You have just finished the best sales presentation of your life yet, you are walking out that door without an order. To make matters worse, the last words out of your prospect’s mouth were “I’ll get back to you.” Maybe they will. More likely they won’t. What are you going to do? Your only reason to go back is to ask if they are ready to buy and you can do that via email or by phone. Dohhhhh!
Never, NEVER leave a meeting without scheduling the next one. How and why are you going to do that? The simple answer is, always have a valid reason to go back and that reason had better include the necessity for a face-to-face meeting. By that I mean, your next meeting can not be accomplished via a phone call, a fax, the postal service, or an email.
What are some very valid reasons for setting another meeting?
- Your customer has requested additional information that you do not have available at this time.
- The customer asked you a question to which you did not have the answer. Yes, I know that this will entail you having to say “I don’t know” but, what the heck is wrong about that?! It shows that you are human and you also now have the opportunity to demonstrate that you can actually follow-up and follow-thru. I was working with a customer on sales training a couple of months ago and we were discussing this very same point. He said … “I’ve noticed that you do this a lot.” I said “O.K. and …?” He replied … “Lots of people have told me that they are not sure about something and that they will get back to me but, you are the only one I have seen who actually does it.” Good grief! Lame, lame, lame.
- You will have more information that you think will be of interest to your customer and we will need to schedule another meeting to present it.
- “Damn it! I forgot to bring …. “x”. My apologies! Can we schedule a meeting next Tuesday and then we can go over that?” Even if you didn’t forget something, you have now 🙂
The critical thing is … sales are generally made face-to-face, nose-to-nose, and toe-to-toes unless you are hampered by geography. This is your opportunity to get more of this precious time and every time you do, your chances of actually closing this sale will increase dramatically!
