Comments on: What do you do when a prospect stands you up

By: Becky McCray

Becky McCray — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:02:59 +0000

I've finally created a toolkit that can help with these decisions, called How to Draw the Line Between Free and Paid.

By: Emily

Emily — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:25:06 +0000

This has happened to me, and I did reschedule. When they stood me up a second time, I did NOT reschedule. The first time I made allowance for a busy week, scatterbrained moment, whatever. The second time? This is inconsiderate, and not a client that you want.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:45:33 +0000

I try always to be so understanding that whatever embarrassment the prospect initially felt is increased, then I set the next appointment. This almost always leads to a good meeting and a serious hearing for your proposal. A breach of courtesy toward you, if unintentional, gives you an advantage. Of course, if they aren’t embarrassed to begin with, that changes things completely.

By: Becky McCray

Becky McCray — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:52:56 +0000

I do want to add that I’m not holding his volunteer status against him. But I do know a bit about this group overall, and I took that into consideration.

By: Becky McCray

Becky McCray — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:51:38 +0000

Judy, thanks for sharing both sides from your experiences.

@MDY added on Twitter,
"I would have rescheduled, but I would not move any existing commitments to reschedule earlier than convenient"

By: Judy Dunn

Judy Dunn — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:39:28 +0000

Great question, Becky. In our 16+ years in business, although we have been on the receiving end of this rarely, it has always triggered my intuition and a gut feeling that if they can't make the first appointment, what kind of responsibility will they show down the road, in a working relationship? And, a volunteer? Well, that should have no bearing. We have always treated our pro bono and volunteer projects with the same commitments we make to paying clients.

BUT about two months ago, my husband and biz partner somehow was distracted and didn't get an appointment down. He was actually in the area of this prospect that day with several other meetings, but spaced this one out. That never happens! It produced a shift in my thinking. Stuff happens! But a second time, probably would write them off.

By: Becky McCray

Becky McCray — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:26:21 +0000

Steve, you've added a lot of thought. It does go towards earning trust. And that applies to me and the client, doesn't it?

Daria, this is what I was getting at in offering a bit of info on the type of prospect. How much should we let that influence our decisions?

By: Daria Steigman

Daria Steigman — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:01:01 +0000

Hi Becky — This is a tough one. I might or might not agree to a second date, depending on how the person reacted (apologized) after wasting my time. But unless they had a really good reason for it, it’s probably not a good sign.

By: Steve Gaines

Steve Gaines — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:00:16 +0000

I think being stood up once isn’t anything to take a stand on. Things happen and suddenly there’s a change or they wrote the appt. down on the wrong day. Or just plain forgot. In some cases when the person who forgot or couldn’t make it happens to be a person of strong inner character you might even have an unexpected advantage in that they may feel a need to somehow “make it up” to you!

That said, being stood up a 2nd time – especially in the case of a free consultation – would likely constitute a reason to forgo future business interaction. (Barring a note from a doctor or some other school-day like reason beyond “the dog ate my homework”!)

Kelly’s comment about people attaching more value to something they have to pay for is correct technically. But in today’s open-ended world of transparency, I think it’s hard to get around certain aspects of “free-conomics”, such as the free consultation. Or even sharing “trade secrets” via blog. It’s more important than ever to earn trust by showing value before people start actually investing their money in you! In doing so there will be times where your generosity gets taken advantage of, or you get stood up intentionally. But trying to cover up for a few jerks is not nearly reason enough to not be the very best and most open you can be to the many others who appreciate what you bring to the table! And might soon be willing to pay for that.

By: Becky McCray

Becky McCray — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:41:45 +0000

Sherry Miller emailed me her opposing view, from a small town perspective:

"I would have scheduled another consultation. Especially since the person was part of a volunteer organization.. Word of mouth is the best advertising, and it is also the worst thing in a negative sense for a business. By not scheduling another consultation, he goes back to report to his committee, that you were hard to work with. He is not going to see that he was in error for not showing up. This will cause a domino effect on how you treat your prospective customers. The committe will hear this mans side of the story, and make a judgement of your business and character. They will bring it up with others, and so on.

Another thing to note, that on some committees are other business people, whom could possibly be potential customers as well.

Sherry Miller"

This connects with the idea of Island Marketing: every interaction is precious.

So there are the two sides. Which do you agree with?