How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love No-Show Calls
When it comes to sales, I didn’t see these two observations coming when I started my business ownership journey a little over a year ago:
I like holding sales calls much more than I thought I would — after being a sometimes-direct seller as a marketing director for several small businesses, and feeling pressure to deliver for my boss.
Perhaps more surprising now that 100% of my income falls on my shoulders — when someone blows me off for a prearranged discovery call, I’ve gotten less concerned about any time lost over time.
As I recently shared on LinkedIn in the context of a partnership deal falling through, every negative has a positive flip side. So what is it about #2 above that actually sometimes makes me giddy when a lead no-shows for a call?
It’s all about the plan
First, I want to emphasize that I’m talking about prearranged calls, as I mentioned above. Whether I use virtual networking or some other means to warm up a lead — using a permission structure to get on his or her calendar — this is about calls where both I as a seller, and the other party as a buyer or potential referral partner, have pre-approved the meeting booking. In the rare cases where I book on a lead’s public business calendar and it’s a completely cold booking, I don’t hold it against the lead if he or she doesn’t show up for the call time that I requested.
That said, a no-show for a mutually prearranged call energizes me because I know that I can jump to things like:
Identifying and signing up for new virtual networking events, and/or signing up for future events in an event series I’ve attended before
Following up with leads and other contacts who can help me that I’ve met at recent networking events, if I’m behind on this
Doing more homework for upcoming one-on-one calls with ideal clients
Building out my social media content
Brainstorming new products and services to offer
Digging deeper into sales and analytics reports for existing products and services to optimize them further
Identifying more podcast guest opportunities and reaching out to them (my first podcast guest spot will air in a few weeks and I’m so excited for it!)
Identifying and trialing tech solutions to help me do more in less time
Of course, anything from the above list is what I fall back on if I’m caught up on work with active clients. If I’m not, then I get back to work because closing out client jobs is the best thing for my Accounts Receivable department — which at this point is also me. 😉
Here’s the point
If you have a go-to list of high-value tasks to fall back on once you know a call lead has ghosted you, you can take comfort in the fact that you can still use that time to grow your business. If that person later follows up and rebooks with you, it’s a bonus (at least in my book).
And remember: a missed discovery call is not necessarily the end of your relationship with that lead. If you got your lead’s permission on your meeting booking form, you can put him or her into your CRM, which might have as the next step sending one or more case studies. A solid, post-first call email drip campaign has a very good chance of securing you a future call with your initial no-show lead.
When you do connect with a lead on a discovery call…
Most first calls with leads are 30 minutes. If you have your pitch down — and it’s a strong pitch that has sold you before — then you’ll probably be at the 15-minute mark when you’ve concluded it. What do you do at this point if your lead is a No or a Maybe?
Listen. If your lead is on the quieter side, then ask follow-up questions and listen to his or her responses. In this recent post, I talk about how doing this on customer or client discovery calls can help your business in multiple, multidimensional ways.
