Three quick tips to decrease the chance of getting stood up after setting an Initial Appointment through a cold call.
Ever set an Initial Appointment on a cold call and then worried that the Target might not show? Ever actually been stood up?
Sell long enough and we all get stood up every once and a while after we’ve set an Initial Appointment. The cost of that in face-to-face selling can be very high, particularly when we’ve not got additional appointments in the area adjacent to the one we’re being stood up on. It’s one of the reasons we recommend sending a confirmation email after setting an appointment (see March 8, 2008 blog), as legitimate reasons for postponement do come up.
Yet there are some appointment making methodologies that suggest we should ‘just get the appointment’ and don’t worry about whether the Target is yet convinced of our value. We’ll take care of that once we get there is the thought. The problem with that mentality is that if the Target isn’t convinced that there is value in the investment of their time to see us, yet our slick techniques get them to agree to see us, buyer’s remorse sets in quickly after the Initial Appointment is set.
The Formula™ is built to reduce the risk of being stood up by providing a platform for the Target to ‘buy’ the value for the appointment on their own terms.
Here are three tips to reduce the risk of that happening.
1. Ask a good Bridge Question™ (see November 19, 2008 blog for definition) that gets the Target into a short, but open minded conversation which provides us with that platform to sell our value and qualify a bit.
2. When appropriate, and when the time comes to actually set the appointment, ask the question, “Do you have your calendar handy?” This technique takes advantage of one of Dr. Robert Cialdini’s six principals of persuasion, Commitment and Consistency. (For a deeper explanation of this principle see my article published in April of 2007.)
3. If we’ve been able to get into that discussion that convinces the Target to ‘buy’ the meeting, we encourage asking for an email address to send a confirmation of the Initial Appointment. In that email, we can reiterate the key reason for the meeting, provide a third party testimonial of us or our solution if we’ve got any, and provide our contact information in case the meeting needs to be moved.
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called The Prospector’s Academy™ under the brand name Coldcalling101. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations – the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 214 483-5800 or at barry@coldcalling101.com.
September 5th, 2010 at 12:59 am
thanks for keeping me up to date on this subject.