Crafting Effective Meeting Invitations for Clients

High ‘no show’ or reschedules in your prospect & customer meetings? Not responding to invites after agreeing on a time? Ghosting your confirmation email / comms? Try these: 1. Ask them to accept the meeting invite while your booking time on the call. Explain that you’re preparing for the meeting and tapping into internal resources / colleagues that would be joining. Ask to know if something changes or they lost interest. Give a way out, “John - appreciate you willing to take the time. I’m going to send you a calendar hold right now, mind accepting it and if for some reason that time doesn’t work or if you’re no longer interested, could you let me know so I can plan ahead? Thanks!” 2. Add the agenda (what’s in it for them) in the body of the invite - prospects are busy and will likely forget what the meeting was about Example: Attendees: x, y, z 1. Brief Intros 2. What we’ve learned 3. Problem statement & what we’ve seen happen to customers over time 4. How we can help & a similar customer story + impact/results/timeline 5. Next steps 3. Use a compelling title for the meeting (not ABC CORP <> Company A) - focus on the problem you’re looking to review / solve / pain point / cost of inaction Example “Addressing the $20M AE Quota Attn. Gap” You bet that’s a meeting an exec tied to this priority is less likely to skip 4. Send a confirmation email 24h prior (or a few of them if the meeting is far out) - include the attendees, agenda, why they should join, what’s in it for them, and give them a chance to add items to the agenda. 5. If they do ask to reschedule (things come up), title the new meeting the same way as the original one with “rescheduled” at the end the beginning 6. Have a “X strikes you’re out” rule - no prospect is shielded from it, your time is equally valuable, and they should be interested and engaged, or else you don’t have a deal. Typical is 2-3 rescheduling or no shows. Some may even do 1 no show / reschedule. What would you add? 👇🏻

I love calendar links (e.g., calendly) for efficiency, BUT if YOU want a call or meeting with someone, the burden is on YOU not your client to ensure to get it actually on the calendar. What do I mean? Let's say you have a prospect/client who agrees to schedule with you. Awesome! They don't need to meet with you, you have requested their time. Sending them your calendar link and saying "great just pop time on my schedule" is asking them for a favor, asking to do you a favor by going to your calendar to see what works for you, and then leaving it to chance that they actually do it! Here's an analogy I use... Imagine you did were taking a class and have worked super hard to write your paper. You submit it by walking into their classroom, leaving it on a random desk, and hoping your professor will 1) find it , 2) pick it up, 3) read it, 4) grade it and 5) give you credit. Don't leave it to chance! Keep the ball in your court. Here's the play: In addition to having my booking link in my autosignature, here's scripting I often use with prospects and clients when they agree to a conversation... "Great! Thank you. What are some times that work for you in the next few weeks? I can send you an invite. Alternatively, if it's easier for you, here's a link to my calendar (with hyperlink) which will show you some options and send you an invite with Zoom meeting directly. If I don't hear from you in the next day or so, I'll send an invite and you can propose a new time if that doesn't work for you." If it's a colleague and you're on the same calendar system, an email or DM with letting them know you'll be sending an invite for something you want to cover. Then send an invite with a clear agenda or bullet points of what you want to cover in the body of the invite. No need to go back and forth on whether they have time to meet with you. #salescoaching #salesmanagement #prospecting #sdr #insidesales #salesenablement

**Put the agenda in your meeting invites.** Tell me how we'll spend our time together. > Are we meeting to make decisions, or is this an update or information transfer? > Do I need to do homework or a pre-read before attending so I can fully participate? > Do we actually need to meet, or could this be communicated asynchronously or via email? > What is the anticipated outcome of spending time in a meeting? If you're going to ask for someone else's time, set expectations. #NoAgendaNoAttenda

Ever felt like you're wandering through a meeting without a compass? Many meetings are unnecessary and unsuccessful. They lack an agenda (or plan); the intent of the meeting is not clear, nor are the expectations. Consider the meetings where some participants believe it is a brainstorm session, while others think the desired outcome is to make a decision—this misalignment creates wasted time. To prevent this from happening to your meetings, try this technique. P.O.P. is a simple, memorable (and mnemonic) device designed to align everyone on the meeting expectations, preparations, and outcomes (i.e., what does success looks like at the end of the meeting). It can serve as your guiding star. Make it a requirement to accepting all meetings and see how quickly your team will adopt it! In the meeting invitation, require the following three elements: Purpose – Why are we meeting? Outcome – What does success look like when the meeting ends? Plan (standing agenda) – How will the meeting be conducted to achieve the outcome? What is the agenda? Are there any pre-meeting materials that will prepare the participants? Have you tried this technique or something similar? I'm interested to hear your feedback. #leadfortomorrow #meetingmanagement #meetings