Prospects Archives – Lead Liaison

What are the dangers of no-shows?

You have a limited amount of time to sell during the week. Every time you set aside a block of time and there is a no-show, you lose 5% of your income for that week. If and when you do reschedule, you have lesser value and a lower perception of importance to the prospect as you appear to be the needy one in the relationship. You have also lost out on time spent chasing other opportunities.

Top reasons for no-shows:

Rare and tragic personal issue/illness. It happens – people get sick and are unable to come to the office. With this, I would suggest a different strategy.

You didn’t create importance and interest in the meeting. Thus, other things became a higher priority.

The prospect lacks the ability to buy. Though they were curious about your offering, you failed to qualify if the buyer had the ability to buy your product if you were able to show them a path to success.

The prospect does not respect your time as a professional because your introduction was weak.

How do you combat no-shows?

Pre-qualification. By asking a lot of probing questions before the meeting, you are letting your prospect know that your time is important. You are also letting them know that you see a potential fit between their need and your capabilities. Lastly, you are letting them know that your meeting isn’t just a “getting to know you” session; but instead a bonafide opportunity to fix their pain points. It’s an opportunity that they can afford to invest in and execute.

Every introductory sales meeting should have a defined, but simple agenda. This agenda can be provided as a friendly reminder of the sales call the day before the meeting. This way, the prospect can fill in any blanks or important points that they may want you to address in detail. It’s also a great way to find out if other people will be attending the meeting from their side.

When someone does no-show, send a simple note letting them know that you arrived but they were not available. Instead of chasing a no-show prospect, put them into an automated workflow to educate and build their interest. If they are serious about doing business with you, they will suggest another time for a meeting. If they no-showed because they lack attention/interest/desire/action (AIDA), they are probably going to be in the same situation a week from now. Recognize that you scheduled your discussion too early in the process and start over. It’s your job to rebuild AIDA through education that does not require a lot of your time. The exception to this rule is personal tragedy/illness. In those cases, be human and let them know that you are available to talk again if/when their situation clears up.

Note: This is a very simple workflow that you can enact with Lead Liaison’s Marketing Automation or Sales Enablement solutions. With the push of a button, I cancel my meeting and put the prospect into a very simple/well-thought-out flow which benefits both the prospect and the salesperson.

One last note. I know that a lot of business development people are going to turn to ask what should you do when a prospect fills out a “contact us” form, or asks you for a meeting? These opportunities can be huge home runs, or fool’s gold. The first thing that I do in this situation is use a solution like Lead Liaison’s ProspectVision™ to better understand how much the client knows about my company. I want to know how they were referred to my site (was it a partner, an article, a search engine, etc?). I also want to know what the prospect knows about me. For example, if they have spent hours and researched dozens of pages on my website (including the pricing page) before calling me, then they have essentially pre-qualified themselves. On the other hand, I am always wary of prospects that know little about my company but want a demo/discussion. Such prospects are likely to set up dozens of meeting with dozens of competitors simply to learn, with no goals or buying decisions on the horizon. In such situations, cancellations are very likely. Again, through a simple ProspectVision™ analysis, I’m often able to identify and overcome potential no-shows before the happen.

To see a personalized demonstration of the solutions we offer to combat no-shows, let us know about your interest here!

Let’s talk about CRM objects for a minute. If you look at most major CRMs like Microsoft Dynamics or Salesforce.com, you’ll notice a few different objects: Leads, Contacts, and Accounts. But then look at marketing automation like Lead Liaison and you’ll see one object: Prospects. Does this mean that the two systems are incompatible? Not at all.

This is where Account Based Marketing (ABM) meets Inbound Marketing. You probably use ABM marketing when you’re bringing in new accounts. To get in, you find your suspect (Lead); then, you build a relationship with them and build rapport (Contacts); next, you qualify them by learning about their organization and meeting the key players (Account); eventually, your proposal is out and you have an opportunity in your sales funnel.

Still not seeing the connection? Here it is: at the end of the day, all of these objects represent people.

We use Inbound Marketing to connect with those people and build a personal experience. It’s this kind of relationship building that will get you into those big accounts. That’s how you go from having a list of suspects to a list of Closed-Won opportunities.

Now, let’s look at those CRM objects and learn about marketing to the people behind them.

Leads

Leads are people that you think might be your entry point to an account. They have the right job title, the right industry, and you think your service could benefit them. However, you don’t really know them yet. Maybe you got their card while cold calling, briefly met them at an event, or even just got their name off a list. It’s going to take some time before you can even think of writing that proposal!

As a marketer, these are the people that will need some love. They might not have even heard of your organization before. You’ve got to create content that will appeal to them and bring them to you. You can’t just rely on sending them an email blast; there’s a good chance they won’t even read it. Create a blog, send them videos, interact on social media. Every different type of content you have is another way to get them to your website.

And if they do make it to your content, how will you know? Luckily, Lead Liaison makes this super easy. Through visitor tracking and our powerful lead qualification tools, you can find out what your Leads are responding to the most.

Contacts

When you’ve finally made a connection with a Lead, it’s time to convert them into a Contact. Contacts have shown at least some interest in your organization, and you know they are a good starting point. Not all of them will be the decision maker either; anyone in B2B sales can tell you that building a good relationship with an influencer will eventually get you to the right people.

It’s time to get personal. You’ve learned more about these people, and you should know what interests them. Stop sending them generic marketing material! For contacts, it’s important to use nurture campaigns that are relevant. Through Lead Management Automation™, you can create personalized content automatically from the prospect owner. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Accounts

Accounts are the actual organizations you’re targeting. Chances are, you’ll be working with more than one contact at the account level. Don’t be fooled though; it’s no less personal here than it was with Leads and Contacts. To be successful in ABM marketing, you’ve got to prove to your Contacts that you know and care about their company. You’ve also got to keep track of the moving parts. Who needs to sign off on the deal, who handles the budget? The Account object gives you a consolidated place to organize that.

Each person in this account needs something different. What’s great is that like Contacts, you can personalize your content through Lead Liaison using attributes like their company, job title, and area of interest just to name a few.

Want to look really cool? Through SiteEngage™, you can create custom rules that change what is displayed on your website! Imagine how awesome it would be if someone from your biggest account visits your site and gets a banner with a special video produced just for them.

Prospects

Like we said before, people are at the core of both ABM and Inbound marketing. Through our deep integrations, we take all of the information we know about a person from all three objects and create a Prospect Profile. Then, you can use any piece of information for segmentation, automation, personalization, and more. Heck, we can even trigger automations based on a prospect being upgraded from a Lead to a Contact.

Through Lifecycle Stages, we keep track of the prospect’s journey. You can always tell where your prospects are in the funnel, and give them the right kind of marketing. Lead Management Automation™ powered by Lead Liaison is the perfect complement to your CRM.

Schedule a demo today to learn how Inbound Marketing can get the most out of your ABM strategy.

Tag Archive for: Prospects

Why Do People No-Show for Sales Appointments?