Why should you ask for a next scheduled step at the end of a meeting?
You might be thinking, “Can’t I just plan to call the person I met with in a few weeks?”
There are 4 very good reasons why you should consider securing a scheduled next step at the end of each and every meeting.
1. Get a Reaction
At the end of each meeting, good or bad, you are going to get a reaction. And depending on what you ask at the end of the meeting, you will get different reactions.
For instance, if you were to say, “Do you mind if I call you in a few weeks?” or “Would you mind if I came back tomorrow with the contract for you to sign?” You would certainly get two very different reactions.
However, by asking these types of questions,you won’t get the response you’re looking for.
Remember, sales come from getting people to commit and say yes to the question: “Can we schedule the next step?”
2. Better Selling
The very nature of asking for a next step prompts you to have a discussion about what’s going to happen.
This allows us to find out important factors like: Who will be at the next meeting? What will we be discussing? What material should we bring? What will we be evaluated on? And finally, what will the next step be after this meeting?
As a result, you end up having a better action plan for what’s happening and what to expect next, as well as, allowing both parties to get to know each other a little better.
The gist: securing a scheduled next step creates better meetings.
3. Shorten Your Sales Cycle
The downside of not securing a scheduled next step is that you will inevitably play phone tag with the person you’re trying to reach.
Why?
Because if there isn’t a scheduled next step on this person’s calendar, then the chances of them being at their desk and ready to speak with you at the exact moment you call is slim to none.
Now, you may get lucky, but why take the chance of extending your sales cycle?
The less distance there is between meetings, the shorter the sales cycle, the more they remember you, and the more the sale gains momentum and you can gallop toward a closed deal.
4. Territory and Account Management
Now that you’ve secured the scheduled next step, the meeting can go one of two ways.
If the meeting goes poorly and they decide not to move forward, then you need to replace this prospect.
On the other hand, if the meeting goes well and it looks like the deal will close, then that’s good news!
However, the bad news is that you’ve just lost your best prospect.
The perfect time to replace this prospect is before you lose them. In order to do this, you need to practice good territory and account management.
For example, if you will already be visiting company XYZ, then why not select leads who are in that area? And if you’re working with existing accounts and you know you will be speaking with Mr. Smith on the 17th floor at 1:00pm, you know that you have other time slots available to see other people in the building that you may not have met previously.
If you want to shorten your sales cycle and actively keep deals moving forward, at the conclusion of each and every meeting, you must secure a scheduled next step.
*Originally published in 2015, updated in 2020.
