Your lead booked a call. That doesn't mean they're showing up. Here's what's actually happening between the booking and the call: They switch from scanner mode to justification mode. Scanner mode = "Is this for me?" Justification mode = "Is this worth my time?" Most B2B service providers do nothing in this window. No emails. No follow up. Just a calendar reminder. So the lead does their own research. Finds a bad review. Reads a Reddit thread. Gets cold feet. And ghosts you. What actually fixes this: Send 2-3 value-dense emails between booking and call. Not "don't forget your appointment" garbage. Actually answer the questions they're already Googling. Anticipate their objections. Address them before the call. Make them feel educated, not sold to. The leads that show up ready to buy aren't lucky. They were nurtured in the 24-72 hours after they booked. Your competitors are ignoring this window entirely. That's your edge.

Looking for people's opinions on something - please speak up. I am blessed to have a handful of high-end professionals that I can discuss AI with. I suppose I use them to help me sharpen my growing spiel for AI, and they likely trust that they are learning something along the way. There is a part where I want to guide them into a place where it is obvious to them that sometimes an LLM alone cannot provide a full level of expertise, and people will have to augment the LLM. Here is the example I use. I say, quite honestly, that I would 100% trust an AI to give me a few home exercises for my two 10lb weights, as an ankle sprain is keeping me from running. I trust any LLM to summarize that for me from the LLM's transformer training. Then I say that I think it is obvious that a third year NBA player would be crazy to ask an LLM, 'I am a third year NBA player going into the final year of my rookie contract. Please give me a summer workout plan before training camp starts in the fall.' - well, maybe not crazy to ask, but crazy to follow that advice without any other input from trainers, his NBA team, etc. It is supposed to be a fun example that guides the conversation into what do you or your company do that is unique and to begin the discussion about methods to add their expertise into their operations. And it worked a few times, until tonight. A high end real estate executive asked me, 'don't you trust an AI to summarize a workout plan for an NBA player?' I thought the answer was an obvious no... but perhaps, live and learn?? I guess I am asking for advice on two things. (1) Do people trust an AI to give an NBA player a workout plan. And (2) How do I fix my example/spiel. I don't want to talk about NBA athletes. My desire is to get people to talk about what they do that is unique and how AI (okay, ICM) can help them. I don't mind a bit of failure, but failing twice in one sentence has lead me here to ask for advice.