Knowing how much time you have for your sales call is vital to its success. It is frustrating to put all the work in to set up the meeting, not to mention time and travel expense, only to have the prospect cut your meeting short. You may have scheduled an hour, but the question is, “does the prospect still have that hour to give you”. Or, has another “emergency” or higher priority shown up between when you set the meeting and the time you got there? If they cut the meeting short, you will be rushed at the end, key people may have to exit the meeting early or the meeting may just end abruptly with no warning. There is a straight forward way to eliminate this problem. Just ask the prospect in the first few minutes of the call how much time they have set aside for the meeting. If they mention a time shorter than you were expecting, at least you know in advance and can plan the call accordingly. You can make sure you cover the most important topics and end the meeting in an appropriate way. Having a half hour meeting instead of an hour may be frustrating but knowing it in advance allows you to end the meeting in a natural way.
