Face-to-face meetings - are you using skype or facetime?

Yesterday afternoon I had 2 prospective client meetings; one via skype and one via facetime. The Skype couple lives in Indiana and we did it to avoid travel. I used skype on my laptop and it was glitchy and dropped the call completely one time. This is on a 50mbs comcast connection. The Facetime call was on my iphone, same internet connection. It was a local couple who is getting married on 11-1-14, and they only contacted me yesterday morning. It was my suggestion to stack them after the first call. Both calls went well and I got verbal commitments from both to book.

While I do think you lose an element of personalization, it almost seemed better than a F2F at Starbucks or Panera Bread (my usual haunts). No distractions which translated to a better sales pitch. I'm going to step it up and try pushing these a bit more, maybe even trying to get every prospect on a video chat instead of using email-only for the majority. Just wanted to share and maybe open a discussion to see what you guys are doing in regards. Anybody?

maestro said:

My closing rate in person is close to 100%. If they don't book on the spot, they go home, think about it then let me know they want to book. My closing rate simply via email is also close to 100% as long as I'm 'roughly' in their budget. I charge a lot for my area which is why I say 'roughly'. With Skype, I've had only two consults using that medium and did not book either. I am not a fan.

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Good point. In-person, I have about a 95% close rate. Email-only, it's about 38%. For some reason, it just works for me whenever I can go into "machine gun mode" and rattle off point after point of little gotchas that they never thought about before. For some reason, this just seems to inspire confidence and makes the sale, at least for me it does. I still will be happy to do true F2F meetings but if I can snag someone into a Facetime meeting it's hopefully a close 2nd. My only real concern is in what you've said. They don't have a lot vested in the meeting so it's easier for tire-kickers to spend your time on the phone.

As for Go To Meeting, will that require the prospect to set something up or install software on their system? That would likely be a bucket of cold water. I'm obviously new at this but that Facetime call was rock-solid and sound was probably better on the phone than laptop. The other thing about Facetime is, and this could be a detriment, it could eliminate the need to even schedule the meeting. Just pick up your iphone, make a facetime call, and you've got instant, semi-in-person meeting. A good way to snag those knee-jerk-reaction prospects. Might also be a better way to weed out undesirables as well.

DJ J Mac said:

In my opinion (and that of many who study human communication), there simply is no replacement or alternative for actual face to face interaction. Sure things are easier with the technology, but since voice is only a small portion of how we interact and converse and you can't see everything via a skype or facetime program, you lose a lot when you go to any electronic medium.

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Agreed but I probably only have about 10% who want actual face time, not to mention that as a part-timer I just don't have physical time for 5-10 in-person meetings per week. I'm just trying to find a way to coax the emailers into something more than just a phone call.