MSP Sales Training: The Secret to Never Leaving a Meeting Empty-Handed
I share a crucial sales framework that can prevent you from losing deals after what seemed like successful presentation meetings. I explain the "BAMFAM" (Book a Meeting from a Meeting) strategy, which ensures you never leave a proposal meeting empty-handed without either a clear decision or a confirmed next step on the calendar.
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Welcome to Repeatable Revenue, hosted by strategic growth advisor , Ray J. Green.
About Ray:
→ Former Managing Director of National Small & Midsize Business at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he doubled revenue per sale in fundraising, led the first increase in SMB membership, co-built a national Mid-Market sales channel, and more.
→ Former CEO operator for several investor groups where he led turnarounds of recently acquired small businesses.
→ Current founder of MSP Sales Partners, where we currently help IT companies scale sales: www.MSPSalesPartners.com
→ Current Sales & Sales Management Expert in Residence at the world’s largest IT business mastermind.
→ Current Managing Partner of Repeatable Revenue Ventures, where we scale B2B companies we have equity in: www.RayJGreen.com
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Transcript
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Have you ever walked out of a proposal meeting thinking,
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hey, that went pretty good, right? Like,
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ask good questions, seem to be engaged and you know, they're gonna think about it. And I think they got the actual sense they're going to
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only to never hear from that prospect again.
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if you leave a presentation meeting without a decision or a confirmed like locked in next step, then chances are you already started losing the deal.
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I'm going to do in this video is I'm just going to show you a very simple framework that you can use to make sure that you never leave a meeting empty handed.
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we run coaching calls frequently with people who are out there selling and closing deals.
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And on a call recently, we had somebody come up with what is like, frankly, it's a
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scenario I've heard 100 times and, you know, it's like, hey, did the presentation, did everything I thought I was supposed to do, seemed to go really well.
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Said I was going to follow up next week.
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and now I'm getting ghosted and I can't seem
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to get them back on the phone.
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Not sure what to do. Right. And there's things that you can do at that point, but it's I tell you, like at that point
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you're playing defense,
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probability every day that
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goes by is of that deal closing
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is lower and lower. And the real question
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is
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what can you do to avoid that in the first place?
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if you leave a presentation meeting and you don't have a decision like clearly make like, yes, we're going to move forward, no, we're not going to move forward or a scheduled next step, like something that is on a calendar and confirmed that you are going to follow up, then you have
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kind of started to lose the deal.
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You started to lose the momentum because you need that next step locked in.
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We call this book a meeting. From a meeting it's a the acronym is Bam Bam.
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I didn't make the acronym. I'm not sure different people are credited with it. I'm not going to take credit for it. But it's it's book a meeting from a meeting.
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And I say this all the time
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when you're leaving the presentation meeting and you don't get a yes or no, of course you're going to do all of this stuff that you're supposed to do. You're going to ask good questions. You're going to ask, you know, kind of address the the objections that are in there. You're going to like, you're going to do all of the standard sales stuff.
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at the end of these deals or at the end of these meetings, you're not always going, no matter how well you handle it, you're not always going to get a yes or no. And there's going to be some follow up that's required, right. Like they have some buying process that they have to go through, or they have other people that they need to talk to that they should have been in the room.
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But there's
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things that need to happen in order
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to move this deal forward.
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in the meeting was something like,
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hey, this is this is great. You know. Thanks, Ray. I'm going to we're going to think it over and let's,
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touch base next week or we're going to think it over and then we'll, we'll let you know how it goes.
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And most of the time they're going off of, hey, this meeting feels like it's going forward. So salesperson says, oh no problem.
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I'll give you a shout next week.
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We'll follow up. We'll take it from there. Then we'll, then we'll move forward. Cool, cool. They leave deal days, right? They never get a response ever again.
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they aren't answering the call. They aren't responding to the email. And the alternative to that
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is bam bam. Right. So the way that this works is
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when you get to the end and you've asked for the sale and you leave, confirms you've done all the stuff you're supposed to do to,
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ensure that, you know, they actually legitimately need there's some part of the buying process.
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They need to go forward with
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What you want to say is,
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okay, sure, it's a big decision. Totally understand that. You want to want to take some time to think it over. I tell you what,
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how much time do you think you need a couple days to three days. Excellent. Okay, perfect. So why don't we do this?
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I'll schedule something for Friday.
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Does 2 or 3 work? And we'll schedule a quick 30 minute follow up here and we can reconnect. I've. You've had a chance to go through this, and I can answer any questions for you.
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And you secure that next meeting, you lock it in, you get them to confirm, get it on their schedule.
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Right. Send it on your phone if you can.
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Right then. Like get it on the calendar, but you want to get the next appointment locked.
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Now when you do this, it does two things.
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one is it keeps the momentum going, right? It keeps some urgency alive.
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if they said there were some action items that they need to do and you're meeting in two days or you're meeting in three days, then during that time, it does create
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some urgency to actually get that stuff done right.
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So it keeps the deal moving forward. So that's that's one thing that it does.
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The other thing that it does is it reveals intent, right? It reveals whether they really have any intent on keeping this deal
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from, you know, going forward or not. Right. Because when I say,
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hey, let's go ahead and, you know, give you the time to
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think about it.
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And then, you know, we'll regroup on Friday and house 2 or 3:00.
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And they give you some resistance to that. Well, now you can start to dig in. Now you can start to try to identify, hey, is this resistance because there's schedule conflict or is this resistance because the deal is not moving forward. And as a salesperson, I want to identify that and do my best to address it proactively right here.
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Right. Like while we're actually sitting together, what I don't want to do is leave. And your intent is way low, right? And your urgency on this is way low.
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know, when you leave the meeting, you're probably not going to call me back. Well, I don't want to waste my time. Right? And I don't want to annoy you as a
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prospect.
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So
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it helps you keep the deal moving and it helps you reveal whether there's real intent. Okay. So when
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you ask that initial question and you ask, okay, let's get this locked in for, you know, Friday at 2 or 3 or whatever, whatever that schedule's going to be.
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for somebody that is moving forward, like
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if I actually am going to think about it or take it to a committee or run it by whoever I need to run it by, like if there are legitimate things in the buying process that I could do, I'm going to say, sure. You know, like this Friday at two is great or Friday sucks.
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Let's do Monday,
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right? Like I'm going to tell you that
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now if I give you some resistance to that and I
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yeah, I
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don't know if I want to schedule something right now, like, okay, you know what? Actually Friday is not good. I actually, let me just
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you.
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Let me, I'll take a look at what you send over, and then, you know, I'll I'll shoot you an email later. Right
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now, if the prospects telling you that, then you kind of need to read the room to a degree and you need to determine, right, is this just some,
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friction from a scheduling standpoint,
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is this calendar or her calendar, like actually that crazy.
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And so they're just kind of, you know what? Now, like, I want to sit here and try to find the right time and my schedules moving around this now like there's actual legitimate schedule conflicts, or is this somebody that's kind of saying, you know, I've already kind of made a decision and
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know I'm not going to buy your stuff.
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I know I'm not going to move forward, and I don't want to take a slot on my calendar. I just don't want to tell you that right now.
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you want to determine, all right, where are we at with that? So there's really two ways to do this. Now initially, if
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Then what you can say is,
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understand. Hey, listen, I'm. If your schedule is anything like mine, I know it probably stays busy and getting something dialed in
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be, you know, 10 or 12 emails, you know, and I don't want to, you know, be a nuisance to you.
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Why don't you go out and pencil something in for your Monday or Tuesday? You know, maybe you have some more availability and then we can lock it in if there's anything and then comes up or there's a conflict or anything, you can just
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tell me, you can cancel and we'll reschedule the time. That's that's convenient for you.
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We think at least that way we have something on the calendar.
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Yeah, I don't know.
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Then try to overcome that objection. Right. Make it easy. Lower the friction,
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Now if there's still resistance okay. Like this is where you've got to determine is it legitimate or is it not.
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is this
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a subtle rejection or is this scheduling conflict okay. So you do the initial the initial follow up.
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And if you get the sense that this is an actual scheduling deal,
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if they're looking at calendars and like, it's an ass whip. Let me try it here.
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No, they just say never mind. You know what? Here, I'll just e-mail. Like, if you get the sense that it's at something like that,
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what I want to do is I want to say, listen, it sounds like this may be listening to your calendars back in minus two. I don't want to make this, you know, an issue for you.
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Tell you what I'll do when when I get back to the office, I'll pick three times and I'll throw a dart at it. Right. And I'll. I'll throw a dart at three times when I get back. And you just pick whichever one works best for you, hit accept because it declined to the other two and we'll have it locked in.
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that point you at least have
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the permission to send some stuff, get it on the counter, keep that conversation moving and tentatively get something on there.
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if you send those
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and they don't reply to any of them, well then yeah, you're I mean you're still going to get kind of stuck in, in limbo to a degree.
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But at least you've got some conversation going. And after that you can actually say, hey, I've got these times blocked for you, you know, can you at least just let me know if,
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something's come up or if none of these work? I'm happy to take a, you know, take a shot and throw a dart out a few more times.
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So you have some of that
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to fall back on. And it's your schedule. And out of mutual respect, you know, can you can you let me know if this isn't going to work. Right. So you're at least continuing the conversation
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So if I think it's a subtle. No, then I'm a big fan of just being candid about it, right? Being respectful, being like, super diplomatic and not being combative about it. But I would actually rather address
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the elephant in the room.
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nah, I just like schedules to her, I know, I just, I just want to email you, I swear to you.
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But
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What I say is, you know, hey. No worries. Do you mind if I ask you a candid question
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you know, sometimes when when people don't want to schedule the follow up, it's because their calendars crazy. They've got travel coming up. They've got, you know, kids going back to school, whatever it is.
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And sometimes it's because
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they know they're not going to move forward and they just feel bad telling me. And I assure you, it would not hurt my feelings. But for you,
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it more the former or more the latter in terms of following up here
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tonality matters. How you deliver that message matters. But when you do that, you give them permission kind of to say no.
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Like I said, I'm not ready to go forward. And that's phenomenal as a sales person, because now I'm having a real conversation about all of the things that we're going to keep you from following up with me afterwards, right? I at least have a fighting chance to have that conversation and resolve some of those concerns. Questions, objections, whatever they are.
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delays kill your your deals. Right. Like time kills all deals
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if we're talking right now, you may have something that feels like an urgent problem or you're experiencing some symptoms or, you know, whatever it is, like there's some reason that you've made it to this point in the process.
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You have some problem, something that you're trying to fix.
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And as time goes on, oftentimes the urgency declines or the tolerance to that pain increases. And that's the last thing that you want as a salesperson. So you want to find a way to keep the urgency moving. Compress the deal cycles that you can close more deals.
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I was actually talking to somebody recently, so I was on a call and I, I drank my own champagne.
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Right. Like, so if you are my sales problem, what I teach is what I, what I use.
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we got to the end and we walked through the, you know, the, the outline stuff and you know, we
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got to the point where we needed a bam bam, right.
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And I said okay. And I run this exact process. Well I tell you what,
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just go ahead and do this.
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I'm going to put 30 minutes down on Fridays. I don't have time to kind of go through what you need. Talk to your partner. Okay, cool.
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we actually go through that by sales.
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You know what?
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I've actually seen some of your other sales training. You had a newsletter about this, and,
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would have been really disappointed if you didn't ask. And I said, well, of course I'm going to ask. I gets because it works, man.
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so we, you know, we had a laugh. He became a client.
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this is something that I run.
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I feel really strongly about this. This is really something that you should think of at every stage in the process, every single step, right from qualifying to discovery to an assessment. If you're doing an assessment
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the proposal on the presentation, oftentimes like even discovery, what we'll try to do is schedule the assessment date if you're doing one and the proposal date at the same time.
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Like getting these things, these action items on the calendar makes it real, right? And when they get canceled, you know, occasionally you have an A-hole who's just like, declines and then, you know, and then still goes to you. But more often than not, if they need to decline or if they've change their mind or if they've said no and don't want to do the follow up afterwards, then by declining, you at least still have some conversation going,
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which is what you want as a as a salesperson is to like to stay in the fight.
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So that's my rule. Like never leave a meeting without something, right? Like never leave that presentation meeting empty handed. You're leaving with a decision on yes or on no, or on what the secured next steps are. And going through that. As a rule of thumb, what you're going to do is force out a lot of the real conversations that a prospect is having and allow them to kind of air those
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reservations or their questions.
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And now you're in the game.
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That's how closers keep deals alive. Or find out if a deal's dead early enough on in the process that they have a chance to revive it. If it is so, I hope this has been helpful. You can implement this today, and I promise you it will impact your your process. It will keep deals moving. So,
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let me know if you have any questions in the comments.
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And if you're an MSP owner or seller,
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dive into
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our free MSP sales toolbox. It's at MSP Sales toolbox.com, and it's a library of resources that we're adding to every month. Right. So we've got, you know, some playbooks in there. We've got some,
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you know, forecast models. We've got a whole host of resources that we keep adding to.
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And you have lifetime access to that. Again, MSP sales toolbox.com. And of course would love if you subscribe to the channel.
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Otherwise if you have any questions drop them below. Do my best to answer them. Adios.
