Maximize Your Appointment Setting Campaign

A business appointment is typically defined as having a time and date set to meet with a prospect. This can either be face to face or a telephone appointment. The difference is based on a salesperson having a territory in the same city where he/she lives compared to a territory that requires travel. Typically an appointment is the most popular and preferred service that Dunlap Marketing provides to clients. Sales people prefer to start their sales process with an appointment as compared to receiving a qualified lead opportunity.

From a prospects perspective, what is interesting to note, despite the fact that their need for your product or service may be very real, not all prospects are willing to commit to an appointment during a teleprospecting call. They simply are not ready or willing to move that fast. They may have the type of personality that wishes to move slower until they know more about your company, qualifications and abilities to properly service their needs. They could very well be a qualified prospect but they are not willing to schedule a face to face appointment yet.

Why would the prospect not schedule the appointment?

They already have a service provider - or at least they think they have one
They want you to earn or work for their business
They want to get to know you better
They are very busy and it is difficult to get on their calendar
They are thinking about using your services or product but have not yet fully decided
They are qualifying you to make sure you can support their needs

They are not willing to move at the speed we want them to. Keep in mind that we called them and interrupted their day.

In my opinion, these are still qualified prospects and there is great value to them. The challenge though is they need to be developed and cultivated. I call these lead opportunities, and they are a byproduct of looking for appointments. When properly worked, they become tomorrow’s time and date appointments. However, it is common that skilled sales people need to work them because the prospect is qualifying us as much as we are trying to qualify them. These prospects sometimes ask questions that are technical in nature and require industry specific skills to answer. Typically, trained sales people are the best people to answer these types of questions.

There are rewards when sales discipline is applied. The health of your pipeline of prospects grows, which results in more presentations and proposals, which results in more sold business.

Recognize the value of these lead opportunities. If you are paying for an appointment setting campaign, look at leads as being a free added value byproduct of the campaign. Work and develop these leads the same as if they were appointments. The success of the campaign and the success of your selling efforts will greatly increase as well.

Contact information: Mike Dunlap at 281-496-9870 x140, email miked@dunlapmarketing.com or Contact Dunlap Marketing today!