Avoid the No-Show Trap

Written by Josiane Feigon

Cancelled appointment News alert! That appointment you recently scheduled is about to get cancelled, rescheduled, delegated down — or turn into a No Show. More and more appointments are getting cancelled today than ever before by the skittish, time-challenged Customer 2.0.

They're slippery, noncommittal, and dismissive. They spin around their own orbit on their own time- remember they're crazy busy, self-educated, independent but easily influenced by social peers. So don't take it personally, just use your insight to make appointments stick.

Appointment setting is big business these days. As face time continues to decrease, appointment and meeting requests are on the rise. But as sales cycles are getting longer, and nurturing efforts increase, salespeople are working really hard to make sure commitments stick and avoid the No-Show Trap.

Use these guidelines to keep customers from blowing off your appointments and meetings:

1. On the call, when you first engage with your prospect.

• Ask for less, you might get more. Make sure you request a short amount of time. Forget asking for 60-minute meetings. Instead ask for less than four minutes of their time.

• WIIFM? Why should they spend any time on this appointment? Remember to articulate the compelling reason for this appointment and what they'll gain from attending.

• Pain Identified. Listen to potential pain and the impact of that pain and how your solution can help. This will be your hook to create urgency.

• Target Audience. Remember, No-Po's say yes to meetings but lack power when it's time to say yes to pulling the money trigger. And they travel with an entourage of other No-Po's, so just putting butts in seats is a waste of time.

• Delegate Up, Not Down. Studies show most VP/C-Level executives will delegate an appointment down. Make it worth their time to show up.

• No Tentative Meetings. Getting agreement to a tentative meeting may sound great at the time, but when it's the first to get re-scheduled, you realize you didn't do a good job at creating value.

• Don't Schedule Too Far in Advance. When meetings are scheduled too far in advance, it's too easy for the prospect to forget and turn into a No-Show. Stay within a 21-day window.

2. After the call, once the prospect has agreed to a future meeting:

• Smart Calendaring. Stand out with unique calendaring software. Try Sales 2.0 tools such as Tungle and TimeDriver (included in our Smart Selling Tools for Inside Sales ebook)

• Start Dripping. This is when the education and relationship building starts happening. Put your prospect on a regular drip to receive 2-5 marketing touches before your appointment.

• Work Your Social Graph. Time to check them out. Massage the second-degree LinkedIn contacts to look for some common networks.

• Be Sensitive to Cultural Differences. We are selling in a global economy, and different cultures approach commitment differently. Some say yes, but it really means no because they're being polite. Tune in to differences.

• Invite the Family. Use the appointment date as a way to gather more people from their organization to attend the meeting.

• Include an agenda. Send them a reminder, and help them understand what they can expect from attending.

If you follow these guidelines, chances are you will be successful in booking a meeting and having them show up for it. But if they do cancel, don't take it personally. Broken promises are a symptom of today's chaotic lifestyle. Your meeting is primary in your mind, for they have many other personal and professional priorities, and your meeting may just be another thing to do on a very long list.

Josiane Feigon -
	Josiane Feigon is a pioneer, maverick and visionary in the Sales 2.0 community. As President and Founder of TeleSmart, Josiane is a 20-year veteran and one of the world’s leading experts on developing sales teams and management talent. She provides consulting, coaching, and training solutions for hundreds of Fortune 500 companies whose global Sales organizations range from 20-800 salespeople. Clients such as Agilent, Apple, Cisco, EMC, Genesys, Harte-Hanks, HP, Mercury, Microsoft, Oracle and Verisign consider her an invaluable part of their sales strategies. Email her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Read More >>
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