Handling your face to face appointments...

Sgtsavvy, in my experience, when that has happened, I will drop further attempts at followup.

To try and revive their interest, does not position you well, at all. The cases where someone doesn't show, and calls me first, or is very apologetic when I call them, I will try to reschedule..

But to have another employee tell you, "he's just too busy" is too much disrespect.

You can assume there just was not enough motivation there, unfortunately.
I'll add, if this is happening often, you may want to review how you're setting the appt. and what impression they may be getting....also, and I find this is big, not setting appt very far off in the future from the time you talk by phone.

For instance, appts set even a week away, I find are usually too far off - too many other things can intrude on their life in the meantime.
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Bruce NewMedia

thanks bruce, ya its just one of those things i guess, and all i can control is to not let it get to me. Definite feelings of being disrespected though, as he didnt even have the 30 seconds to come and speak with me face to face, despite their being virtually NO orders or business being conducted AT ALL. (Front end anyway, i recongnize their are other backend duties..)

I just have to maintain that i have value to provide for other people, and im not going to spend any more time tyring to offer this business solutions.

I liek what bruce said.

A lot of people try to keep chasing clients. If it's a no-show eff them. Move on with your life. I notice that a lot of them call me back asking what happened. And I ask them the same question... "what did happen?" haha

When you're chasing, they're running. So stop chasing and they'll come to you.

Since I am logged in, I'll offer my 2cents

I have worked with this niche for few months. Restaurant owners/managers are some of the most unprofessional people I have met (I am really talking from experience) unprofessional in sense that they will agree to an appointment but they will have no knowledge of the appointment on the actual date when you show up there.

Its already hard enough to get hold of the decision maker in Restaurant over the phone but meeting them is very hard. Even if you do get a chance to meet them, they have so many distractions that you wont be able to focus on anything.

I am not saying it cant be done but what you have experienced with your first two appointments is the norm in this niche, atleast thats what I found. I wish I could offer you more help but after working my ass off and wasting my time and time of couple of other fellas working with me, I decided to move on to a different niche. If I can find a way to get to the right people in this niche, there is so much money to be made its unimaginable.

If you wanna work this niche, I wouldnt even bother setting up appointments. Your rate of face to face meeting is gonna be same if not better even if you just walk in cold. Either way its going to be a cold meeting anyways if they dont remember the appointment (Again talking from experience here)

I have a lot of experience with personal meetings. I bought a small webdesign company a few years ago, and my mission was to "flip" it. So, naturally I had to learn everything, including selling websites to people who didn't know wanted them

In the beginning I had many similar situations. I would call a prospect but he wouldn't have time to meet me, or he would keep me waiting for half an hour in front of his office etc. Whats even worse. MOST of those prospect either didn't convert to customers or they were very bad customers (didn't pay, didn't have time to finish the project etc).

So, I changed my plans. I simply didn't go to meetings any more but I made the prospects come to my office. If you can make them come to you they are more committed. You are not "begging" them for business anymore, they want something from you. We then converted more than 75% of prospects that came to us.

How do you make them come to you? Thats the hard part In my case we made a free marketing package for prospects. Everyone that came for a meeting got a report worth few 100 euros. I don't know what you do, but im sure there is a way to give your clients something like that.

Free SEO report. Free case study of another customer. Free advertising bonus...

There's a lot of talk on here about only needing to 'sell' the appointment on the phone which is complete crap. Why would you want to sell an appointment that the owner is not interested in only to waste your time when he really doesn't want to meet with you?

Now, I am not saying that's what you did -- we really don't know from your post.

What are you doing to make them interested in wanting to meet with you?

Also..if you are local, don't make exact appointments with restaurant owners -as others have said, they are terrible (I worked in the industry for years). Instead, tell them you'll drop by Tuesday morning (or whatever). Do likewise with a couple of other restaurants within a few minutes drive and then make your rounds - they are typically there everyday but Monday.

Also -- if the dude can't even come out and apologize, as others have said, f' 'em. If he had the runs or something so he was legitimately 'busy' then he will call you back if he is really interested and/or apologetic. If not, forget him.

Part of my meeting routine protocol has always been to email a reminder day in advance with an info cliffhanger if possible, and call aprox. 2hrs prior to confirm our meeting -

If something came up, you can reschedule for another time - or if he is going to blow you off he can do it then...at least it saved you a trip and the time.

If the meet is a "just drop by" you kind of take your chances...Restaurant owners seem to always be distracted.

Anybody have some great ways to pin down the "meet-o-phobes"?
And what do some of you say in your follow-up?

Appointment was setup over the phone.

Thanks for the ideas and encouragement.

And Don, we get it YOU are AWESOME at this... You've done it for awhile. Im just getting going with this, and am finding it is much more interpersonally strategic than maintaining an m-4 and jumping out of airplanes.

Coming along though.

Thanks all for the insight, this place rocks.

Does calling an hour ahead before getting to the appointment a bad etiquette in dealing this type of business? I mean you just want a confirmation that the other end really expects you to be there and you better not screw up his schedule with a no show from your end, right?

To each is own I guess...calling an hour ahead of time is also giving them an opportunity to say:

'I am glad you called..something just came up...'

Just leave the guy a message, I will be at "insert name of restaurant down the street".

You may try to leave a call before you searching him in the restaurant.
You just tell him that you already nearby , how about a coffee or lunch ...
As a seller, you need to be patient. Whoever most patient will be the winner.

2 things

First, how did you get the appointment?
Was it from a phone call?
On the phone call what kind of questions did you ask about them and their business?
What problems or challenges are they having in their business that you can help solve?

If you just called them, read through a basic script and got the appointment but created no desire, or no urgency then you need to change your strategy on how you go about setting up the appointment.

Don’t be in such a rush to set the appointment. Take the time to ask questions and get rapport. Look at it as an opportunity to gather information about them and their business, and to use that information to create desire and urgency.

Second, if he never showed up to the appointment drop him and move on.
Why waste your time trying to sell someone that doesn’t want to be sold? There are too many people out there who ARE looking for what you have to offer, and UNDERSTAND the value that you can bring them.

I am in a sales job right now, where when we have a prospect who isn’t interested or we haven’t done our job properly in building interest and desire in that prospect, the common reaction is aggression. By this I mean the sales person becomes more aggressive and putting more pressure on the person to buy. This can be a big waste of energy, I say can be because yes pressuring someone can work, but then you get buyers remorse afterwards. Of course the better and more efficient strategy is to take your time to gather information about them, their needs, wants, and desires. In this case about them and their business.

Use this as a learning experience and move on to the next person, making sure you focus on gathering information about them and their business creating desire and urgency over the phone, and then set the appointment

Thanks

Shane_K