Appointment Setting Services

by JayKay Dowdall

Posted: 9 years ago 9 replies

OFFLINE MARKETING

Hi folks,

Does anyone have experience with an appointment setting service for Marketing Consultants?

Inbound leads have been working well for me, but cold-calling has always yielded fantastic results in getting solid leads, it's just so time consuming for me to do it and it's hard to get/train/keep someone setting appointments from my end.

Is there a service you can recommend? How do payment terms work?

Thanks all!

#appointment #services #setting

qu4rk

9 years ago

Originally Posted by JayKay Dowdall

Forgive me for my candor, but this question is similar to who can I outsource my SEO to? The answer is no one...or you can spend a lot of money to find out the answer is no one.

I cold call everyday & here is the reality. You need to make time for it. It takes me ~27 dials to get a person interested in what I'm selling (I don't call them leads because that's such a fuzzy term).

I am going to save you some time & energy by telling you that...you're wasting your time looking to outsource this to a 3rd party. You need one of 2 things. Either, you need to make time for it or train someone on your system. If you don't have a system, then you need to create one. Otherwise, will be easy pickin's for someone who wants to sell you "leads (whatever those are - different people call different things leads)".

Hope this helps.

Thanks
2 replies

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JayKay Dowdall

9 years ago

Originally Posted by qu4rk

No actually, it doesn't help at all.

I cold-call everyday too, and that's exactly my point. Spending 27 dials of your time or mine is, ultimately, a waste of time since only the 1 dial that leads to a conversation is what matters.

I have trained, hired, and worked with reps locally to get results before and that's all well and good but it's been costly with mistakes, missed opportunities, and expenses.

If an appointment setting service exists that caters to marketing consultants that a fellow warrior would recommend (vis-a-vis my original question) I would imagine that they... ummm, set appointments? Provided they understand my product and target market I should think that this "lead" is decent at the least, or at least as good as the conversation you will spend 27 dials to get to.

I'm not expecting solid gold nuggets to come from a service like this, but if I can spend my time working on something that offers more value to my business rather than calling 27 businesses, then I would prefer to do just that...

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MaxwellB

9 years ago

Originally Posted by qu4rk

So your saying the three, million dollar clients I have paying me for hundreds of appointments per week are not making money with those appointments? I've been with them for over 2 years each but apparently you can't outsource appointment setting?

I'm sorry if I sound abrasive but this is fear based thinking. Or you were burned by an indian or some other asian call center in the past and have not yet made the real investment in an American sales outsourcing company.

I hope you one day do find a quality company to help scale your business to the next level.

Thanks
1 reply

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Vincent Chase 9 years ago

Great topic. I would also be interested to know if anyone has successfully outsourced appointment setting.
- Thanks
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umc 9 years ago

I don't see why you couldn't outsource this. My wife did some calling for a friend of ours setting up appointments for him and it went well. She did it part-time from home. He gave her leads that he purchased and she called to set them up for an appointment. Of course, many of those leads were garbage, but it worked well. She made decent money for a little part-time gig and he could spend his time taking more appointments and selling more. To me it makes sense to hire out the calling if it opens more time for you to do something that makes more money.
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Oziboomer

9 years ago

Originally Posted by JayKay Dowdall

Does anyone have experience with an appointment setting service for Marketing Consultants?

Without going down the route of offshore outsourcing or contracting an external provider I would suggest using a local person, usually a female, who you can provide a script to.

The way to attract the right person is to advertise locally and ask them to apply via phone call only.

You use words like "seeking customer relations manager", "flexible hours" and "can work from home" "must have good telephone manner"

You can narrow down some good prospects.

My tip is to never actually meet the appointment setter in person.

Only judge them on the phone.

Conduct all interviews via phone and narrow it down to two people.

Use both and look at their results.

If one is better then give them more work but always have a backup person.

If the advertisement is worded correctly you will attract a couple of good employees that you can employ casually to suit your budget and their lifestyle.

A big advantage of doing it this way is you do get native speakers and people with local knowledge. Women also have a better ability to engage in an empathetic conversation.

Also pay them a wage or wage plus bonus rather than commission only. This might go against what the sales types amongst the readers believe but if you go down this route you want to cultivate and support someone over a longer term because often the people that get called who don't buy on the first call will gradually get to know the caller if you run follow-up calls and if they have established a rapport then over time they will convert more.

It does depend on the market you are going after but men tend to listen to their mothers even if they don't necessarily agree with them.

Once you get a motherly type that can cut through on the phone they will be worth the trouble of finding them in the first place.

Otherwise try out the professional organisations who specialise in outbound marketing.

In Australia the preferred country to outsource to is the Philippines but that is due to time zones.

You can find outsourced employees at a price that suits to deliver what you want.

Kind regards,

Ozi

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qu4rk

9 years ago

Originally Posted by Oziboomer

My tip is to never actually meet the appointment setter in person.

Only judge them on the phone.

This is money advice Ozi. Without hijacking the OP's thread:

How do you keep up with an "employee" that works at home? Do you have a phone system that allows you spot check calls & monitor dials?

Also, why are you offering at home? Is it to attract better quality or something else?

Thanks
1 reply

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Oziboomer

9 years ago

Originally Posted by qu4rk

You will find you get some quite experienced females who like to drop their kids at school and pick them up again so you can usually get 4-5 hours of work per day.

If they don't have to travel anywhere that appeals to them.

Also you don't really need to track calls but you do want them to keep accurate records.

You are not looking for someone to do a volume of calls but to have an effective success rate.

I would pay them as if they were a usual employee and offer bonuses that could be things like computers, tablets, amazon vouchers etc. Give them the feeling you want to help with their kid's education by providing some of the things they need.

That way you get a loyal employee who will often work longer and harder for you.

The flexibility of allowing remote working also helps when they have sick kids or other issues.

I currently have one full time person who is physically in the office 2 days per week and works remotely 3 days. They are not in phone sales.

Their skills are in demand and one of the few ways I could keep them employed and happy was to be more flexible about their schedule.

They keep a spreadsheet of hours worked but I don't even have to check that as their output exceeds what they were producing when working in house full time previously.

Best regards,

David Schummy