How To Successfully Generate More Sales Appointments
Sales appointments can be a tough nut to crack, but they don’t’ need to be.
Among other things, it matters how you approach the call to set up the appointment, your voice and how you respond to the prospect’s queries. Ultimately, keep in mind that prospective clients will buy from someone they Like, Know and Trust. A sales appointment is the best way to achieve that.
Be Prepared To Make The Call
Successful telesales calls are not made on a whim. It might feel like a good idea to call the prospect and set up the appointment without planning what to say, but I assure you, it’s not!
Anticipating what the prospect will say helps you to plan how to control the conversation and avoids being too domineering or too nervous.
Lay a foundation by sending the prospect an email or mailing with introductory material. Thus, the call will simply feel like a follow up to the material you have sent. Try and avoid discussing the material sent in any detail. Save that for the one-on-one meeting.
Sometimes, you might need to communicate with your prospect’s assistant or secretary before you can gain access to the boss. You need to be careful how you treat them. Be friendly to them because they are a direct link to your lead, who might be very busy.
You should learn their name and if possible some of their personal details. This way, they will offer you valuable information about your lead’s level of interest in your product or service without any resistance.
Practice And Be Unique
Regularly making sales appointment calls helps you to discover what strategies work for different clients and allow you to perfect them.
As the salesperson, your call needs to address the unique needs of the prospect. Make it a personal conversation and not just a professional one-size-fits-all telesales call.
Practising also helps you to control the conversation. To achieve this, you need to be assertive, knowledgeable, confident and have a strong voice. Ensure you motivate, not manipulate the prospect to make time for an appointment, by getting straight to the point and being persuasive and reasonable. Also, establish the sincerity of the prospect to avoid wasting time and company resources on an unqualified lead.
Buying Signals And How To Respond
You need to qualify prospects by looking out for buying signals. These are enquiries that portray a prospect’s likelihood to make a purchase. By asking for more information about your product or service, the prospect is expressing their interest to buy. Prospects will often ask about price, quantity or delivery of your product or service.
During the telesales call, you need to assure the lead that you have indeed heard and understood their questions and you appreciate their interest. However, mention that you would like to answer them in detail during the sales visit, while providing complementary information or evidence.
Sell The Appointment, Not The Product Or Service
No matter what you do, fight the urge to answer the prospect’s questions in detail. Each question you answer pulls you further away from securing the commitment to an appointment.
Why would he or she need to meet you if you’ve answered all their questions? Worse still, you risk losing the prospect to your competitor because your answers will often be unsatisfactory. After all, there will be plenty of time to seal the deal at the sales visit.
However, you do need to treat the prospect’s questions carefully. First, they will help you to qualify the prospect as either hot or cold. Secondly, they guide you to decide the most important issues to address during the sales meeting. Remember the purpose of the call is to set an appointment. Most importantly, the sales visit offers a better opportunity to convert a lead into a sale by demonstrating your personality as well as the quality of your product or service.
With this cheat sheet, you are well on your way to learning how to successfully generate more sales appointments for your business.
These and more tips and tricks are discussed in detail in Making Appointments Made Simple by Tim Meagher.
It is a module within an Online Video Training Course in which Tim Meagher reveals the secrets on how to accelerate your business growth; secrets he has learnt and perfected over 40 years, which he has updated and modernised for today’s market.
For further details please visit Making Appointments Made Simple