The Meeting B2B Decision-Makers are Most Likely to Accept

As a modern Sales Leader, your processes are designed around proven strategies and enhanced by Sales and Marketing technologies. But with more than a quarter of all B2B sales cycles taking 7 or more months to close, it’s time that you optimize your process to schedule productive meetings that move your target B2B prospect through to the finish line.

You’ve set yourself up as an industry Thought Leader through strategic and personalized communication to own momentum through the sales pipeline, but how can you successfully secure a meeting with your most sought after B2B prospect? Propose the type of meeting your decision-maker is most likely to accept.

In our most recent post our Principal Deb Berman called out tools like Terminus to help sales organizations engage with quality prospects and decision-makers within their target B2B accounts, and SalesLoft which allows you to develop customized and strategic cadences to warm up your target for your next meeting proposal.

This post is designed as a follow-up to help you and your Sales reps offer – and land – the types of meetings that your target decision-maker will actively want to participate in.

Get Your Foot In the Door: The Top 3 Meeting Types

In March of 2017 we interviewed 87 B2B decision-makers about the actionable process changes CEOs and other C-suite leaders are making to drive results and emerge as best-in-class Sales organizations, and our results may change the way you think about the way you interact with your B2B prospects. We narrowed down the top 3 meetings that B2B decision-makers are most likely to accept, and they are:

1. In-Person Presentations

The most widely accepted meetings are in-person presentations, and for obvious reasons: although the Sales industry relies heavily on technology, 49.4% of our respondents felt that there’s  nothing as useful and informative as a human presence when learning about the benefits of a proposed solution.

2. Over the Phone Meetings

Although a study by the Keller Research Center found that only 1% of cold calls actually convert to meetings, 27.6% of our B2B decision-makers are inclined to accept an over the phone meeting.

Over the phone meetings are ideal when connecting with busy CEOs, C-suite executives, and other key decision makers as  easy, quick, and still allow for that human connection necessary to take leads to the next level.

3. Virtual Solution Demonstration

For 23% of our survey respondents, a virtual demonstration of the offered solution is enough for them to pencil in a meeting, and is a great option to create a face-to-face, personalized connection a lead who lives in another city or state

Tools like Join.me and Zoom allow Sales Leaders and reps to hold online webinars and share screens to share content and effectively convey your core messages to convert your ideal prospect into a client.

If the decision maker you’re targeting falls into the C-suite category, it’s best to aim for an in-person meeting, as virtual meetings tend to set up the expectation of a demo rather than a productive move forward.

Focus On Your Value: The Reason ABM is a Real Thing

As you dig deeper into what type of meetings are most successfully secured by target decision-makers, it’s vital that you’re also aware of why they were inclined to accept the meeting in the first place.

50.6% of our survey respondents stated that their reasons for accepting a vendor’s meeting was that their managers were interested in the solution, while 47.1% respondents noted that they became aware of the solution to a problem faced by their organization.

For 9.2% of these decision makers, they choose to accept a meeting simply because they were under pressure within their decision making team. However, working under pressure may not lead to a productive meeting for either party involved. As a B2B vendor, it’s in your best interest to make sure that the product or solution you deliver is on-par with the needs and expectations of your prospect. By being proactive and selling to organizations who will truly benefit from your solution, your company can avoid complications and save time.

Buyers’ habits are changing, with more leads accepting meetings not because of their interest in the bells and whistles of a specific solution, but by what the solution can do for their organization.

To move forward into 2018 as a best-in-class B2B vendor, it’s time to focus on sharing the value of your solution for the benefit of not only your target decision-maker, but C-suite executives.

Maintaining the Human Connection

What’s clear from these results is that although technology in Sales has allowed Sales Leaders to create successful cadences with target leads, it’s the human connection between vendor and buyer that consistently moves a sale forward. Pair that with a solidified knowledge of your solution, and you’ll demonstrate just how valuable your organization can be.

Stay tuned for our upcoming eBook Sales and Marketing: Bridging the Gap. Developed with enterprise-level Sales Leaders and CEOs in mind, our data-backed findings demonstrate how to achieve alignment between Sales and Marketing departments to drive sales momentum and close valuable deals. Sign up for our newsletter to be notified when it’s released.

Can’t wait to sink your teeth into more sales industry insights from us? Download our eBook Hiring Superior Salespeople and explore our series of accompanying blog posts.