Outsourcing Appointment Setting

The ability to set appointments is an especially important skill to both companies and salespeople alike.  Whether you choose to go it alone, or to outsource to a third party, the reality is that in a competitive marketplace, you cannot survive without taking appointment setting seriously. 

What is Appointment Setting?

Effective appointment setting comes down to identifying qualified prospects and scheduling a face to face meeting in which your sales team can personally meet a decision maker.

You will come across a laundry list of organizations offering professional appointment setting functionality.  Third party providers can access your prospect database, cold call the list, and set appointments for your staff to carry out.  The level of success you see will ultimately come down to your expectations.  Results can often exceed or fall short of expectations, so just before contracting an appointment setting company, you potentially must evaluate whether you feel that the process of outsourcing will improve the efficiency of your sales process.

You can work with the company you select to agree upon the details you want to promote, as well as the data and facts you would specifically like to gather.  The advantage of outsourcing is that it can be flexible and reactive – when your process changes, your provider can evolve with you.

Setting appointments with qualified prospects is a must. While you may be a strong presenter, networker, or negotiator, you won’t close the business you desire without leads and appointments.  As you know, continually filling and maintaining a robust pipeline can be a challenge for salespeople in just about every industry.

Background

To achieve fruitful results, the company you entrust to handle your cold calling must be familiar with your definition of exactly what constitutes a qualified appointment.  Unfortunately, there are many appointment setting services that will hurriedly begin calling your prospects without understanding what your company is about, what you value, and how you define “qualified”.  The result can be time consuming meetings with folks who have little impact on ultimate sales decisions, and decision makers who only want to be treated to coffee or lunch.  Additionally, some prospects with whom you follow up might not even remember agreeing to meet in the first place. 

To make the most from outsourcing to an appointment setting company, you will need to ideally work with an experienced company with a proven track record of success.  The ideal agency will fill your pipeline with well-suited appointments and significant meetings, not simply coffee shop meetings.