How Leads Are Qualified
“Hi, this is Bob Jones. We have an appointment tomorrow at 10 a.m. Would you like to cancel?”
It sounds ridiculous, right? No one would intentionally call a prospect as part of an appointment setting call and set themselves up for a cancellation. However, if you take a closer look at your appointment setting process, if you aren’t careful when calling to confirm your sales appointments, you might as well be asking for a cancellation.
Remember, your prospects are busier than ever before, running here and there putting out fires. If you have gotten far enough in your appointment setting process to schedule a face-to-face meeting, then chances are good that the prospect is interested enough to want to listen. Chances are you’ve done a lot of work qualifying and sorting your business leads to get this far.
However, once the day of the meeting rolls around, there may likely be something more urgent that has risen for the prospect. Calling to confirm might inadvertently remind the decision maker of how busy he/she is, and give them an easy excuse to back out of the meeting. But at the same time, as part of your appointment setting follow-up, you want to make sure the prospect is expecting you, and the appointment hasn’t slipped his mind.
One easy way around this is to place your confirmation call after-hours the day before the meeting and leave your reminder on voice mail. This way, your prospect gets the message first thing in the morning and will be expecting you.
Could the prospect still cancel? Sure. But if he hasn’t gotten proactive and called to cancel before the day of the meeting, then chances are good that he won’t do it the day of.
As you’ve surely seen during the appointment setting process, the prospect has overcome a lot of resistance to find time to meet with you. If you suddenly ask for a phone conference instead, he might think you aren’t that interested in talking to him seriously, and he could decide that YOU’RE not worth HIS time.
Even if circumstances (changes in travel plans, weather, etc.) dictate that you can’t meet face-to-face for some reason, suggest video conferencing, rather than a simple phone call. Video conferencing is the next best thing to actually being in the room with the prospect, and you can communicate with your prospects from virtually anywhere.
Take care not to accidentally undermine your appointment setting. After so much time qualifying sales leads, building relationships and inching your way to the prospect’s door, you don’t want to make the mistake of giving your prospect an invitation to cancel.
The appointment setting process can be fraught with pitfalls, and even if your sales team is full of veteran appointment setters we all can learn a thing or two from some outside experts. If you’re ready to boost the appointment setting performance of your sales team, get access to better qualified B2B sales leads, and enhance the effectiveness of your overall B2B lead generation program, contact Strategic Sales & Marketing for a quick quote or a free, no obligation Test Drive of our appointment setting services.