Should you send out Reminder Emails?

sending reminder emails to clientsAfter months of work, you finally scheduled an online tour or webinar with a large client. You sent him the meeting invite to his Outlook Calendar. He has accepted your invite.

The tour or webinar is tomorrow. Do you send your client an email reminder notice? Or do you just assume that he will be available tomorrow when you call and do the presentation?

There are two schools of thought about this issue –

1). Don’t send the reminder

The thought behind this is that if you send a reminder, the client may use that as an excuse to opt-out. He may have second thoughts about viewing your tour. As a result, your client may send you a lame ass excuse about his cat being ill, or he has a conflict on his calendar, or he will suddenly be out-of-town tomorrow.

Not only are you a believer in the “assumption close,” but you also believe in the assumption meeting, i.e., you take the client’s word that he’s going to show up, so why give him an excuse to bail out on you. You call tomorrow and hope and pray he will pick up the phone and be available for your presentation.

2). Do send the reminder

The thought here is that by sending your client a reminder you are showing him that you a professional. Sure, you know that your meeting invite is on his Calendar. Sure, he accepted it a week ago. However, you know from experience that professionals like yourself are busy. So sending a reminder is your way of being polite.

What would I do?

I would send the reminder. Why? Because by sending him a reminder a day or so in advance you are showing professional courtesy to your client. But most important of all, you want to make sure your client is really serious about viewing your presentation. Let’s face it, not everyone is going to be excited about your product or service as you are. Sure, they may tell you to send them a meeting invite to make you feel good or to save face. But a few minutes before the presentation begins, you receive a last-minute cancellation, or without any advance warning, the client doesn’t appear at all.

In short, you have a “no show.”

We all know it takes time to prepare for a presentation. Like most salespeople,  you already have prepared a set of slides or screens shots in place, and you probably have customized your demo, e.g., adding certain benefits that you know the client will like, or addressing specific pain points that you know the client needs to resolve. But all that work takes time.

Better to know in advance if the client isn’t going to show up, so you can devote more time scheduling other appointments, prepare for other tours, or make sales calls.

And who knows – maybe your client is being honest and can’t view your presentation. No worries. You can always reschedule.

 

Take the Sales Fool Test

Are you a Sales Fool?In celebration of April Fool’s Day, please take the Sales Fool Test. The purpose of the test is to determine whether you are a sales fool or not.

1). Do you forego doing any research on prospects or leads before contacting them?

2). Do you avoid planning your day and instead just start making a bunch of cold calls and sending out cold emails?

3). Do you forget to follow-up on prospects or leads that you have spoken to?

4). Do you avoid entering sales notes and other critical information in your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) database?

5). Do you send out long and boring emails that scream “please delete me?”

6). Do you blame others because you don’t have enough leads or prospects to call on?

7).Do you conduct webinars or online tours without asking attendees what type of information they are seeking about your product or service, or what type of pain points or problems they are trying to solve?

are you a sales fool?8). Do you keep interrupting your clients while they are speaking rather than spending the time listening to their concerns?

9). Do you constantly bad mouth your competitors to your clients rather than focus on your strengths?

10). Do you avoid learning more about sales because you feel that you are already an “expert”, or you don’t need to read books, blogs, articles, or attend workshops or seminars to improve your craft?

If you answered yes to a couple of these questions, you are not a sales fool, but it would be a good idea if you brush up on your skills.

If you answered yes to half of these questions, you are a border-line sales fool who needs to seriously learn more about your craft.

If you answered yes to all of these questions, you have no business being in sales and I recommend that you find other employment.

There you have it! The Sales Fool Test. How did you do? Please let me know.

Happy April Fool’s Day!