I’m often asked whether I confirm the Initial Meetings prior to the appointment. Here are the rules I use to determine whether I do or not. A few questions:

1. How far in advance did you set the meeting?
2. Are you confident that you created enough value with the target when you set the appointment for them to look forward to the meeting?
3. Did you send a confirmation with your contact information directly after setting the appointment with your contact information?

If the answer to the first question is a week or less (generally my pattern), I don’t worry about it too much for three reasons.

1. First of all, using the techniques we teach in The Appointment Making Formula™, I’ve sold enough value during the cold call for the target to be looking forward to the meeting.
2. I’ve also asked for an email address after setting the appointment so I could send a confirming email directly after the call.
3. I’ve sent along with the confirming email a document or two that provides some third party credibility for the Caponi Performance Group. (A topic for another day.)

One of the most popular appointment making methodologies on the market is Stephen Schiffman’s. He wrote a book called Cold Calling Techniques (That Really Work!). Some of his techniques still work very well. However, his approach is based using a set of techniques to quickly get the appointment with as little conversation as possible and then getting off the phone. If you do that, there is always the danger that the person will use any secondary contact to cancel the meeting, or at least put you through your paces again to resell it. (As I used to subscribe totally to his methods, I can attest to the worry I had when showing up for appointments without confirming.)

The Formula is based on getting people past their initial knee jerk reaction designed to get you off the phone at any cost and into a short conversation. When you do that, you have the ability to provide enough value to make them truly look forward to the meeting. I’m so sure of the fact that I’ve accomplished making them look forward to the meeting that I immediately ask for their email address (and I DO want that) so that I can send them the confirming email I mentioned above.