How many meetings does it take to close a sale?
We all want B2B sales cycles to be as fast as possible, right? But what does that mean when we are selling in solutions that have long sales cycles, and require multiple meetings? How many meetings do we need?
I got asked this once on a webinar, and I admit it stumped me a bit. Because the answer is; it depends.
What impacts the number of meetings?
The number of meetings you need will be impacted by the size and complexity of what you are selling, and of the organisation you are selling into. Some things just take more explaining than others, and some organisations are more difficult to navigate than others.
But the thing that determines how many meetings you need more than anything else, is the strength of your relationships with the right people.
Strength of Relationship
If you are selling into an organisation ‘cold’, that is you don’t know a single soul there – getting that first meeting can be tough. It is likely you will need to have a few meetings, sometimes as many as three or four, with different people, just to find the right person to speak with, and then get a meeting with them.
This is particularly true, if what you are selling has a high price tag, and the decision maker is very senior. Getting access to senior management can sometimes be tough.
Unless of course – you have an existing relationship with them. If you already know the key decision maker, and can get a meeting with the right person from the word go – that is a big win. So this will straight away reduce the number of meetings you will need.
Using Meetings to Prospect
When we are out networking, the person we are directly speaking with may not be the right fit for our solution. However, they may know someone who is.
If we don’t know the person we need to meet with, then getting a direct introduction to them is the next best thing.
So, depending on our sales and marketing approach, we may choose to use networking and coffee meetings as part of our prospecting, which will further add to the number of meetings we do for an individual sale.
It’s not about the number, it’s about how effective they are
In reality, asking how many meetings is asking the wrong question. It’s not about how many meetings or trying to reduce the number of meetings, it’s about ensuring every meeting we have is as effective as possible.
What do we mean by an effective meeting?
An effective meeting should:
Have a clear objective, that you aim to achieve in the meeting
Move the sale forward
Build rapport
No pointless meetings
Meetings should never be just to ‘touch base’. There is nothing that will frustrate a busy customer more than you wasting their time with a pointless meeting.
Have an objective for every meeting
You should always have something you wish to achieve at every meeting. This may be as simple as getting the name of the key decision maker, or qualifying their timeframe. But there needs to be something concrete you are aiming to achieve, that will move the sale forward in some way.
Provide value
Always ensure that you are providing them some value, and that you are moving the sale forwards. Discuss timing with them and show them how you are making progress towards your joint goal.
Keeping on Track
In a large complex sale, it may serve you well to meet with several different people, over a period of time, to ensure you have covered off all of the issues of the different stakeholders. Having regular meetings with stakeholders can ensure that you keep everything moving together towards the ultimate goal.
Running lengthy or complex sales can be very similar to running a small project – there are lots of moving parts that need to be keep track of and lots of relationships that need to be managed. It is your job, as the salesperson, to keep everything humming along as smoothly as possible.
Every Meeting Builds Rapport
In addition to the practical reasons why you meet, every meeting you have with a person builds rapport.
Sales is a series of one to one conversations. Each conversation enables us to build the relationship a little further.
If you think about when you meet someone at an event. That first meeting might be a bit formal, and the conversation may be a little superficial and high level.
If you then run into that person again at another event, you feel like you know them. The conversation flows a little more easily. Each time we meet someone, that happens a little more.
If we are meeting and seeing someone regularly, we build a stronger bond. We learn more about each other and how the other person works. We understand more about what is going on for them, what their challenges are, and how we can further support them.
This is all really important stuff. It gives us more of what we need to provide a great solution and service. Strong relationships also serve as a support for us through the sales process, to keep us on the right track and focused on the right things.
Keep it human
There are a lot of people out there who are all about automating the sales process as much as possible. That is all good if your product or solution can be bought with the click of a button.
Yes, our customers can get lots of information to answer all of their questions from automated bots. Yes, we can try and pre-qualify people with forms and automated targeted marketing. Yes, we can try to remove friction from the buying process.
But with all of that technology doing all of its cool stuff, people still like to be connected with a real person from time to time.
Sometimes it’s just easier to have a five minute conversation with someone, than to spend an hour researching and trying to find an answer to your question.
Sometimes you want someone to lay it all out for you, nice and clearly, so that you don’t have to do the hard yards yourself.
Sometimes, the customer doesn’t know the right questions to ask. They don’t know what they don’t know. Some guidance and support can go a long way.
Remember, businesses are made up of people. A person is making the decision what to buy and what not to buy.
So – how many meetings does it take to close a sale?
If you get to the right person at that first meeting, you can close even very large opportunities with two or three meetings.
Sometimes, it will take many more than that – especially for large deals. If you are working on a very large deal, and you need to do six meetings to get to the right person – that is ok, as long as you are staying focused and moving forward. If your sales cycle is six months, and you have multiple stakeholders to manage, you may have a meeting of some kind every week for six months.
Remember – it’s not about the number of meetings, it’s about staying focused and moving forward. Don’t focus on how many meetings you are doing - focus on your next objective and how you achieve it.
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