Ryan Dohrn addresses a sales rep ghosted after 70% of meetings. He recommends recording calls to find where things break down, then immediately scheduling the next check-in on the spot with a calendar invite. Ask how they prefer contact if they miss it, a signal that skipping has consequences.
Hey friends, Ryan Dohrn here, your global sales coach. How's it going? How's 2021 moving for you? Just remember, you control you. So don't let what everything that's happening in the world slow you down. Find your sales mojo and get out there and get something done. Thanks for your listener questions. All right. This question comes from Wendy in Albuquerque. And Wendy asks, she says, hey Ryan, I am totally bummed out. Sorry, Wendy. Totally bummed out. I'm getting ghosted. About 70% of the time after meetings. Please help. Okay, Wendy, this is going to take more time than what we have for these little videos, but I'm going to dig in fast and furious and we'll figure something out. All right, 70% of the time is a lot. So if you're getting ghosted 70% of the time, some— something's off when you're hosting these meetings. So if you're getting plenty of meetings, you get to the meetings and you're getting ghosted this much, something is happening at the end of your meeting or on that meeting. So what you want to do is either record the meetings, take your phone, set it in your lap, and then record the meeting so you can listen back to it later, maybe with a trusted colleague or something like that. Or you're losing control of the follow-up process. Now for me, one of the most important parts of the sales call is that last slide or that last conversation where you're talking about follow-up. So here's what I like to say. And then Wendy, I'll just pretend that you're my customer. I would say, Wendy, thank you so much for the time today, and thank you so much for thinking about this. I sure appreciate it. In an effort to not be one of those pesky salespeople that's going to call you 10,000 times and send you 50,000 emails, I'd love to just set up a date for a quick check-in where we can get on the phone for like 5 minutes. If your answer is yes, great. If your answer is no, it's okay. If your answer is I need more time, not a problem. I'd love just to get that date on the calendar so that I don't have to bother you to try to set a follow-up meeting? Can we just put that on our calendar? Make sure you always set the follow-up on your calendar and their calendar. Send them an invite while you're sitting there before you leave that meeting. But here's another step that a lot of people forget about. I'll say this to them, if for some reason we miss each other, which is sort of me psychologically saying, If you stand me up for this date, I'm going to— there's going to be consequences. If for some reason we miss each other, what's the best way for me to follow up with you? Is it smoke signals? Is it a carrier pigeon? Is it a text message? What's the best way for me to follow up with you should we miss each other? What you're doing is you're psychologically putting them on notice that there's consequences if you happen to miss each other. Control the follow-up, Wendy, and I think you're going to have a lot more success. Now, it may not just be that. You might need to record that meeting and need some coaching. Maybe there's something happening on that meeting, like you're scaring them. Maybe you're asking them the question I never ask: what's your budget? Okay, that's not a good question to ask. So many better questions. Something's off in that process. I very rarely hear from somebody that they're getting ghosted 7 out of 10 meetings. Something's off. Either in your follow-up process and what's happening on that meeting. So Wendy, reach out to me. Always happy to give you the first 30 minutes of my time free of charge. All right, friends, never forget, if sales was easy, everybody'd be doing it, and they're not. So we're either crazy or we found careers that'll feed our families for a lifetime. If I can be of help to you, reach out over to me at the website ryandohrn.com. All right, friends, take care. We will see you next week.
