Outsource Appointment Setting

You can hire a cold caller sure.

Absolutely - If you're looking to hire someone on the cheap oDesk is always an option, but be prepared to do a lot of filtering. If possible, your best option would probably be to find someone local who can work on an hourly + commission basis.

Once you find someone reliable, scale, scale, scale.

Are you guys doing the same too? Any success stories with outsourcing?

PanteraIM just posted a thread here on a good script for appointment settings. This is kind of motivating me to use this for myself, but maybe even hire someone during the times that I am not available to cold call.

All your doing when you outsource appointment setting is have someone else do the appointment setting.

So if your asking does appointment setting work, absolutely we know this....no one can tell you that if you go to odesk and hire an outsourcer to cold call that it will go well.

The act itself of appointment setting works....it's about finding someone or a company that does it well.

Bump to Maxwell.

If your skill set is lacking in cold calling, be prepared to excel in another skill set -- managing people.

I have gone through 6 to 10 appointment setters to work leads I receive, I now have probably the best appointment setter I have ever worked with. He's a former call center owner, too. Independent, does a knock-up job -- no hand-holding whatsoever.

Just be prepared to weed through the junk.

I think you can get away with paying appointment setters $10 to $15 an hour, assuming they are calling on inbound/reply cards. That's a good price for American nationals.

I've wasted so much money trying to cheap it, and picking up foreigners with slight accents, or people who were just as cheap price-wise as they were quality-wise.

Find a professional, give them a week or two to perform, fire them if they aren't, or continue to keep them on if they do well.

Hey man, I appreciate the shout out.

My advice would be to use the script and try it out for yourself first for a couple of weeks.

Even though a good closer armed with a script will work independently they will still need to be managed and taught the nuances that every script is going to have. You can only teach someone this through experience.

It takes roughly 40 hours of call time for a TM to start seeing any real efficiencies in terms of how much they are booking and also how closely the appointments match what you're looking for as a prospect.

You should be prepared to invest at least a month into someone, but once you find them you have them for a long time if you pay them competitively and with bonuses + commission.

A good incentive is to pay a $10 cash bonus on every appointment that gets qualified and seen over their daily threshold. If you want 3 seen appointments a day from your TM and they book you 5 they deserve that extra $20.

This way you are only paying a bonus on qualified appointments that you've already seen. If the prospect is out of your criteria for an appointment the TM doesn't get paid their bonus. This makes this model win/win with little risk to you.

It's not much to the business, but to a worker who is used to being paid a minimum wage it really motivates them to slam down good leads because they know they can make $50+ an hour if they do their job really well.

Getting paid in cash NEXT DAY tax free is also a huge motivator. That's the person's petrol money, cigarettes, booze money for after work. Little things like that really inspire people to stretch themselves.

Check out this WSO from Bruce:

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...ness-fast.html

I don't own it but it may help you.

Thanks PanteraIM. I think I'm going to suck it up and try out your script for a couple of weeks and see how it goes.

I'm still new to cold calling that's probably why I'm already thinking about outsourcing. The fear and not enough practice, creating excuses. I'll probably hire someone down the line later when I'm comfortable and experienced with this myself.

If you do hire a telemarketer, send them a few different scripts so you can split test.

anyone know any companies or services that will have a cost per appointment model?

There are plenty of appointment setters that are open for outsourcing. Or you can try working with a company. Make sure you check if they are credible and are knowledgeable. To get the most out of a campaign, try pairing it with online marketing too.

When I was selling Yellow Page advetising, I got a lot of appointments by having my then girlfriend make some calls for me.

She would call businesses that weren't advertising with us, and she would ask to speak to the owner or whoever handled their yellow page advertising.

She would then go on to explain she was my personal assistant, used a little script I wrote for her and whether Monday or Tuesday (whatever two days) were best for them to meet with me? (I taught her how to use the presumptive close.)

If she encountered the gatekeeper, she actually could bypass them a lot easier, because she said she was my personal assistant.

I think it worked well because it helped build a little rapport. She was in essence doing the same job as a lot of the gatekeepers. She wasn't that "sneaky, bothersome, salesperson" she was just my assistant.

This worked like a charm.

I got so many more appointments this way than when I was cold calling on my own.

She actually called places I had already tried and couldn't get around the gatekeeper. Thanks to her, places I couldn't get around the gatekeeper, actually wound up giving me appointments.

If you have any unemployed or part time employed female relatives/friends or wife/girlfriend I would highly suggest you give this method a shot.

Obviously, you should compensate them either for a fixed amount or a % of profit on any deals you close thanks to their appointment setting.

I'm not trying to be sexist, but as a general rule of thumb, in my experience, people are more receptive to women over the phone, they're less likely to be rude to a woman too.

Maxwell,
I sent an email yesterday regarding your services. The message was sent through your site. I will await your reply.


Thanks,
Chris

For what its worth, Mwind076 View Profile: Mwind076 are a husband and wife team that do this for a living. If I remember correctly, they've been doing it for years. Anyways, hit her up, shes top notch.

Now we all know cold calling and appt setting doesn't work. I'm just here for the good conversation and friends. Kidding, thanks DesertSand.

How did this thread pop up? Oh wait, someone random asked where to find appt setters and the new sig guy posted another reply to get his sign clicked on. Maybe I'm just in a mood today. Good thing I'm not the only one that called him out on it.