Generic invites like "Meeting with Jeb" are easily ignored or deleted from a busy calendar. Structure the title to include your name, company, the prospect's name, and the meeting's purpose. This provides immediate context and perceived importance, drastically reducing the chances of a no-show.
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Instead of blaming unreliable prospects, view no-shows as a failure of your pre-meeting process. By implementing a systematic, multi-channel confirmation runway (invites, video, voicemail), you take control and increase the probability of attendance by design, not by luck.
Before scheduling, ensure a meeting's purpose is to Decide, Debate, Discuss, or Develop (4Ds). Then, confirm the topic is either Complex, Emotionally intense, or a One-way door decision (CEO). This rigorous filter eliminates status updates and other low-value synchronous gatherings from calendars.
Don't hang up immediately after booking a meeting. Invites from new contacts often require manual acceptance to appear on a calendar. To prevent no-shows caused by a missed invite, stay on the line and ask the prospect to confirm they've received and accepted it.
After sending a calendar invite, record and email a brief, personal video expressing excitement for the meeting. This personal touch makes it psychologically harder for the prospect to no-show because they've seen your face and heard your enthusiasm, creating a social obligation to attend.
Prospects often decline meetings to avoid another bad sales experience. Counter this by explicitly stating the value they'll receive (e.g., free ideas, best practices) even if they don't purchase, making the meeting a low-risk proposition for them.
Instead of guessing whether a day-of confirmation email helps or hurts, treat it as a variable to test. Send the email to one cohort of prospects and not to another, then track the show rates for each group. Even a small percentage increase can be significant, providing data-driven validation for your process.
To combat no-shows, don't end a call after booking a meeting. Ask the prospect to find and accept the calendar invitation while you are still on the line. This simple step ensures the event is actually on their calendar and bypasses issues where invites get lost in email.
Instead of a standard email reminder, send a short confirmation video on the morning of the meeting. This personal touch confirms the appointment, reiterates the value proposition for them, and invites the prospect to add agenda items, which significantly increases attendance rates.
Generic meeting times like 15 or 30 minutes feel like placeholders that can easily run over. Offering a specific, short duration like a '9-minute kickoff' or '12-minute demo' triggers a psychological belief that you are serious about respecting the prospect's time, making them more likely to book the meeting.
To confirm a meeting with a busy prospect, use a direct, binary question in the email subject line (e.g., "Confirming appointment, yes or no?"). This minimizes cognitive load, allowing them to understand the request and reply without even opening the email.
