How to Empower Your Leads and Schedule More Sales Meetings
When it come to sales, the name of the game is communication. The better you are at communicating value with potential customers, the more likely they are to buy.
It is important to remember three things:
- People like buying
- People like feeling in control
- People don’t like being sold to
In order to deliver on these three things, you have to talk to customers on their time, on their schedule — all so they feel in control when they want to move forward. Don’t waste your time chasing them down for a meeting when they don’t want to have — simply empower them to select a time, at their convenience, that works for them.
The process of getting in touch with a lead and scheduling a meeting time suitable for both parties can consume all of your time — and more importantly, your prospect’s time.
Calendar scheduling tools increased our productivity dramatically, and empower our customers. We spend less time going back and forth trying to schedule a call, and we simply empower our customers by sending a quick link.
We’ve moved to a practice of inbound sales, and it’s paying off in a big way.
Not so fast, Blake.
Changing the Way We Think About Sales Meetings
Much like the marketing world is in the midst of a shift from outbound marketing to inbound, the way we handle sales and sales meetings is evolving. Gone are the days where the seller pushed a sales meeting on a prospect until he reluctantly agreed, and gone are the days of “my people will get in touch with your people.” Well, sure, they’re not entirely gone, but those practices certainly feel uncomfortable and clunky now.
The psychology of using calendar schedulers to automate the time-booking process has been very powerful for us — customers pick the time they want to meet, and we just show up. It's on their terms, allowing both parties to come to the table and have a discussion about something each finds valuable. These conversations typically go much further than those where the prospect comes in already worn down by the back and forth. They are primed to think of our engagement as a partnership and not merely as more money coming out of the pocket.
Tools We Like
A few appointment scheduling tools we recommend are Calendly, YouCanBook.me and Doodle. Calendly’s interface, integrations and features are top-notch, and it’s great for organizations with both large and small sales forces.
Time Savings Pay Dividends
There is something extremely satisfying in avoiding wasting anyone's time with calendar scheduling. This goes for both sides.
With that hassle out of the way, you’re able to focus your time spent speaking to that client on what matters: proper nurturing and making sure you understand how to address their needs. And, while you’re speaking with them, your calendar sits in the background scheduling valuable meetings for you and lining up the next call — consolidating what used to be a constant juggle of conversations into just a couple clicks for the user and one organized calendar for yourself.
The value of this time saved compounds until you’re eventually able to hold double, even triple the number of conversations you had before. Now the only limiting factor is the size of your sales force, and not the efficiency at which they can move from meeting to meeting.
Now Go Convert
With one of these tools in use, an increase in the number of meetings you’re able to get on the books is immediate. You’re now giving the client a direct call to action, and allowing them to schedule a meeting in the moment — right when they’re most interested and warm to your services. You remove the cool down period caused by the game of back and forth.
However, just because you have the means to get more meetings on your calendar, doesn’t mean you’re automatically going to close more sales. It’s still up to your team to follow through with the prospective client and finish the deal. Continue to nurture leads with marketing automation even after they’ve scheduled a meeting, and craft a killer sales pitch to comprehensively address their needs and needs they may not even know they have.
Remember, inbound sales has changed the game. It’s now your responsibility to solve problems for clients, not just push your services. Removing the scheduling roadblock is a simple but powerful gesture.
