Getting More Appointments

Getting appointments with key customers and prospects is vital in successful B2B sales. It's never been easy, and it is only getting more difficult! In this episode of the Luxury of Choice podcast, host and Senior Sales Trainer Steve Vaughan is joined by two fellow members of the George James training team to discuss approaches, best practice and strategies in getting more face to face meetings with decision makers. 

Steve Vaughan, Jonathan Cooper, Pru Layton, Christian Walter, Pascal le Floche, Jayne Green and Jonathan Slasinski are Sales Trainers from george james ltd. You can email the show at: Podcast@georgejames-training.com

The trainers on LinkedIn:

Steve Vaughan https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-vaughan-salestrainer/
Jonathan Cooper https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-cooper-18716b1/
Pru Layton https://www.linkedin.com/in/pru-layton-b46a3528/
Christian Walter https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-walter-a1857b1/
Jayne Green https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayne-green-salestrainer/
Pascal Le Floch-Riche https://www.linkedin.com/in/pascal-le-floch-220ba46/

Jonathan Slasinski https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-slasinski-449a655/

george james training website https://georgejames-training.com/

Transcript

Steve Vaughan (00:00)
Hello again and welcome to the Luxury of Choice, a sales and business podcast brought to you by the training team of George James Limited. My name is Steve Vaughan. I'm one of the training team here. I'm also the host and producer of this podcast. And today I've got with me two of my colleagues, Jane Green and Christian Walter So Jane, Christian, how are you both? How are things?

Jayne Green (00:21)
Hmm, good thank you. Yes, it's a lovely November day. Which it is. Now it's warm actually.

Steve Vaughan (00:23)
Good?

It's November isn't it? It's grey. It isn't cold though. What's

it like in Switzerland Christian?

Christian (00:34)
It's freezing now, that's why I'm wearing my fleece. Yesterday, this morning, today we had the first frosts, so I think it's slowly turning towards winter. But now it's foggy where I am, but a few hundred metres up on the hills is gorgeous sunshine, so luckily I can go there now and then and soak up the sun.

Steve Vaughan (00:36)
⁓

Jayne Green (00:44)
Hello?

Steve Vaughan (00:53)
right.

Enjoy. We're recording this the day after the 5th of November, so those of the UK know that's bonfire night in the UK, where we celebrate somebody trying to set fire to our politicians. Let's not go there in terms of the current world. You do what, sorry.

Christian (01:08)
I fell into a pond once on bonfire night.

I fell into a pond once on bonfire night because there was lighting, a castor in wheel, in an unknown garden and I stepped back and there was a pond.

Steve Vaughan (01:17)
Okay.

⁓ well it's better than falling forward in one fire I suppose, yeah. What I was going to say before that interesting interruption was when I was a kid, Boston by now was always cold and frosty and now it seems like it's the summer almost anyway, I guess that's global warming. So anyway, we're not here to talk about the weather specifically, although British people were always obsessed by the weather, least Jane himself.

Jayne Green (01:25)
Oops.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (01:50)
What we're going to look at today is a special request, actually. So I want to say thank you to Michelle Mulder, who wrote to us asking for us to do a topic or a show specifically on appointment making. And this is something we've touched on a few times on the podcast. And it's certainly something that comes up over and over again in our sales training. So probably 80 % of the training I'm doing, I don't know about you guys, it comes up as a recurring topic.

people are finding harder and harder to get appointments really. So I think what we need to do really is first of all understand why that is and then what things can we do? know, within the confines of a podcast, we can't do a training course, but what we can do is at least knock around some of the issues and some thoughts as to how perhaps people could try something a little bit difficult, but different perhaps. first of all, what...

you know, is appointment making harder than it used to be? It was never easy, I don't think, even when I first started all those years ago, but has it got harder? And if so, why? What do we think?

Jayne Green (02:53)
I think, it does feel more challenging, I think, at times, but we've got, having said that, I think we've got more tools available to us than when I first started selling. So there's lots of ways to reach out to people, which is actually really encouraging.

Steve Vaughan (03:02)
Hmm. Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah, we've got far more technology than we used to have. ⁓ Christian, you're a bit younger than me. Is it any different than when you started or has it still always been a difficult thing to do?

Christian (03:21)
I'm a spring chicken.

Steve Vaughan (03:23)
Ha

Christian (03:27)
I think it's harder because people are more stressed. I believe intensity levels in laboratories have increased. When I started my career working in a lab, it was pretty relaxed. ⁓ We had lots of time for coffee, lots of time for newspaper reading, and that completely disappeared. think people now are expected to produce results, ⁓ and so they're not hanging around for a sales guide to call them.

Steve Vaughan (03:46)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm sure you're right.

Christian (03:57)
⁓ On the other hand,

as Jane said, think tools are much better. We can do a lot more research. We can find the people more easily. ⁓ But I would maybe like to mention something else. It's also easy to blame that it's hard and complicated. But often it's what we salespeople like doing lease.

Steve Vaughan (04:12)
Hmm, sure.

Great point.

Isn't that right?

Christian (04:25)
the outreach,

the calling of unknown people. It's outside the human comfort zone and sometimes we tend to find excuses why we can't do it.

Steve Vaughan (04:37)
That's so true. Including me in 30 odd years of doing this job. I've never enjoyed cold outreach. Most people don't, I don't think, but it's part of the job, isn't it? But is it cold? To me, cold calling would be picking up a phone directory and going through random phone numbers and ringing people randomly. But we're not doing that, Jane, are It's a bit different to that, surely.

Jayne Green (04:57)
So,

yeah, it's not at all like that, is it? If we've done our research, we know the people that are going to be important to get in contact with, there might be people that we've already spoken to. So we've got to work out why we need an appointment. It might be a follow-up appointment, it might be a first-time meeting, it may be somebody we've met at an exhibition or a conference. And none of these are cold. These are all warm potential people that we know would have a real interest in our products. They're the people that...

wanting to reach out to, you know, so I don't think it's cold and there's ways of actually making that a warmer ⁓ call if we want to do that. And I think, you sometimes we, if we don't want to do a job, we try and get rid of it as quickly as possible so we don't give it as much effort, do we? So if I just want to ⁓ get that job off my desk, I'll try and find the easiest way of doing that. But that may not be the most effective way if I've not given it thought and preparation.

Steve Vaughan (05:53)
Yeah.

Jayne Green (05:57)
So I think the bit that you mentioned to start, know, prepare well for it with whatever method you're going to use. And I think the most of the time, multiple methods worked in in terms of the touch points with that particular person you're trying to speak to work well together, but prepare for them.

Steve Vaughan (05:58)
That's a super point.

Hmm.

And I think we should, we'll explore that as we

go forward. But you're so right. It's what a colleague of mine used to call, it's on the too hard pile. It's that pile of work that you don't want to do, but you know, you've to get around to it and you'll find anything to do that actually stops you doing it. Like getting involved in a, I don't know, a service issue or a finance issue, which actually isn't your job really, but we're getting involved because it looks like I'm busy and I'm not making appointments. sound slightly cynical. I don't mean to make it that way, but I know I've done that myself in the past.

Jayne Green (06:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (06:44)
How can we make cold outreach a little bit warmer then in that case? No matter how, method we use, whether it's phone or email or licking or banging on a door or whatever. How can we make that cold each outreach a little bit warmer, Christian? What kind of things could we do perhaps?

Christian (07:00)
So think we need to research the person and on LinkedIn you typically find a lot of information. You kind of want to connect with somebody so maybe you even check out what they posted, what their company is doing, what their job role in titles. And then you write, that's what typically I do, I write the personalized outreach message, a short email.

If I don't have any other means of reaching a person, of course, the personal introduction is desirable. But if I don't, then I try and create a really personalised, relevant message where I refer to this person's daily work, maybe the research they're doing, maybe the analysis they have to do, maybe the business their company is in. ⁓ Very short, very crisp.

⁓ explain why it is beneficial for us to interact with each other ⁓ and then basically keep it short. Hey, appreciate your reply. Kind regards, Christian. I don't expect a reply.

Steve Vaughan (08:11)
Right. we're not...

Ah, it's interesting. We'll come back to that in a second. But what I see some people doing is doing a whole list of product features and specifications and all that stuff. And surely, Jane, nobody reads it. I wouldn't, certainly, if somebody sent me that kind of email.

Jayne Green (08:26)
No,

absolutely. And it depends on the kind of the character and the personality of the person you're actually reaching out to, doesn't it? Some people will read a whole load of data on an email and some people will go, that's too many words for me. I'll go on to the next email, thank you. So, know, too much information, you know, can also, I think can sometimes be the downfall.

Steve Vaughan (08:39)
True.

TLDR, too long didn't read.

Jayne Green (08:54)
You know, I think one of the things I always, if I'm needing to reach out to somebody on email, having done my research, I want to get to the point really quickly. And then I might want to use some bullet points. The reason I'm contacting you when I've introduced myself is I would like to set up, you know, I'm calling to set up a, or I'm emailing to set up an appointment with you to discuss my value statement, you know, the project that I see that you're working on or the...

Steve Vaughan (09:04)
Hmm.

Jayne Green (09:21)
the funding that I see is become available or the regulation changes that are happening. And I may want to, if I've got a telephone call, a telephone number, I may want to say I'll be calling you later in the week. But I've warmed that caller by sending an email. Of course, if I haven't got a number, I just think I want to get right to the point of why I'm calling. My email is about actually getting an appointment to see you, to speak to you about this area of value.

Steve Vaughan (09:39)
You have, yeah.

Jayne Green (09:51)
us both.

Steve Vaughan (09:52)
Absolutely. that's what I think sometimes we take our eye off the ball on that one really. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get an appointment. We're not trying to sell the product. We're not trying to boil the ocean to use a phrase like, hey, we're actually just trying to get an appointment. That is the objective, isn't it? Is to get a meeting really. And sometimes we sort of almost dance around the topic really, or try and avoid actually saying, please can I have an appointment? But that's what we're doing, isn't it, Christian? That's why we're outreaching it.

Jayne Green (10:04)
Yeah. Yes.

Christian (10:18)
Yes, because I mean, the selling can only happen after understanding the customer's needs. But in the outreach, we need to attract enough attention to create a desire for the customer to meet with us and to interact with us. Be that online in a Teams call or be that face to face. ⁓ I said before, I don't necessarily expect a reply. And I think

Steve Vaughan (10:26)
Absolutely.

Jayne Green (10:26)
Yes.

Yes.

Steve Vaughan (10:46)
Yeah, come back to that. Yeah.

Christian (10:47)
Yeah, maybe I I elaborate, you know, of course, in an ideal world, people reply to emails. But unfortunately, emails keep popping in your inbox and they go down the list until you eventually don't see them anymore. And I think that happens to all of us with the best will in the world. There will be emails we don't answer or you even think, that's interesting. I should reply, will reply. And then you forget it because something else has happened and

Steve Vaughan (11:00)
fully that. ⁓

Christian (11:17)
you're not bored and so people don't necessarily reply to our messages. That doesn't mean they're not interested. And if we then manage to reach them, sometimes they will even apologize and say, hey, yeah, I read your email, but sorry, I didn't reply, it was just too hectic. And that's a perfect introduction to a phone call.

Steve Vaughan (11:42)
Sure, sure. So what about the issue that I hear often now when, know, Jane and I, we were both at a trade show last week and talking to people. And the one I hear often is that customers haven't got phones anymore. People don't have phones. Or if they do have phones, you can't get their phone number anymore. Is that the case? And if so, what can we do about it, I suppose, really?

Jayne Green (12:05)
Well absolutely everybody on this planet has got one or two phones, I have two sitting on my desk right now. But in terms of available phones it can be difficult to get telephone numbers but it's not impossible and I think sometimes we don't ask for them. You know we are very quick to capture emails, I think of exhibitions, so I was recently doing some training pre some exhibitions and just talking about what do you capture on the stand.

Steve Vaughan (12:21)
I think that's right, yeah.

Jayne Green (12:33)
you know, when customers come on and it's like the name and their department and their email address, it's like, well, have we actually thought of actually capturing, you know, a telephone number? You know, is that something that we should just, no. And so, you know, it's just that point of capture how, you know, when I need to get a hold of you quickly and particularly, you know, on stands, there's all sorts of promotions and different things. There's a real opportunity to conference or an exhibition.

Steve Vaughan (12:44)
Wow. And they weren't doing that. Wow.

Mmm.

Jayne Green (13:02)
And most people have got their phones out anyway, and it depends whether they would be prepared to use those. If they've got them, there might be somewhere in the lab or on the bench or in their office. There's likely to be a phone around. And I think sometimes we just stop and we just don't ask or we forget to ask. But I think that there are ways of capturing. I did a chat GPT. Some people will hate that. ⁓

Steve Vaughan (13:23)
I think that's right.

Jayne Green (13:31)
helping somebody the other day. Yes, I know, sorry, it's the one I've gone to. And I was very surprised just putting some details in on a particular area. Sometimes it won't give names, it gave me names, emails, and a few telephone numbers. I'm like, woof, okay, those telephone numbers are in the open domain. So they can be available, we have to try and find them. But I think... ⁓

Steve Vaughan (13:32)
Other AI programs are available dear listener, but yes.

Wow.

We have to try a bit harder.

Yeah.

Jayne Green (13:59)
Yeah, try

a bit harder to find them. think, yeah, they are there. think the challenge, email is great as a tool, I think, to work with email, LinkedIn, or a social platform, and a telephone is a brilliant way. When I first started selling years ago, I didn't have those available to me easily, you know, and actually people that I used to knock on doors, and I used to send an email out and people used to reply because they didn't used to have so many.

emails in their list but the challenge I've got if we send out a quick email to get it off our desk ⁓ that we're trying to speak to somebody what we've created as well is possibly a bit of an admin job for them because one we need to make sure it's delivered, two we want to make sure it gets open that they've actually got to read it and like you say sometimes it is just the fact that they're so busy they may have seen it but they just haven't got capacity.

Steve Vaughan (14:45)
That's right. Yeah.

Jayne Green (14:56)
to deal with that now. So I think that's why telephone number, if we can get it, is really important.

Steve Vaughan (14:58)
Hmm.

What are your thoughts on this Christian?

Christian (15:03)
So,

yes, we should do our very best to get telephone numbers. If we have the chance to interact with the person rather than just scan their exhibition batch, we could actually exchange business cards. Surprisingly powerful, if you hand your business card, you get the business card and on that business card often there's a phone number. I think there is a key.

Steve Vaughan (15:30)
Especially in certain cultures. Yes.

Christian (15:32)
as

a case for a certain old-fashionedness. Then, of course, there are much more modern tools such as Lusha or Apollo or Email Hunter or other online tools that give you phone numbers. Granted, they're not always direct phone numbers. They're not always mobile phone numbers, but they're better than nothing, typically.

Jayne Green (15:46)
Yes.

Yes.

Christian (16:02)
So we can do that. We can ask mutual acquaintances. Maybe we have a sponsor within a company, a friend who used to go to university with us and we can say, hey, I'm trying to reach this person. I don't have a phone number. Could you help me? Perhaps they will. We can ask at reception. It pays off to be friendly to the people at reception.

Steve Vaughan (16:25)
Absolutely, absolutely. And I think what I, know, when the training courses that we run, well, I think sometimes people struggle to understand or to get their heads around is when we're trying to get an appointment, it's not about us, it's about them. You know, we want to get an appointment because we want to get the meeting off and we've got targets to get appointments and visits and things like that as well. So when we make our outreach, whether it's on phone call and email, LinkedIn or whatever, it's...

Jayne Green (16:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (16:53)
It's, you know, can I get an appointment? We've got this great new product. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da

Because I think once we send out the message that says appointment request, can I come and tell you how great we are? If it was me, I'd put my salesperson prevention mode up straight away.

Jayne Green (17:20)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, we've got to have something of value. We've got to have a really valid reason for wanting to use, ⁓ you know, a customer's time. And naturally the products that, you know, most of our listeners will probably be offering are going to be of value to the customers that they're trying to reach out. That's why we've done our preparation. But also we're generally not far away from somebody who knows somebody else. And I think we, you know,

Steve Vaughan (17:36)
That's a great word value.

Correct.

Jayne Green (17:57)
I think if we looked at our networks a bit more thoroughly sometimes, I know that for myself and in the past, if I actually looked at, I could actually ask somebody on the science park over here. So I'm trying to get into somebody over here. Some of my colleagues have gone to work over there. I can give you their contact details. But I think we do need to have that valid reason and something of value. ⁓ And we don't have to be very wordy with that.

Steve Vaughan (18:17)
Fantastic, yeah.

Jayne Green (18:26)
you know, what we, the research we've done, what piques their interest and they'll go, that's interesting. You know, that would be worth my time seeing this person.

Steve Vaughan (18:27)
No, no.

Yeah. ⁓

And that's where the research is so important that we spoke a few weeks ago about preparation, doing the research, understanding a bit about the customer's world or likely scenario, because as you say, it's a relatively small community, you know, it's a big industry, it's a relatively small community that we work in really, and people tend to know everybody, don't they? They tend to get to know, you know, what other people are doing, because they've moved around and they've got different jobs and so on, really. So what other things could we do, Christian? You know, we've got phone calls, we've got emails, what other things could we try in terms of outreach to a customer to get an appointment?

Jayne Green (18:38)
Yes.

Yep. Yep.

Christian (19:07)
Well, we can use Teams, which is actually a bit of a new thing because Teams always only allowed you to call people within your network. But that has changed to degree. So some companies have an open system and they will allow you to call people through Teams. Personally, I feel we should use this rather sparingly.

Steve Vaughan (19:12)
Okay. Tell me more.

Okay.

Jayne Green (19:25)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Vaughan (19:25)
Okay, I didn't

know that. ⁓

Christian (19:38)
Maybe with people who we've contacted before, maybe with people who know who we are, because otherwise it's a bit in your face, it's a bit intimidating. We can also send messages through Teams. ⁓ That's a little bit less in your face, a bit more maybe ⁓ more subtle. ⁓

Steve Vaughan (19:52)
Of course.

Christian (20:02)
We can of course use LinkedIn, connect on LinkedIn, send messages on LinkedIn.

I guess it's a mix.

Steve Vaughan (20:14)
And I think that's an important point

because we do need to be connected. If you and I aren't connected on LinkedIn, unless we've got a premium version of LinkedIn, I can't message you. So we do need to get that connection first, don't we?

Christian (20:27)
Yes, but I would argue that this day and age, sales guys should have a sales navigator license. And I'm not sponsored by LinkedIn, just to make sure.

Steve Vaughan (20:36)
I'd agree.

No way. Well, the cost

is, you know, what is it about 80 pounds? I don't know what it is in dollars or euros, but it's about 80 pounds, I think something like that, which is it in the current world is about a tank of fuel, about 400 miles worth of diesel or petrol, you know, where you might drive somewhere and see two customers drive back, hopefully not. So I think it's money well spent, but not everybody would agree on that one. But. ⁓

But I personally think if it's somebody that I've identified that I really would like to reach out to LinkedIn, I'd still gonna make the effort to get connected with them first, even if I haven't got Sales Navigator. Because if I get like an in-mail message coming into my inbox, I know it's come from like Sales Navigator outreach. I think, well, try a bit harder. That's just a personal view on that one. ⁓ So yeah, please.

Jayne Green (21:17)
Yes.

Thank

Christian (21:32)
Maybe I want to say a few words

about phone calls, if that's all right. Once we actually have the phone number and we pick up the phone and we try and connect and try and get the customer's interest, I think there are certain do's and don'ts. so for me, a do, and I strongly believe in that, is we ask if it's a convenient time to talk.

Steve Vaughan (21:36)
⁓ Cool shit.

Absolutely.

Christian (22:02)
Because

Jayne Green (22:02)
Yeah.

Christian (22:03)
you interrupt people with a phone call, you don't know what they're doing, maybe they were in deep thought, maybe they were writing an urgent report, maybe they picked the phone up in a meeting. So it's courtesy to ask, hey, is this a good time? Have you got a few minutes to talk to me? And then they can react, yes, of course. And then you already have a first ⁓ yes.

Jayne Green (22:20)
Yes.

Steve Vaughan (22:24)
I agree.

Christian (22:30)
which is always good, ⁓ builds your confidence, it helps you to get going. If they say, no, it's not a good time, I will call back later, would this afternoon be okay? Yes, and then he or she expects your phone call. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (22:42)
Yeah, love that.

Jayne Green (22:46)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (22:46)
I love that. Yeah. I know

if our colleague Prue was here, she would say they're not in a meeting because they picked the phone off, but I'm just being slightly, because that's one of the things she always says is, know, if you're in a meeting, why do you pick the phone up? But anyway, but you're right. ⁓

Christian (23:01)
So I'm

from a generation where we always pick the phone up because it could be an emergency.

Steve Vaughan (23:07)
Okay, good point. Yeah, good point. ⁓ One of the phrases I wrote down here in preparation for this session, it sounds a little bit sort of sales speak, but I wrote down micro commitments. And what do I mean by that? Getting those little yeses. As you said, Christian, is it okay to speak now? Yes. Little commitment, know, and, you know, working through and just getting a few of those yeses, Jane, yeah. Just to get that sort of ⁓ buy in, yeah. ⁓

Jayne Green (23:10)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Vaughan (23:37)
Making appointments, I think we spoke about this on our last show, but I think we have to recognize that rejection is still going to happen. No matter how prepared we are and how ⁓ structured we are and how much research we've done, we're still going to face rejection really. ⁓ And if we don't get an email reply from us, if we've sent six emails to this customer, do we give up? Do we keep going again? Do we try something different? How resilient are you when these kinds of things come along?

Jayne Green (24:07)
But I think, you you... ⁓

Christian (24:08)
So definitely,

sorry Chen go ahead.

Jayne Green (24:11)
No, if you sent six emails and you've only sent six emails, it depends, you know, maybe we, yes, the same person, because sometimes we say, I've sent emails to people and they've never got back to me. How many emails have you sent? I've sent two. Okay, right, you know, maybe then there is another email that you can send. like we talked about, there's lots of forums and formats and methods of getting hold of people.

Steve Vaughan (24:19)
To the same person, I mean.

Yeah.

Jayne Green (24:39)
If we can find somebody on LinkedIn and connect with them, I think that's sometimes a good reminder if they've seen an email, but they're super busy and there's things going on or is that email for some random way going into a spam folder? That can happen. We think it's been delivered. They're not replying to me. Actually, for some reason, the way that your email system works does not let this get through to some of your customers. And we know that's the case.

Steve Vaughan (24:54)
That's a really important point. Yeah.

Christian (24:57)
Mm. Mm.

Steve Vaughan (25:08)
particularly with big

organizations. Yeah, yeah.

Jayne Green (25:10)
yes you

know ⁓ so

Christian (25:11)
So use

a mix of communication channels.

Jayne Green (25:14)
Yes, absolutely. You know, I think there's to do and I think sometimes the one we do shy away from is picking up the telephone. If we have got a phone number, sometimes we shy away from it and may that we, you people go, don't like cold calling. It might not be that cold if you've already sent an email and you've got a LinkedIn connection. You know, I think actually sometimes and possibly I'm old school. So I'm used to picking up the phone.

Steve Vaughan (25:15)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't just default to the easiest one for us. Yeah.

Jayne Green (25:44)
But I do know that some people don't like picking up the phone to make a call out. So sometimes we just have to get over that hurdle. Because it's a really effective tool when we do it because we get an instant. We're not waiting for that two or three weeks for the reply on an email or we get an instant yes or no or not now, call me later. Or what I like saying, day, call me later in the week.

Steve Vaughan (25:53)
Yeah, I think that's right.

completely.

Jayne Green (26:13)
absolutely what days are the best ones to avoid. So then I know the days that are out of the option. So I know Wednesday's the killer day for me then that's perfect, you ⁓ But I think sometimes we just don't use that tool enough or we need to use it in conjunction a little bit more or we could do. But it's with us, our phones are with us all the time, aren't they? I carry a hit list.

Steve Vaughan (26:17)
That's a great way to sing it.

love that love that yeah

Well, these supercomputers we carry around in our pockets still make phone calls, think, don't they? I think sometimes we forget that, don't we, Christian? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jayne Green (26:40)
Yes, I do.

Christian (26:43)
So

I there is a joke before that I'm from a generation where we always picked up the phone. I think this has changed. I think there's a distinct change in how how Gen Z uses the phone. I can see that with my kids. They will use it for anything but not for calling people. And I think they will probably only pick up the phone if it's a number they know.

Jayne Green (26:51)
Yeah, it has.

you

Christian (27:09)
So there are challenges and we mustn't underestimate those challenges. I think it's not an excuse. It's not an excuse not to try. It's not an excuse not to attempt to use the phone, but it is something we need to be aware of. And it's also something we need to practice with our sales teams. whenever we do trainings, we will do role plays. We will actually practice making phone calls and

Steve Vaughan (27:14)
No for sure.

Jayne Green (27:29)
Yes.

Steve Vaughan (27:34)
Yeah.

Christian (27:37)
and give each other feedback. One guy plays the customer, one lady plays the salesperson, afterwards the group provides feedback. What went well? What could have gone better? And practice makes perfect. And this is really something we should do. ⁓

Jayne Green (27:50)
Hmm.

Steve Vaughan (27:57)
Yeah, completely. In fact, I know you've the same, Jane, when I've run training courses on appointment making, I've actually gotten to go make some real calls, which we've gone through the training. Off you go, you've got half an hour, go make some real appointments and come back and tell us how it went. Yeah. So, yeah, nobody said it was easy. We shouldn't underestimate the fact that it is a difficult thing to do. It is part of the job though, guys, and having that bounce back ability and resilience to keep at it really.

Jayne Green (28:04)
Yes.

Steve Vaughan (28:24)
not always defaulting to what's the easiest method for us, which is probably an email, because it might not be but the preferred method of the customer. I hate emails that I'm not expecting, frankly. I'm not a great fan of cold calls, but I normally respond to LinkedIn. You know, we're all different, aren't we? Yeah. Any final thoughts on this, guys, that we've missed or any final topics on this? Go for it.

Jayne Green (28:41)
Yeah, yeah.

⁓ definitely. So my pet thing, Steve, here,

and this isn't about maybe trying to get your very first contact with a customer, but if we're talking about generally getting appointments, what I hear a lot is I've spoken to a customer and then they've ghosted me. You know, I've had a meeting, then they never get back to me any of my emails. So my answer to that is have we actually asked at the end of that first meeting,

you know, get in our diary that next step, you know, when can I see you next? So some years ago, I remember when I started with a new company, there was a gentleman at the, I'll just say in Cambridge, just in case they listen, that would be awkward. And I've been told this is a really hard person or place to get into, they're going to be really difficult to get hold of.

Steve Vaughan (29:18)
Super.

Jayne Green (29:41)
So I'd already sort of tried to send an email and try some methods, heard nothing back. And so I thought, do you know what? The service engineers are going in there to do some whole day of maintenance. So I went with them. You know, I wore the polo shirts and went in as a, you know, I carried their bags, basically all the ginormous toolkits, actually. So I went in and lo and behold, I said, can you introduce me to this gentleman?

Steve Vaughan (29:57)
love it.

You

Jayne Green (30:10)
And they did, they introduced me and they just said, actually we've got, this is Jane, you know, new on the patch, would like to say hello. And that was fantastic. It was a great way in because of course they loved the service engineers. So it was a real, really good opportunity to make an appointment. So while you're here, can I make an appointment to come in and see you? I've got my diary, you know, where are we looking at in the next couple of weeks? I know this would be great for me.

And the guy said, yes, that would be fine. So I went in to see him and we had a great meeting. And I remembered all the way through that meeting that he was a difficult man to get appointments with. And so his name was David, is all I will say. And I just said, David, before I leave, I know that you've got a really busy schedule. I would love to be able to put in some time over the course of the year where we can meet up. You how frequently can I get to see you and can we talk? They were a very important customer to us.

He said, I'll see you twice a year in person. You can ring me. And I said, well, I've got my calendar here. Can we schedule those in? We booked three appointments. So we'd covered 18 months worth of appointments. And you know what I loved? It saved me a whole load of admin. So, you know, after every call, after every year, somebody comes onto the stand at an exhibition, we often take the details and we go, yeah, I'll get back to you next week. We could say,

Steve Vaughan (31:11)
testing.

Good to see you.

Of it did, yeah.

Jayne Green (31:34)
Have you got your calendar on your phone right there? Can we schedule a meeting and I'll send you a placeholder? The moment we have that placeholder in, whether they accept it, as long as they don't decline it, it sits in their calendar until that very day as a reminder. So that's my pet favourite way, getting there first, know, follow up every appointment with the next step.

Steve Vaughan (31:39)
Why not? Why not?

super.

I think that's super.

Yeah. Absolutely. There's always a next step isn't there really? I think I've said before on this podcast, my chiropractor does that to me whenever I go and see him when my neck and shoulders bad as it often is. He'll say, you know, have the, he'll beat me up for half an hour. Then he said, I think we'll see you again ⁓ in four weeks time Steve. this, which day, which time? It gives me an alternative clothes. Would you like it in the morning or the afternoon? But he gets the appointment, you know, so final.

Jayne Green (32:04)
No worries.

Yes.

Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (32:27)
Final tip from you, Christian, or final thought from you.

Christian (32:30)
Yeah, so those of us who are selling high value equipment or maybe services that cost an awful lot of money, you're going to need to talk to to C level people to top management. They are even more difficult to reach. ⁓ It's always easier if you have the name of their secretary or assistant. They work wonders. They make miracles happen.

And it is worthwhile to treat them with lot of courtesy and kindness and then they will help you to facilitate the meeting. ⁓ And once you have a meeting with a C-level manager, you have to honor it, even if it falls into your free day or if it is inconvenient.

because of a trip you're planning somewhere else, because rescheduling is a nightmare. So do it, get it, get it done and get the appointment. Do what you want it to achieve.

Steve Vaughan (33:43)
I think there's another podcast there actually for the future, is when we get to see these kinds of people, what kind of things do we do? What kind of things do we talk about? Because what it isn't is a product presentation. can give that as a heads up already. But I think that's a really, it's a give me an idea for a future ⁓ show. But it's a super point really, because these people won't be giving their phone numbers out. If they are on LinkedIn, they probably didn't create their profile. So they're definitely what I would call LinkedIn zombies. They have a profile, but they didn't do anything with it.

So you have to find another way again to see these people. Super point, super point. So we're all gonna be face to face next week. So we've got George James training team catch up next week. So we're gonna be working in a farmhouse in the Cotswolds actually. We've got a couple of days away working on strategy, working on content for 2026 and beyond as well. So it'd be great to actually see you both face to face because we record these remotely. So it'd be great to get face to face and catch up and no doubt have a.

something to eat and a glass of wine as well. So it'd great to do that. If you've enjoyed this episode, dear listener, don't forget to give us a review on Apple and Spotify. We'd be really, really, really grateful if you did, because it does help the show get more exposure to potential other customers and we might be able help other people, who knows. And again, thanks to Michelle for the suggestion for this topic. If you do have a suggestion for another topic, we would love to hear from you.

You can call us, can phone us, you can email us, you can link to your messages, whichever way works for you. We would love to hear from you and please don't be shy. It would be great to hear some more thoughts as to what else we could cover. Christian, Jane, thank you both. See you again next week. And in the meantime, happy selling out there, folks. And we'll talk to you soon.

Christian (35:23)
Thank you very much.

Jayne Green (35:24)
Yeah, bye-bye.