Preventing “No Show” Sales Calls Before They Happen.
Posted by
Chris Lang on Thu, Jan 12, 2024 @ 11:19 PM
No show sales calls are like let down movies. (Hangover 2) You get all fired up when you see the preview (lead write up) only to be completely let down because you wasted time on nothing. I use an hour and a half for a sales call, 30 minutes of prep, 45 minutes of talk time and 15 minutes of note taking. When someone doesn’t show we not only lose the potential of sale, we lose the other calls that we put off to take the current one. Going back to the
movie analogy, it’s like seeing Hangover 2 when Shawshank Redemption was playing at the same time. If you’re the person running the teleprospecting team, you have to worry about not only the lack of forecast that is to come, but also the risk that you will lose the sales team’s confidence. A couple of bad leads in a row and studies show that sales follow up efforts drop quickly.
So what to do!?
A big contributor to a high no show rate is poor/no lead qualification. It doesn’t necessarily have to do with the fact that they are unqualified. When a prospect gets booked for a meeting without having been fully qualified, there is a good chance that not enough dialogue has taken place to peak the interest of the prospect. While of course the main objective of a calling campaign is to find opportunities, we also have to remember that the teleprospecting reps are the first step in the sales process. Their job isn’t to just book an appointment and get a few low level questions answered. They also have to be able to communicate the value proposition and have a business conversation that will get the prospect fired up for the next call. Decision makers have very little time on their calendars. How much do you expect them to invest in a call that they aren’t excited for?
The other reason that no shows take place is because they are booked too far in advance. I have had inside sales reps tell me that they just passed me the “Best lead in the universe”. This may be true at the time it is passed, but even the best lead in the universe is shaky if it is booked over a month out. Frankly, the prospect just loses their level of excitement over time. Have you ever ordered something that you saw on TV (possibly after a couple glasses of wine, no one’s judging) only to get it a month later and say, “Why the hell did I order a beer making kit?” In the time that passed from you agreeing to make your own beer and the present, you have totally lost your interest in the product (and you’re sober). Try to book your leads within 2 weeks from the last conversation, and if you cannot avoid a longer time period make sure the inside rep follows up with a reminder before the date to ensure the prospect stays excited about the meeting and doesn’t forget why brewing beer is awesome.
To recap: Don’t book calls with unqualified leads, don’t book calls with leads too far out, Hangover 2 was awful and Shawshank Redemption is the best movie of all time.
