Appointment-Setting

This program is based on a book written by Stephan Schiffman, Cold Calling Techniques (That Really Work), which was listed by U.S. News and World Report as one of the top 50 business books ever written. The sales process begins with getting in front of people who are prospects for what we have to offer and most salespeople have never been taught the specific skills required to do this (i.e. to set appointments). This workshop takes people through a step-by-step approach to conducting a successful appointment-making call.

There are four basic elements to the call:

• Get their attention
• Identification
• Reason for the call
• Set the appointment

It sounds simple - and it is - but many salespeople lack the confidence and nearly always the knowledge that is needed to set enough appointments to reach their goals.

Another important feature of our program is the way we handle the call when we get a negative response, which happens more often than not. Most salespeople simply get off the phone when they hear, “no thanks.” We teach people how to anticipate negative responses and to get around the negative in such a way that will allow them to still get the appointment.

We also teach techniques for leaving a message, getting through gate keepers, “phone tag”, and many others. As a result of taking this program, your salespeople will have a great deal more confidence on the phone. They will have the ability to reach more decision makers and establish face-to-face meetings with key prospects.

Appointment-setting is a very practical, “same-day-results” program. Your salespeople will make live calls on the day and we regularly set more appointments in one hour than the team might have set in the whole previous month! In addition, you will be able to see the ratios for each salesperson.

Cold Calling or Appointment-Making:
A World-Class Methodology

A couple of years ago, U.S. News and World Report published a list of the top fifty business books ever written. Books like Good to Great and In Search of Excellence were on the list along with Stephen Schiffman’s book, Cold Calling Techniques (That Really Work!). Our appointment-making workshop was developed by the “master”, Stephen Schiffman and it does “Really Work!” The reason his book made the list and our workshop so successful is that every sale has to have a beginning. All the sophisticated strategies and plans in the world are useless unless someone gets an appointment with a decision-maker to start the sales conversation. Starting the right number of conversations is the basis of an effective sales process.

Our Appointment-Making workshop takes a step-by-step approach to executing the appointment making phone call. Very few salespeople were ever actually taught how to set an appointment. The first thing we teach is the importance of actually asking for the appointment – using a specific date and time. You would be amazed at how many salespeople make calls and jump into the selling process and never get to the point where they actually ask for the appointment. We have a well developed outline of how the call is to be conducted in a way that leads to getting the appointment. Next, we have a straightforward method for dealing with negative responses. What do you think most salespeople do when they hear “no”? That’s right, they give up. We teach them how to anticipate negative responses, turn them around and go for the appointment.

We also deal with issues like:

• The importance of knowing your critical ratios
• How to leave a message that will get a high number of call backs
• How to deal with “gate keepers”
• What to do when the prospect starts asking questions
• How to handle “voice mail tag”
• How to make a great “referral call”

The techniques we use are professional and effective. The program provides for a high level of practice and participation and the salespeople leave with confidence, knowing that they are fully armed to make the calls and get the appointments they need to be successful.

A DEI licensee recently did a Cold Calling workshop for one of his clients. During the workshop, the salespeople get to make live calls. Here are the numbers for the 10 people:

1,000 dials
225 Contacts
101 Appointments

The ratio was therefore: 9.9:2.2:1. This is the real world. We are intrigued when we read about people’s opinions and views about cold calling or rather the death of cold calling. Most people never really measure what they are doing when they make calls; they just talk around the issue and play around with nouns and verbs. DEI gets you to do it. Again, we grew up in the real world!

Call us: +353 1 6177890
Email: sales@dei-sales.ie