As SDRs, it’s imperative that we keep our no-show rate to a minimum.

Does this situation sound familiar? After a long and strenuous day of cold calling you finally convince that top prospect to take a meeting. You send over the calendar invite and and wait a few days for the meeting date.

The time arrives, you hop on to the Zoom, and then…crickets. The prospect never shows. You never hear from them again.

No-shows can be a momentum killer and are an unfortunate waste of time for both you and your Account Executive. While they are impossible to completely eliminate, there are a number of steps you can take to decrease the frequency.

Check out these tips on how to make sure your prospects don’t just show up to your meetings, but are excited to show up for your meetings.

Schedule meetings no more than 2 weeks out

A good rule of thumb to reduce your no-show rate is to avoid scheduling anything more than 14 days out.  Any longer than that, the prospect may lose interest and perhaps even forget the conversation that you had.

Keep your conversations top of mind and schedule the meeting as soon as possible. The sooner the better!

Don’t hang up the phone until the prospect accepts the invite

Do you ever send an invite over and the prospect never accepts? When this situation occurs, the event is never solidified on their calendar, meaning there’s a much higher chance the prospect won’t show up.

As soon as someone agrees to a meeting, send over a placeholder calendar invite, and ask the prospect to “let me know you got it by hitting accept”. 

You can always update the meeting information after the prospect accepts.

Be as detailed as possible when adding meeting information

Now that you’ve sent over a placeholder invite and the prospect accepted, it’s time to fill in the rest of your meeting invite.

The key with meeting invites is to be as personal as possible, make sure the prospect can read the description, and immediately recall the conversation. Did they mention a specific problem? Did they talk about their current process? Use this information to your advantage!

It’s a great idea to use their language in the invite and reiterate their pains. Summarize what they told you on the call and emphasize what you plan to talk about, and how you might be able to solve their problems.

Avoid talking about what your product/services does. Instead, try to focus on the outcome and what problems you can solve for them.

Send a follow-up email after your conversation and the day of the meeting

While a meeting invite is a helpful reminder, it’s always a good idea to take that extra step with a personalized message to summarize your conversation.

After you get off the call, send a personalized message thanking them for their time and summarizing your conversation. Keep it clear and concise.

Pro tip: For those extra top prospects, send a personalized Vidyard. Mention how you wanted to put a face to a name and that you’re excited to reconnect.

Come day of the meeting, send another email to the same thread with the meeting link “so they have it handy” and also mention how excited you are to connect again. 

The key with these follow ups is to keep the conversation top of mind and re-emphasize any pain points that they mentioned on the call. 

Don’t give too much information away on the cold call

While it’s vital to answer all your prospects’ questions, if you give away too much information on the initial call, they may not be incentivized to show up for the next call.

Think of the cold call as a movie trailer. It contains all the most exciting and important parts of the movie, but not every single detail about the storyline. 

Use this same format when connecting with your prospects. Talk about the key takeaways that you offer and get the prospect excited, then let the next call fill the gaps with the rest of the details.

Conclusion

While the unfortunate reality is that no-shows are an inevitable part of sales, the good news is that there are steps you can take to combat this.

By using the techniques mentioned above and understanding how they fit into your current process, you’ll be well on your way to reducing your no-show rate. 

Happy hunting!

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