Why do our sales meetings keep being with people who can't make the decision?
Meetings land with the wrong people when whoever books them is measured on meetings booked, not on who turns up. Junior staff accept calls more readily than owners, so any volume target drifts towards them. Fix the definition first: a meeting counts only if the person owns or materially influences the decision, works at a firm that fits, and knows what the call is about.
How the wrong people end up in your diary.
You are paying for bookings
An appointment setter or sales development rep on a meetings-booked target will find the people most willing to take a meeting. Those are rarely the people with the budget. You get what you count.
The list was built on job titles
A title tells you little. In one firm the operations director signs everything, and in the next nothing moves without the owner. Finding out who decides means researching the firm and then the person, and most lists skip both.
The invitation was vague
Messages offering a quick chat about synergies get accepted by people who don't know what they have agreed to. The meeting starts as a surprise and ends as a courtesy.
What it is costing you.
Count last quarter's first meetings and mark those where the person could never have said yes. For each, add the hours: preparation, the call, the follow-up, the proposal you probably wrote anyway. For example, 15 wasted meetings at four hours each is 60 hours of senior time. Put your day rate on that, then add whatever you paid to have them booked.
Check it yourself in ten minutes.
The evidence is already in your CRM or calendar.
- 1
Pull the last 20 first meetings. Next to each, write the attendee's job title and whether they could have signed.
- 2
Mark which ones led to a second meeting with someone more senior. That is your real qualified rate.
- 3
Reread the message that booked each wasted meeting. Did it say plainly what you sell?
- 4
Look at how whoever books them is paid. If the words held and qualified appear nowhere, you have found the cause.
What we would do in the first 90 days.
We start with the definition, because everything else follows from it.
- Week 1
Agree in writing what a qualified meeting is: held, with someone who owns or materially influences the decision, at a firm matching agreed criteria, who knowingly agreed to talk about your offer.
- Weeks 2 to 4
Two-pass research. First the firm: does it fit. Then the person: who decides, and what gives them a reason to talk this month. Month one is warm-up.
- Months 2 and 3
80 to 120 approaches a month, each written and approved by a person. The fee is per meeting held. The monthly report counts meetings held and pipeline accepted by your sales team.
Pipeline That Fills is £1,500 to set up, £1,000 to £1,500 a month to manage, and £500 to £1,000 per meeting held. No meeting, no meeting fee. Prices exclude VAT.
How Pipeline That Fills works ↗The short answers.
The definition does. It is agreed before any message goes out, along with the criteria a firm has to match, so there is little to argue about afterwards. The person either owns or materially influences the decision or they don't.
Yes, if they materially influence the decision and can get you to the person who signs. A finance director who shapes the shortlist is worth an hour. Someone collecting brochures for a boss who hasn't asked for them is not.
Often, yes. Measure them on qualified meetings held, not meetings booked, and cut their volume so they have time to research who decides. Expect fewer meetings for a month or two, and judge the change on second meetings and proposals.
Founders who said this also said these.
I delete twenty LinkedIn pitches a week. I'm not going to send them.
Yes, if the volume is low enough for each message to be researched and written by a person. Outreach becomes spam when the same words go to hundreds of people. A message that names something true about the recipient's firm, gives a reason to talk now, and could not have been sent to anyone else reads as a business letter.
Pipeline That FillsThe last agency sent reports, not customers.
A marketing agency is working if you can name customers, or at least serious sales conversations, that exist because of what it did. Traffic, impressions, rankings and followers measure activity. They only matter when enquiries from the right buyers move with them. If several months in nobody can trace one qualified conversation to the work, the reports describe effort, not results.
Growth Team programme
Bring this one to the call.
Thirty minutes with a founder. We look at your site, two competitors and what Google and ChatGPT say about all three beforehand. You leave with three fixes in writing.