Why Your Prospects No Show You (And What To Do About It)
So, you’ve scheduled a meeting with a prospect.
Whether you booked it yourself or your SDR did it on your behalf, you’re looking forward to that chat.
But then, as you wait in the Zoom room, you’re faced with the dread of staring at yourself for 30-minutes wondering what you’re doing with your life. Yikes.
So how do you ensure your prospects actually show up? And if they don’t, what can you do to bring them back on board? Let’s dive in.
Why Buyers Don’t Show Up To Meetings
Understanding why prospects skip meetings is crucial to addressing the issue.
I recently conducted a LinkedIn poll and invited buyers to select their top reasons for no-showing sales reps:
- Lack of Clear Value or Agenda: The prospect doesn’t see the value in the meeting or is unclear about the agenda.
- Feeling Pressured: Some prospects feel coerced into attending a meeting, which can lead to a lack of genuine interest.
- Forgetting or Scheduling Conflicts: Sometimes, life just gets in the way, and the prospect forgets or has a scheduling conflict.
Knowing those are the top reasons we can begin reverse engineering the issue to prevent and deal with no shows.
How We Can Prevent No Shows
1. Set a Clear Agenda
When scheduling a meeting, send a confirmation email that outlines the agenda and the value of the meeting.
Here’s a template:
Subject: Confirmed Meeting on [Date]
Hi [Name],
I’m looking forward to our 30-minute meeting on [Date] at [Time] to discuss your [process].
Here’s the agenda, mind doing me a favor – Look it over and let me know if you’d like to add anything?
– Understand how your business can handle [specific challenge].
– Demonstrate how other customers are using our solution to solve similar challenges.
– Share an initial estimate of pricing.
– Agree on next steps if applicable.
Attendees from our team will be myself and my SDR, Sam. Please let me know if there’s anyone you’d like to include from your team.
Looking forward to speaking with you!
Best,
[Your Name]
I also recommend including a copy of that in the calendar invite (along with an easy to access reschedule link).
2. Avoid Pressuring Prospects
Ensure that your meetings are based on genuine interest and mutual benefit.
Avoid aggressive tactics, especially in cold calls. Focus on understanding the prospect’s pain points and only propose a meeting if it’s clear that it will be valuable to them (they have a problem you can help with).
3. Send Meeting Reminders
To combat forgetfulness and scheduling conflicts, send an automated reminder email on the day of the meeting.
Keep it simple, here’s an example:
Subject: Reminder: Meeting Today at [Time]
Hi [Name],
Just a quick reminder about our meeting today at [Time] to discuss [topic]. Looking forward to our chat!
Best,
[Your Name]
Incorporate these reminders into your calendar invite or scheduling tool.
Also ensure the invite is accepted. If someone hasn’t accepted it’s unlikely they’ll show up. If you see someone hasn’t accepted the invite then edit the invite title to say:
“Please Confirm: [Meeting Title]”
and resend it. This helps ensure they see and accept the invite.
4. Schedule Meetings Promptly
Book meetings within one to two weeks of the initial interest. Scheduling too far in advance can cause the prospect to lose interest or forget about the meeting.
A line I like to use on cold calls to accomplish this is:
“would tomorrow be too soon?”
Setting next steps as soon as possible will also give the benefit of building deal momentum quickly.
If a prospect isn’t willing to meet soon, they may not be very interested. Use this opportunity to gauge their genuine interest and adjust your approach accordingly.
What to Do If a No-Show Happens
1. Give Them a Grace Period
If the prospect doesn’t show up immediately, wait for about 5 minutes before doing anything.
Life happens, and they might be running late.
2. Send a Friendly Reminder
After 5 minutes, send a polite reminder:
Subject: Ready When You Are 😊
Here’s the link to join: [Meeting Link]. Let me know if you’re running late or if something came up.
3. Follow Up with a Call
If 10 minutes have passed and there’s still no sign of the prospect, give them a call. If they don’t pick up, leave a friendly voicemail like this:
Hi [Name], This is [Your Name] from [Your Company]. We had a meeting scheduled for today to discuss [topic]. Let me know if something came up or if you need to reschedule!
4. Wait on The Meeting Until The End
At this point you can assume you’ve been no showed, but don’t close the meeting just yet!
I’ve had buyers show up with 5-minutes to spare apologizing and asking to rebook.
Keep the meeting open, turn off your camera, mute your mic, and get on with busy work (updating CRM, sending emails) for the remainder of the meeting duration.
4. Move The Invite
After 30 minutes, if you’ve had no contact, simply drag the invite to the same time two working days later.
When prompted “would you like to send update emails to existing guests?” include a note that reads like this:
Hey Simon seems like something came up, hope everything’s okay!
I’m going to move this invite to Thursday in case that works better.
If this time doesn’t work for you here are some alternatives:
Thursday: 2pm, 3:30pm, 4:30pm ET
Friday: 9am, 10:30am, 1pm ET
Do NOT for any reason remove the invite from the calendar, if the new time works and they accept you’ve made it easy for them.
If You Still Don’t Hear Back
If they decline then they’re not interested and you’ll need to revert back to the initial booking to diagnose the lack of value.
If you don’t get a response at all, it might be time to move on.
Don’t take it personally—prospects have their reasons, and it’s a part of the sales game.
I’m not a fan of chasing these leads as if they haven’t gotten back to you after:
- A reminder email
- A voicemail
- Moving the invite
Then it’s likely they have no interest in talking with you and instead of something coming up they just decided they didn’t want to attend.
Not only this but they didn’t see it worth their time to show the courtesy of telling you they’re not interested (bad prospect).
Add them to your no-show cadence/list and prospect them or others at the account using the warm introduction:
“Had a meeting scheduled with Simon back in October”
Peace ✌️, love 🫶, and sales success 🙌!
