Appointment Setting
Today’s complex sales world has elevated appointment setting to a major (if not the most important) part of the sales process.
A paradox defines sales processes nowadays and the appointment setting process.
The person(s) that knows the software solution best are the ones that are less willing and capable to sell it.
Traditionally software developers and software programmers besides the fact that they are introverted often acquire neither the skills nor the will to pick up the phone and sell the software they put so much work on. Appointment setting is a hard task for them.
As a result, they leave this to an appointment setting company. Appointment setting services are the main offer of sales outsourcing companies selling complex software solutions.
This is how a typical sales approach looks in today’s dynamic and sophisticated software and SaaS selling world.
Cold calling —🡪 Appointment setting —🡪 Discovery Call —🡪 Follow up —🡪 Close
Although appointment setting does not sound like a hard deal, it is, however, a particularly challenging part of the sales process.
The sales agent, needs to convince the gatekeeper that the targeted decisionmaker is going to receive value from his call and once he achieves to pass this obstacle he has no more than 10 seconds to attract the attention of the prospect so that he gets 2-10 min of a telephone conversation with him.
The goal of this conversation is not to sell the solution but to generate a Discovery call and set an online appointment between him and his client.
To do so, he needs in this short time to create rapport with the prospect and if possible, during the call to book the call.
For that, he needs to either have access to the client’s calendar or due to a service such as calendly to be able to book a discovery call on the spot.
If during this first call is not possible to set the appointment, then he needs to follow up with an email or a second or third telephone call and lose the momentum.
Appointment setting requires the right person behind the telephone. Often CEO’s and business owners fail to recognize which criteria are the ones that characterize such a person.
Although qualities such as technical and software knowledge, persuasion skills, and educational level of the agent are important, the most important of all is to pick up the phone and “show up”. It is not the technical knowledge that makes the difference but the consistency and confidence of the salesperson.
Appointment setting companies are on the rise as we speak. Not without a reason!
The solution: outsource appointment setting.
