Telesales vs Appointment Setting??

12 replies
I'm trying to put together a team of outsourcers and I want to add some cold callers/salespeople. But I'm trying to decide if I should have them sell over the phone or set appointments and I go close the sales. Also, I eventually want to expand to businesses outside of my area so the latter option clearly won't work. So I just wanted to see what thoughts you all had on this? Thanks in advance!

Jarius
#appointment #setting #telesales
  • Profile picture of the author ebizman
    Id have them set an appointment for you with business owners in your local area.
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  • Profile picture of the author F33NY
    Appointments by far are best.
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    • Profile picture of the author Just Jarius
      Originally Posted by ebizman View Post

      Id have them set an appointment for you with business owners in your local area.
      Originally Posted by F33NY View Post

      Appointments by far are best.
      Thanks guys, that's what I was thinking too. But what about for businesses outside of my local are (i.e. other states)??
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  • Profile picture of the author tbsweet52
    Im kind of confused by the question.

    You have to do a little bit of selling in order to get an appointment. Right?
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    • Profile picture of the author Just Jarius
      Originally Posted by tbsweet52 View Post

      Im kind of confused by the question.

      You have to do a little bit of selling in order to get an appointment. Right?
      Right, but when I say "telesales" I mean trying to close the deal completely over the phone, not settting up an appointment to do it in person. I guess that was a little confusing
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  • Profile picture of the author social joe
    Call them, sound friendly, concerned, let them know that your in the business ofhelping local business owners get more customers using the internet. If they hear that you are actually doing it for others right now, they are more likely to "Buy In" to you expertise. name drop other local businesses your working for if you can.

    Set the appointment, being clear about the amount of time it will take. This means when you do arrive, they are expecting to sit down for an hour with you and dont cut you off short.

    Finally attend the meeting...face to face communication is a must. RAPPORT, RAPPORT, RAPPORT! and did I mention...RAPPORT!

    Go in with a pre-defined questionnaire, this means you ask questions and they do all the talking...no pressure on you that way, just time to listen and figure out whats best for them as a solution.

    To your success!

    As for Telesales,

    How would yo feel if a stranger called you in the middle of something important and asked you after 10-15 minutes of conversation to commit ot paying them $1000 +?????....yeah, thats why you should not try and close on the phone - You will burn through your prospects with little success.
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  • Profile picture of the author jackpeter12
    I eventually want to expand to businesses outside of my area so the latter option clearly won't work. If they hear that you are actually doing it for others right now, they are more likely to "Buy In" to you expertise. name drop other local businesses your working for if you can.
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  • Profile picture of the author roggernrogger
    Both Telesales and Appointment setting means face-to-face are ways of selling products. Some products are very easy to understand so more preferable to sell on telephone but some products are difficult to understand and price of that products are high so better to sell by appointment setting. Intelemark is very good company I have worked over 12 months.
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    • Profile picture of the author John Durham
      Sales is the hard part. Sales is the difference between success and failure. You will win the lottery before you will find outsourcers who handle "sales", though alot of them will take $500 and tell you they will try. It doesnt work, unless you have a 100k budget to work with that outsourcing company and a high development curve tolerance, and you dont necessarily need profit for awhile.

      If you are outsourcing on a budget, you will have better luck with appointment setters. Wish I could glamorize the truth here, but thats it. Its really the tail wagging the dog for them. Not many people are going to build your whole business for you just because you have an "idea".

      What you are looking for is a "sales partner" not an outsourcing company.

      So... Outsourcing phone sales vs appointment setting?

      You have to nurture and grow with phone sales people, but you can outsource appointment setting. Theoretically it should work differently, but in "reality" it doesnt.

      Edit: (More thoughts, as this processes).

      Alot of people who bought my telemarketing report (seriously not a plug) learned the basics a year ago... and had success, even though it took some honing of their skills.... then another crowd came in and said "Thats old school, thats not glamorous enough"... and so many of the people who started out on the fundamentals went on and said "Bob" teaches the "new school way", and so they went off and followed the sound of the bells and whistles.... and lately I guess the cycle has come around because I have had alot of people coming back saying "You were right, its all about the fundamental principles... I havent had success since I abandoned those ideas...".

      One of these claims is this "Buy my reports and I will teach you how to outsource so you dont have to cold call...", or "I will teach you the magic phrase that gets a 50% conversion...". lol

      Truth: The idea that you can find a company to outsource all your sales on commission for this, will work for about one in a million people. If you WANT to hear truth and you are listening for it, then this will make sense. COMMON sense. The good ole country kind.

      Im saying this on purpose, because shortly a bunch of people are going to come back and say "You were right on that post". Unfortunately many of them will waste months on end. Just the same, some will come along and say "He's wrong, and make up some fabrication about how they outsourced sales and made 20 new clients last week", and sell a report on it a week later.

      Some will read this post and say "He has an agenda"... Well thats what some of the people who went on a 6 month goose chase thought for a minute too.

      You CAN succeed, but you WONT if you are looking for it to be a peice of cake. That should be a given in any kind of business training.

      It sounds good, but business isnt a peice of cake. You dont have to look very far, if you WANT to see the truth, to confirm that. BUT, just because it isnt a peice of cake doesnt mean it isnt POSSIBLE or WORTHWHILE.

      Im not the last word on this, there are other pros with sound advice around here... but Im telling you the truth; if you want phone "sales" people, you have to be willing to develop them, and it is going to come at a cost. Nobody is going to build your business for free.

      This may not directly relate to the OP but it will relate to alot of people who read this thread.

      I promise you there is no new school to sales that will get you around the hard part... you have to develop, but for whoever is reading this, you may end up following bells and whistles and trying magic formulas, and buying anything and everything to automate it for months on end before you come back and say "John was right", but I promise you will.

      This is "offline" sales.

      There are ALWAYS rare exceptions, but thats the rule. The rule is that I can give you a boxing manual that is PERFECT word for word...Still doesnt mean you are conditioned enough to get in the ring with Mike Tyson, or even a "weekend warrior" boxer for that matter. You have to train and condition. No getting around it. Thats gonna take being willing to fail ALOT.

      Now if you fail enough (As Warrior Ben points out) then within a week or so you can have some sales...and within months you will have ALOT..., unless you spend those months searching for truth instead of working the truth that you already know, that you can see ALL around you, if you look objectively.

      The more failure you can take in the shorter amount of time, the quicker you will succeed. It may take one guy a month to get himself through 500 "No's" but it may only take YOU an 8 hour day. The more of that you can get through the quicker, the faster you will have customers, and the better you will get and it will require less and less NO's and also less and less cold calling PERIOD, but you gotta prime the pump to that point where its flowing and not just giving out a burst here and there followed by an air pocket... As Zig Ziglar points out.

      Folks, a successful sales organization is NOT too good to be true, people build them every day. I have built several personally... BUT I PROMISE, you have to be 1000% more dedicated than your sales people are. You have to serve your business before it will serve you, and you have to serve your people before they serve you... UNLESS, you put them in their own business, and they join on that premise.

      Example:

      You wont have luck trying to outsource sales, but you CAN have luck if you build an offline affiliate network and dedicate yourself to it. Looking for a phone room to just cha ching and bring you sales all day isnt going to happen. You have to be the mother and the father to your sales organization.

      The EASIEST way... is to create a training manual, and hire 200 people, that way you can have 10 or 15 that make sales every week. Give them basic training , convince them of the opportunity and let them fly.

      Hire 200 and expect 15 to succeed.

      If you do that you will get sales. It would be alot cheaper to spend a couple of grand on employment ads and do a MASS hiring campaign (as in mass "cattle call" and work the numbers and just send everyone a training manual and let them go do what they do... Thats much cheaper than it would be to waste a year dreaming about outsourcing phone sales to some cheap overseas call center and having them ring up clients all day. Thats a pipe dream, but also an INDUSTRY because so many people buy into it...and 99% end up disappointed.

      I dont make the rules, just have observed them alot.

      Either create an offline affiliate opportunity, or be prepared to train and manage your own peeps, and that means nurturing them, and actually being a "part" of your business..

      My two cents...

      JD.

      Ps. Heres a vid that will help understanding. The lesson in it is that most people stop when they see a short burst of water come out...and they walk away and the water goes all the way back down to the bottom and they have to pump it all the way back up again, but if you will just stand there and pump till it gets past the air pockets and starts to "Flow"....then you dont have to pump like crazy anymore, or work so haerd at it... when its flowing, just a smooth easy pump now and then will keep it flowing. Most take the air pockets and run, then the water falls back down to the bottom...and they are constantly starting back over from zero.

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  • Profile picture of the author earlkenn
    A very useful thread posted here. I want to share something about telesales and appointments settings. According to me Appointment setting is also a kind of telemarketing with an effective way to increase your business development works and successfully appointment setting in telemarketing fields.
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