How To Really Nail Appointment Setting Through Cold Calling Techniques

There are times in the life of a company in any industry that they can run out of ideas on who to call. Sure, there can try to consult business directories, ask for referrals and even scan newspapers and magazines and sift through the internet pages to find more customers. But, whatever the reason, there really are some companies that can still run out of ideas. So, what do they do? They do telemarketing by not knowing what the recipient would really want and how they are going to get it. In cold calling, surely, they can’t expect to close any sales. What they just need to do is to go for appointment setting by having the recipient respond positively to the face-to-face appointments arranged by the one who initiated the call and in this case, they are the professional appointment setters or the telemarketers.

In the days of old, those who are the telemarketers are the sales people themselves who call up people and try to close a sale after a series of calls. Today, telemarketing is done not by sales agents but by these professional appointment setters and they are not there to introduce a product but they are there to present a solution and then ask the recipient of a call if he will agree with meeting the sales agent personally to explain more about the product that can be the possible solution to the current issues and needs of the company that the recipient of the call is representing.

However, even though you can say that it might be easier to do appointment setting rather than do product selling over the phone, telemarketers doing face-to-face appointment setting services should also learns some few tips on how to really nail appointment setting through cold calling techniques.

One of the very important tip that any telemarketers should know about is to make a script. When talking about making a script, it also involves a lot of practice on how to say what telemarketers have written on the script. If the telemarketers are the employees of a b2b telemarketing company where a company, say, a software company has done outsourcing for telemarketing services, then, there is no problem in making the script. All the telemarketers have to do is to follow that script and learn how to deliver the lines on the script as naturally as possible. Constant practice on how to say something like a greeting should be done constantly. An appointment setting personnel can try to record his voice and find out if he is speaking too fast or if he doesn’t sound very natural and make some adjustments.

Through the use of a script, the telemarketers can develop a good phone image. The way telemarketers will come across the phone will be the deciding factor whether or not the telemarketers can make the recipient agree to meet with sales agents.

If a script is made and constant practice on how to say the lines on the script is done, any telemarketers can nail appointment setting even doing cold calling. After all, even if the professional appointment setters know something about the potential client, they still need to have a script and base their conversation on that script and at the same time trying to avoid in following the script word for word. This can really help telemarketers generate good and qualified leads which can lead them to generate higher sales profits for the software company that hired them.

To Do Appointment Setting Through Cold Calling: Why Not?

There will be a time when a company will run out of ideas on where to find new customers. Even though they can scan through a lot of different resources like business directories, the yellow pages, ask referrals from satisfied customers, there will still be a time that they don’t know where to look for additional potential clients. If this will happen, for sure, any company like, say, an IT company can have difficulty in trying to generate qualified IT sales so that they can gather more customers. If that will happen, they need to accept the fact that in spite of the advancements that these IT companies has and can use the internet not just to come up with different marketing methods but also to gather as much qualified leads as they can, they still have to settle in using one of the oldest and yet most reliable, efficient and proven strategy to make new customers and that’s to use telemarketing services and even do cold calling over the phone.

It is a fact that nobody wants to be sold with anything especially if it is done through the telephone and from someone whom they do not know of. But, if cold calling is done in the right manner, even a modern IT company with all of its technological advancements can experience sales nirvana and gain higher sales revenues.

But, the fact of the matter is, using cold calling to generate qualified leads and get to know more about a prospect can really be difficult unless IT companies can learn a few helpful tips.

If there is one important tip on how to nail appointment setting anytime using cold calling, it would be about making a script. This is, by far, the most essential part in doing cold calling. Telemarketers or professional appointment setters don’t just dial any phone number, ask for the decision maker and then, blabber on the phone. They need to have a script for them to practice. But, they should always remember that a script is just a basis or to give the telemarketers an idea on what to say and they don’t have to read the script line by line or word by world as they will surely sound “robotic”.

Practicing the script is also a part of the whole script-writing process. Yes, that’s right. Trying to do appointment setting or arranging face-to-face appointments is just like acting and to come out as natural as one can get, that person needs to do a lot of practice so that he can correct himself if he talks too fast and no one can understand him. Telemarketers has to bear in mind that they are talking to another person at another end of the line and they need to make that first impression. By practicing the script, this will also give telemarketers the idea if the person they are talking to have the buying power or not or if the company they represent has the immediate need of what is being offered to them over the phone.

Nailing an appointment setting is possible through cold calling just as long as a lot of preparations are being done. But, for most software companies, this might seem impossible as they are more preoccupied in developing and customizing software products for different companies in different industries to use. So, what they do is they choose outsourcing to b2b telemarketing firms to do the job of appointment setting and the best part is, these telemarketers from a b2b telemarketing company already has scripts for various industries and they already have targeted call lists, too.