The Real Cost of a Sales Appointment

Using an outside sales appointment setting group is expensive, or is it?

At first glance, with fees upward of 30 bucks an hour, it seems real expensive and maybe even cost prohibitive. A second look will show that this might be the best investment you ever made.

Let's assume that you've been enlightened with the idea that using an appointment setter(s) to make your sales reps more productive is the right thing to do. Let's further assume that you've at least thought of using an outsourcing firm to perform this task for you. In-house or outsource? Which one makes more sense?

An inside sales appointment setter might make you feel better because you will see him every day, toiling away at his desk dialing and smiling. It only costs $8-$10 an hour with a few spiffs thrown in for good measure. The appointments he schedules are fair at best but you think he's getting better.

What about the other costs though? The desk space, phone and computer line, taxes, insurance and training. What happens when the appointment setter doesn't show up one day for an important calling project and there is no one to take his place and he doesn't show up the next day or the day after that? Now you have the cost of recruitment and training on your shoulders again.

If you are working the in-house appointment center right, you also need to hire someone to compile sales and call reports and gauge effectiveness of different campaigns. That reporting is one of the most important tools you have to know that you are calling on the right prospects with the right message at the right time.

The right outsourced sales appointment setting firm will perform as an extension of your sales group, dialing more and setting more appointments than your inside callers. They are well trained, professional, and articulate and they come along with a support group that will furnish you with meaningful reports that tell you a lot about your market and sales effort. Your sales reps productivity will double!

The right outsourced sales appointment setting firm will streamline your sales process and take away the management, training and recruitment hassles while providing you with a steady stream of highly qualified appointments with prospects who will buy from you.

If you are thinking of using in-house sales appointment setters, think long and hard. Is it cheaper? In the short term: maybe. Long term it will cost you more than you ever imagined and could in fact, derail your sales future.

The Fallacy of Pay for Performance Appointment Setting

by Brian Grinonneau

If a deal seems too good to be true, you can bet it is.

When searching for a sales appointment setting firm, some clients are tempted by the pay for performance model. It is intriguing. Have the appointment setting/ telemarketing firm only receive pay if appointments are made. It seems risk free. It is not.

Most pay for performance models are hatched in offshore call centers. The problem, aside from a language barrier, is these performance based companies push too hard, don’t disqualify poor prospects, use sub-par callers, waste a lot of your time and leave an indelible ugly mark on your company image.

A pay for performance telemarketing company oft-times is poorly equipped to put your best business foot forward. It makes haphazard calls from a noisy room with no real structure in place. The only goal is to get lots of appointments with no regard for quality or planning. The caller who is working on your account today may not be tomorrow and on day three it is someone different again perhaps with no knowledge of the intricacies of your project.

To achieve success when outsourcing your sales appointment setting strategy, you have to select a firm that has a solid management team with a strong sales background. This team will be responsible for putting you in front of the accounts you want most, but also in helping you better understand your market. Leading call centers will know the best prospects on whom to call, why they buy and how to set and appointment with them. The right appointment setting company should be an important, natural extension of your sales department focused on your ROI.

The best way to find the right telemarketing firm is to perform due diligence by asking the following questions:

May I see the bios of your management team?
What is included in your service?
How are your calling agents compensated?
Will I have a caller or two assigned exclusively to my project?
How do you monitor progress on my project?
How do you report results and market trends to me?
How often will you communicate with me and by what form?
May I speak with and confer with the callers assigned to me?

Marketing is an ongoing testing process and a telemarketing center is an important part of it. A call center's ability to be proactive, change direction when needed, and carefully track the strategy will give you a clearer view of your successes.

When you next consider a telemarketing company know that your best results will come from a company that has solid management, meaningful reporting and educated, well-paid callers. Don’t be tempted by the seemingly low priced offerings of pay for performance plans. They will cost you more than you could ever imagine.

Why Should I Meet With You?

If you want a prospect to meet with you, there better be a good reason--a compelling can hardly live without knowing more reason.

Today’s business world flies at break-neck pace making time the most precious commodity and if a prospective customer is giving up some, he has to get something of greater or equal value in return.

What do you have to give? What is your value proposition? If you don’t know, it’s time to define it.

A prospect will spend time with you if he perceives you have something that will in some way(s), make his life better. You won’t get in the door satisfying a want or need. He can find that satisfaction anywhere. You aren’t the only shop on the block. You do have something that is unique that may entice your prospect to meet though. Figuring it out is the cornerstone of your approach.

Here is a typical approach used by more sales reps than you’d care to imagine:

Good Morning, This is John with XYZ Widget Company and we help our clients streamline production by using our innovative products.

What does that mean exactly? Nothing! Like the blind squirrel finding the acorn, an occasional appointment can be had with this below average attempt, but it sure won’t fill a sales pipeline.

To really attract attention, give examples of what your product does for named clients and how they feel using it. Be specific. Talk about cutting expense, adding more dollars to the bottom line and customer experience. For instance:

Good Morning, This is John with XYZ Widget Company and we have a process that has helped ABC, DEF and GHI companies increase sales by more than 30%. They also cut labor expense by 20% and the managers, like you, received nice cash bonuses and were able to stay home weekends.

Be specific. If you want a prospect to spend valuable time with you, give him a reason—a real reason to do so.

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The Two R's Of Appointment Setting

You have to get two basic steps right to successfully set a sales appointment. You have to call the right prospect and deliver the right message.

Brilliant, huh?

You might be surprised how difficult it is.

Most business owners, big and small, Fortune 500 and entrepreneur, spend the majority of their energy calling the wrong prospects. People who will never do anything but waste the sales reps’ time. This isn’t an intentional strategy, but one born of poor planning and sometimes outdated management thinking.

Any given company has prospects that fall into a scant few SIC codes or categories. A superior sales organization takes the time necessary to identify the prospect most likely to buy from them. Not the prospect whose need can be filled or want sated, but the prospect that does buy the service or product the company sells.

Want to drive more sales? Work on your list of prospects. Throw out those that have been in your database too long. Be liberal in tossing to the curb those that don’t fit your narrow profile.

Once you’ve identified a list of prospects that deserve to be called, you need to craft a smart introduction script. That script will keep you from deviating from the main points you need to make and with very little practice will sound as natural as if you are talking to a friend.

Cover the basics. Begin with your name and company name.

This is Brian Grinonneau with the appointment setting firm MaSM.

State the purpose of your call and develop some interest.

We’ve set high-level, qualified sales appointments for ABC and DEF companies with the accounts they wanted most resulting in a good deal of new business being closed.

Ask for an appointment.

If you are considering any new options in your sales strategies I would like the chance to introduce myself and my company to you and if there is anything you hear that you like maybe you would think of us in the future.

Would you have time in the next week?

Schedule the appointment.

Your script is used to set an appointment, period. You are generating enough interest in your offer for the prospect to take some of his most valuable commodity, time, to meet with you. Take your time and develop the script with precision. Make sure that every word is right and conveys the meaning you want. The results will be worth the time invested.

If your prospecting is off kilter and your sales pipeline isn’t full make sure that you are calling the right prospects with the right message. Build the list. Develop the words. Work a system. Smile and dial. Set more sales appointments and close more deals.

You've Got Mail

You need a medium that is immediate, personal, trackable and talks with those who are anxious to hear from you. That medium is email marketing. It is the strongest and fastest growing marketing tool available today. Big companies are moving money away from TV, print and radio and moving it into email campaigns. Why? Because it works. Consider this:

• 82% of email users have purchased a product because of an email offer.



• US online agency Doubleclick predicts a rise of 17% in email marketing budgets in the US. TV, print and radio and predicted to decrease.



• Microsoft sends out more than 20 million email marketing pieces every month.

Permission based email marketing campaigns can provide marketers with reports on their markets they only dreamed of before. This allows them to cut down on wastage and niche more meaningful offers with the obvious benefit of better returns for effort and investment.

A Price Waterhouse Coopers survey found 83 percent of Internet users felt email was their primary reason for using the Internet. Given the choice, an overwhelming majority turned down books, radios, and televisions in favor of an Internet connection with email on a desert island.

Ask a different research company and you will get a different answer for the average response rate of opt-in email campaigns. Jupiter Communications will tell you 5 to 15 percent. Forrester will tell you 14 to 22 percent. Ask a different email marketer and get a different answer. Some are getting only 3 percent and some are getting 40 percent. But they all agree on three things: It's not very expensive, it's not very hard, and it's got a better return on investment than other marketing and advertising techniques.

Quit trying to win a new game with old weapons. Build an email list, watch it grow even bigger, use it to share useful information and watch your profits grow.

Finally an advertising form that tells you what your customers think of you and what’s important to them. You have to do this.

MaSM Now Offers Powerful Email Marketing Programs

MaSM, The Marketing and Sales Management Group has partnered with the world leader in email marketing, Constant Contact, to provide its customers with full service email programs.

MaSM is a sales appointment setting, consulting firm that focuses on direct response marketing. Constant Contact is the world leader in email marketing programs that not only help attract new customers, but build long-term profitable relationships with existing clients.

In making the announcement, MaSM COO, Elizabeth Duggan said, “Email marketing makes perfect sense. It is the most direct way to reach customers in a timely manner. The tools we now offer build sales volume and long term client relationships. Email marketing is immediate, inexpensive, trackable and much more effective than other strategies.”

MaSM staff can develop full email marketing campaigns to include: e-newsletters, product announcements, surveys, brand building, loyalty programs and direct response sales.

Don't Listen To Others

Quit Cold Calling

If you can’t cold call, don’t! It’s that easy.

How, you now ask, can you get qualified prospects on whom to call and turn into your new customers if you don’t cold call? Let someone else do it.

The typical sales type will do anything to avoid dialing the phone to try to convince someone they don’t know to meet and listen to their pitch. It is uncomfortable bordering on painful.

Watch your sales pro during “phone time”. He will rearrange papers on his desk, take extended restroom breaks, work feverishly on an email, chart or other paperwork, dial and hang-up quickly claiming to get a busy signal, doodle, stare into space, take calls from customers he must service, get extra coffee, meet with other staffers who need his attention right now and on and on it goes. A sales rep will do almost anything to avoid the dreaded cold call.

The downside, of course, is very few calls get made, no new rocks are overturned and the sales pipeline remains empty. Sales projections are missed, money is lost and unhappiness reigns supreme.

Turn this highly important task over to a phone sales professional and watch your fortunes rise. A sales appointment setter or telemarketer will dial the phone 30 to 50 times an hour and talk with a fair number of qualified prospects, scheduling appointments and gathering important competitor information. This prospector goes about the job cheerfully, never losing sight of the goal of setting meetings with qualified potential customers. He is a craftsman—an artisan who never gives up.

Using these phone pros builds your business by canvassing targeted SIC codes, demographics or geographic locations. More meetings are scheduled, more presentations made and many more sales closed.

Quit fighting the obvious. If you can’t cold call, DON’T.

Doing The Job For Free

Making the decision to use sales appointment setters isn’t really so hard. If you consider all of the facts, the choice is simple really. Separating sales appointment setting from the actual sales process is plain and simple, smart. It fills anemic pipelines, evens out revenue droughts, provides meaningful reporting, improves morale, greatly reduces oversight, helps you make more money and it can be done free.

The word free has lost its meaning over the years. Free means something with a lot of strings attached that may really cost more than if you would buy the item outright. To be fair, in the case of sales appointment setting, the better term might be zero net cost rather than free.

Imagine your company has a staff of three outside sales reps. (Good salespeople all but lacking the time or desire to prospect and cold call. It isn’t unusual. In fact, there is nary a company exec who doesn’t echo that very complaint on a daily basis.) You make the decision to employ a sales appointment setting firm to schedule sales meetings. The hook is, the sales reps will pay for the service—pay for their new appointments.

Management usually gasps at this suggestion saying the sales reps will refuse, complain profanely, quit and take their book of business to a competitor. Yes, they will complain loud and long. No, they won’t quit. As the program is explained, they will understand that this makes their job easier and in fact, helps them make more money—money that dwarfs what they will pay for an appointment setter.

The typical sales rep spends 80% of his day servicing, schmoozing, following up and involving himself in non-sales activities. It leaves precious little time to prospect and cold call to find new clients. Before long it cuts into his earnings and the company profits forcing him into frenetic activity to try to make quota and maintain the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed. Frenetic sales activity is a poor substitute for the orderly sales process prospects demand.

The sales appointment setting firm, statistically, will improve selling activity by 30% on average. It provides a regular, steady stream of prospects on whom to call. Moreover the appointment-setter becomes an inside sales rep helping his outside counterpart sell more by providing, in addition to appointments, leads, requests for information and valuable insights about competitors. He becomes the keeper of the calendar, the follow-up man, and the cheerleader. Before long your sales rep is happier, much more productive and there is little need for sales management.

Free appointment setting or zero net cost appointment setting. You pick the term but know that it will change the face of your sales organization in the most positive way ever. You may even rethink your take on the word free.

You've Got to Be Kidding Me

By Brian Grinonneau





Here's an idea hatched in the minds of short-sighted corporate cost cutters: "Let's hire an overseas call center to handle outbound sales appointment setting and inbound service issues". In the immortal words of Johnny Mac, you've got to be kidding me.

Want an example? Try doing business with Spirit Airlines. That's the company with cheap fares but lousy customer service. A recent problem with a boarding pass resulted in on the phone hold times of up to an hour, only to be greeted by a representative named "Roger" who sounded a hell of a lot like Rameesh. Listen to this guy pronounce Seattle.

Let's get smart here. People in the U.S. (your customers and prospects) want to talk with someone who speaks pretty flawless English. Long Island nasal and southern twang is ok but a "no trace of an accent" midwestern dialect is preferable. Put an overseas caller on the job and blow this deal and all future deals once and for all.

Why do businesses with good street cred use call centers from India, Pakistan and other far away places? Think. It's in the bottom line. Man, you can have that job done for pennies on the dollar. Problem is: the job is so poorly done that you have killed a sale and taken customer care to new lows.

Next time you get a come on email or sales call from an overseas call center, ignore it. Or if you prefer, hire the company and put them to work. It makes it so much easier for smart companies to use professional U.S. telemarketers and show you what ROI really means.

Sales Appointment Setting: A Matter of Geometry?

by Brian Grinonneau


Amazing isn't it, the number of smart business types trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with their approach to sales management. It doesn't fit! It never will. Open up to some new options.

A sharp sales rep wants to sell. That's all. No cold calls. No prospecting. No scheduling meetings. No paperwork. He wants to get in front of the client and perform. (see: close the deal) Problem is: overwrought sales management thinks that you need to push the cocky sales staff to build a skill set that focuses more on the mundane tasks of sales planning. Ridiculous! Delegate the job to someone else.

Before you say it costs too much to bring on new staff to work for the sales reps, you need to really consider the ROI. MaSM studies in late 2007 show that sales productivity can more than double and cash flow is akin to ocean waves when using appointment setters.

A sales appointment setter is an introvert who prefers making a connection by phone and setting the stage for the performer. The sales star is an extrovert focused on the gratification of the sale and the money and bragging rights it brings. Two distinct halves of the sales equation that make for one hell of a result.

Sales appointment setting brings real meaning to the most overused word in business today: synergy. Pair up sales appointment setters and even the most average sales reps and you've got a team that will blow away quotas and projections. ROI will finally mean something.

Doing what you've always done and expecting different results just doesn't work. You know that. It really is the square peg, round hole theory.

Don't Make Sales Reps Schedule Appointments

By, Brian Grinonneau

Having sales pros cold call and prospect is like having a star baseball player stock the concession stand. It’s a lousy use of talent and terrible waste of money. Sales stars shine when selling. Let them sell!

A sales super achiever wants to meet with prospects, determine a fit, suggest solutions and close the deal. It feeds his competitive nature. It assuages the hunger to perform.

A sales super achiever hates making endless calls to find the right prospect with whom to meet. The process dampens the spirit and kills motivation.

Those who think a salesman should be a prospector and sales genius can stop here. The paradigm shifted a few turns back.

In today’s sales world, an account rep must exploit strength--not work on weakness. Forget about a well-rounded rep, focus on a super star that closes the deal and brings home fists full of cash.

Appointment setting, telemarketing companies will set any sales staff on a course for success. Highly qualified sales appointments are scheduled with those who have an interest in your solution and have the ability to buy from you; appointments that are the result painstaking prospecting and hours of dialing.

A December 2007 MaSM study found that appointment setting firms can double the productivity of a sales staff because it can concentrate only on selling and not the mundane associated tasks. When qualified sales appointments are scheduled, closing ratios climb and cash flow improves.

Don’t make sales reps schedule their own sales appointments. They hate doing it and aren’t very good at it. Leave the job to professionals who love doing it and are good at it. Sales stars shine when selling. Let them sell!

90% of Some Marketing Budgets Spent on Appointment Setting

By Sally Johnson

It’s important enough to focus on and I can’t stress it enough… Telemarketing is used to set appointments because it works!

Some businesses are so aware of how effective this is that they spend as much as 90% of their marketing budgets to have telemarketers set appointments for their salespeople. Getting their sales reps in front of the right decision maker increases the liklihood of a sale, and businesses know it!

That’s because the sales person is able to have an uninterrupted and exclusive time with the prospect. This undivided attention gives a good sales person the chance to present the features and benefits of the product, answer objections and close the sale. It’s much harder for the prospect to say “no” when they are face-to-face with the presenter.

In fact, it increases the sales rate dramatically and businesses know this. Cold calling is a drudgery compared to having a standing appointment already set for an in-person meeting with the decision maker. Telemarketing is used to set appointments and businesses have found it to be worth the expense.

Sally Johnson has been in the telemarketing business for over 20 years and now enjoys written and researching new industy trends.

Outsourcing some sales efforts can boost the bottom line

Hotel & Motel Management, by Howard Feiertag
Lots of outsourcing is going on these days in all areas of hotel operations, so why not take a look at what could be helpful in this area with regard to sales?

We all can offer suggestions on how salespeople can be more productive with their time. After all, the most important role of a salesperson is to make more sales, and that relates to bringing in more business, not making more sales calls.

But at many properties, we see job descriptions referring to the number of sales calls that need to be made. If it's not reflected in a job description, we know about managers telling salespeople to go out and make more calls. However, it is not the number of calls we make that creates profit for a business, but the dollar amount of business actually being collected.

In order to bring in more profitable business, we first need to know who to call. This is where we get to the term "prospecting," which means finding out who is in a position to provide business to a property. The most successful salespeople are those who concentrate only on calling qualified prospects. Sales personnel would be more productive if they spent their time making contact and building relationships with those who have been qualified to book business with them.

All too often, salespeople spend a good amount of time making "cold calls." This term refers to calls being made on just about anyone to determine if that contact could be considered a prospect. The cold calls are made to "qualify" if that contact would have any business for a property. These calls are made by phone or in person.

We need to consider if the amount of time spent by a salesperson making cold calls to find qualified prospects is as productive as that person spending the time making calls on only those already qualified. Most sales personnel already know the answer to that question. So, the next question is, if they do not do the cold calling to find qualified prospects, how will that get done so that the salesperson has only prospects to call?

This is where outsourcing comes into play. Companies that will do cold calling for a property--often at a much lower cost than having a salesperson do it--are becoming more prevalent.
In addition to prospecting (lead generation), some companies provide a variety of sales activity functions, such as database cleansing, sales missions, trade-show follow-up services, direct mail follow-up programs, customer satisfaction surveys, customer opinion polls, internal employee surveys and mystery shopping.

Howard Feiertag is on the faculty of the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Va. He can be reached at howardf@vt.edu.