re in another meeting that’s running over. See you shortly online or call me at 678-574-6072. Thank you.”
10-minutes later:
Send an email as a follow up to your voicemail message. Suggest alternative times to reschedule. Your email would say something like:
“Hi John. I’m assuming something unexpected came up at our meeting time and certainly understand things come up completely out of your control. As an alternative to today, below are two options for us to meet later this week.
Option 1: Date/time
Option 2: Date/time
Please let me know what works best and I’ll send an updated calendar invite. Thank you.”
2 days later:
Send a video message via email using a tool like Vidyard or Soapbox. This is a great way to re-engage yourprospect and add a personal touch. Your video should be a minute and a half or less. Use it to share the value you can bring, for example:
“Hi John. I tried to reach you by phone and email but thought I would get a little creative and try video. I’ve been thinking about your [struggle with X, plan to achieve Y] and I’ve got a few ideas that may make a difference. Let’s definitely reschedule and I’d like to talk through this with you and also share with you what I had prepared for our meeting. Below this video, you will see in my email two times. If these don’t work, let me know better options for connecting. Talk with you soon!”
You can’t wait forever for a prospect. After you’ve taken these steps, schedule a task in your CRM for 2 weeks later and lay low.
As a Sales Professional, you really only have your time and your accounts. Make the right decisions on how much time you spend on which accounts. Remember, your time is valuable too!!
Good selling to you!
Email: marisa@methodsnmotion.com
Phone: 678-574-6072
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