All of the work that you’ve done leads to one single point: the sales meeting. From prospecting to qualifying to follow-ups, it all leads to your chance to pitch your product or service to your lead.
After all, this is when you finally get to sell. Now you have the chance to see all of your hard work pay off in the form of a commission and a satisfied new customer.
If your goal isn’t to book more qualified sales meetings, it probably should be. However, sometimes when we’re in the middle of it, it can feel difficult to know why we’re not seeing the results that we want.
If you struggle to book more qualified sales meetings, or you’re interested in a few tips and tricks to book even more, here are the seven easy steps that you can follow and see results.
7 Easy Steps to Setting More Qualified Sales Meetings
1. Start with a plan.
The key to setting more qualified sales meetings is to plan. Without a plan, you end up shooting in the dark. You won’t know whether you’re hitting your targets, because you don’t know where your targets are.
Creating a plan will also make it possible to determine whether the steps you’re taking are working or not. A scattershot of new techniques without any follow up or follow through isn’t going to bring in results.
A targeted approach is the best way to narrow down on what’s effective – and what’s not.
2. It’s about qualifying out as much as qualifying in.
When you want to book more qualified sales meetings, it makes sense to focus on quantity. But you shouldn’t forget quality. Not only is asking for a half an hour meeting a huge commitment to your leads, but it’s also a lot of time for you.
You want to ensure that the qualified sales meetings that you’re booking are just that: qualified.
Targeting your attention to people that need your product or service will help you conserve time for the leads that are most likely to buy.
In the end, the number of meetings you schedule doesn’t matter if they’re all dead ends.
Asking qualifying questions will help you determine who is a good fit for your product or service.
If you want general guidelines about how to ask effective sales questions, you can check out this article on the 7 tips you need to know.
3. Ask for introductions.
As any marketer knows, word of mouth is like gold. It’s when your customers do the work of marketing your brand for you. For salespeople, the equivalent is introductions.
What do introductions do? They engender trust.
Your prospect will be instantly more amenable to your ideas, thoughts, and sales pitch because they will transfer the trust they have for their peer or colleague to you.
Why are people hesitant to take sales meetings?
Because, frankly, no one likes to be sold to. Now is your chance to show that you’re different. You’re not here to make a sale. You’re here to fix a problem.
4. Use psychology to get them saying ‘yes’.
This is a handy little trick that’s probably been used on you and you didn’t even notice. Have you ever walked through a mall and the salespeople at the kiosks in the middle will ask you a question?
That’s actually a psychology trick. They’re hoping they can get you to say ‘yes’ to something little.
Humans are more likely to say ‘yes’ to a bigger ask when they’ve already said ‘yes’ to smaller asks.
You can try a similar trick as well. Ask your prospect for help. It can even be something as small as, “I’d love to get your insight on X.” People can’t help but want to show their expertise.
These tricks can put you on the road to more qualified sales meetings.
5. Position yourself as an expert.
Let’s face it – outbound marketing is hard. Cold leads are the hardest to convert of all. It’s much easier to sell to someone that comes to you. One great way to get prospects to search you out is to position yourself as an expert in your industry.
How you do this might depend on your strengths, but it can range anywhere from speaking at industry conventions to writing informative articles. Not only are you creating value for potential customers, but you’re making yourself visible.
When people see you offering advice and solving problems for free, they’ll be more interested to hear what you can do for them with a little investment.
6. Leverage technology to make your work easier.
One of the great things about selling today is that you can pass off a lot of the grunt work of lead mining to computers. At the end of the day, sales is a numbers game. The more prospects you contact, the more qualified sales meetings you’ll book.
You don’t have to limit yourself to the number of calls you can make in a day. In fact, research shows that sales reps only spend about a third of their day on sales tasks. The rest of the day is bogged down in administrative work.
Amplify the amount of time you have to sell with software solutions like Growbots. Growbots can help you find prospects, reach decision-makers, and supercharge your time for maximum results.
7. Make sure to ask for a meeting.
Sometimes this step is so incredibly obvious that we completely forget to do it. As the saying goes, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
Make it a point to ask for meetings at the end of a call (if it’s appropriate) and be specific.
A Harvard University psychologist found that people were 34% more likely to let someone cut them in line if they explained why they needed to cut. So not only do you want to offer a time and date, but you also want to say why you want the meeting.
For example, your ask might sound something like, “Are you available for a 20-minute meeting on Wednesday at 10 am? I’d like to talk to you about how we could increase your employees’ productivity by 12%.”
What is your tip for booking more qualified sales meetings? Let us know in the comments below.