As a pre-sales professional, part of my role is to assist our business development managers in selling our intelligent document processing and automation solutions to our diverse range of clients, both in the hardware and software sides of our business. This often requires me to be on the move, meeting clients who may be situated quite a distance away.
We work with all types of clients, from smaller companies who are only now getting to grips with the basics of information management, to larger, more seasoned ones. I am always eager to support and motivate our hardware team’s business development managers. They often unearth potential projects and they’re always on the lookout for opportunities to dive into an automation project.
But the snag appears when dealing with on-site visits, especially those that require a lengthy journey – say, 2 hours as in the scenario I’m sharing. Meeting cancellations, especially at the eleventh hour, can be quite troublesome.
As of now, I have an on-site ‘discovery’ meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning. This meeting has already been rescheduled twice at the last minute. The client in question is a criminal lawyer and I appreciate that priorities can change quickly in his line of work.
However, the primary concern I have with cancellations is the missed opportunities they represent. My time, and therefore my schedule, is valuable and requires careful organisation. There are other business development managers vying for my time and perhaps there’s another client who might be a more efficient use of that time?
Cancellations inevitably put a question mark on this.