For some start up business’s opportunities with contacts outside of North America can be just as beneficial to them as opportunities in North America. Today we will explore way to book meetings for international contacts.
Plan Your Sales Cadence for International Contacts
For some of businesses they may find many interesting clients located in international markets this article explores one companies story about this. When reaching out to international contacts you can follow a similar type of sales cadence as you would for any other contacts. Some modifications to the cadence will likely be necessary however when it comes to the times you conduct your follow ups to these contacts. For contacts in North America you will be working in one of 4 respective time zones consisting of EST, MST, CST, PST or AST, these time zones for the most part do not have large differences in times between them. When compared to time zones in Europe which can range from 5-6 hours difference from North American time zones. Most email systems allow you to schedule when your emails will send out to contacts. If you are based in North America it’s more than likely you will want to conduct your follow up calls either early morning or late evening if you are conducting follow ups to contacts in Europe.
Tools I Use to Help with International Contacts
There are many different time zones in Europe and Asia and keeping track of them can be difficult, however, it is important to know when you are reaching out to these contacts. There are many apps you can use to manage the different time zones across the world. I like to use an app called world time buddy, this app allows you to manage up to 10 different time zones at one time. This app allows you to have an overlap view of the respective time zones at the same time, this allows you see specific times at different parts of the day more clearly and allows you make plans for contacts in these specific time zones. In Hubspot I like to name my follow up tasks with the name of the country the contact resides in as a way to organize your contacts in an efficient way. There are a number of free tools available that you can use to get direct phone numbers (such as Lusha, Datanyze, Signal hire and more) for contacts and these can help you to reach contacts directly. For more tips you can use consider this article.
Be Prepared to Adjust Your Schedule
Some international contacts will eventually respond to your outreaches either by emails or through phone calls. If these contacts are interested in a meeting it will likely be for a time outside of your normal schedule. For example, I was part of several recent meetings for contacts located in Australia. These contacts were free for meetings at about 9:00 AM AEST their local time which translated to 7:00 PM EST. In Both of these cases I would ask the contacts what time would be best for them for a meeting to increase the chances of them to commit to a meeting. Because of the time zones its likely most contacts in Asia will be almost 1 full day ahead of the North American clock. This becomes important when you are planning your follow ups to contacts in certain countries. For example if you are located in North America and plan to follow up with a contact in Australia on a Friday it would technically already be Saturday for them by the time you started your work day. For tips on booking more meetings consider this article.
Remember the goal is not to sell your product to these contacts, you are looking to see if they are interested in learning more. If you need help you can reach out to me.
