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By the time you’re knotting your tie for a sales appointment, the cards should be stacked in your favor. The best indicator, of course, is that the prospect agreed to the meeting, so he must perceive some value. And, you’ve been able to review all the information that came out of the lead qualification process. You know the pain points, at least at a high level, and you have a sense of the status quo within your prospect’s datacenter. You have a willing audience and all the information you need to make a sale.

So, why do so many appointments go nowhere? It’s a fair question. If everything leading up to a sales call is so clearly beneficial, it should always go well … right?

Often, the problem isn’t with the prospect – it’s with you. You aren’t asking yourself the right questions before you sit across from your client. Below, you’ll find three questions to ask yourself before your next sales appointment. Answer them, and you’ll find your efforts to be much more fruitful.

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Before the ubiquity of information, prospects were able to get rid of the sales team with the simple demand: “Get me something in writing.” The sales professional, meanwhile, would guard information carefully, letting it slip out incrementally throughout the sales cycle, rewarding the prospect for moving each step closer to a sale. With websites, blogs and message boards available for virtually every topic imaginable, this doesn’t work any more. Most information is already out there.

Rather than give up and assume that the prospect has access to everything, however, there is still room for the controlled release of value-added information; it just has to be managed differently.

Don’t withhold information. That will lead a prospect to look elsewhere, and possibly end up in the arms of a competitor. Point your prospect to your blog, website, case studies and other information pieces — after all, this is why you’ve invested in them. But, make sure your sales professionals are equipped with additional insights — tailored to the prospect — that can be unveiled at each step in the sales cycle. This is where your marketing analytics become incredibly important.

A white paper cannot address a specific prospect’s specific pain points. That’s the domain of the sales force.

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