Do want more or less stress in your life? How about more sales and commissions?
If you’re like me, you were taught to ask questions like, “Are mornings or afternoons better for you?” when asking for an appointment. I say ask for a specific day and time. Why? Well, I’m glad you asked! Here are three very good reasons:
- Do you have more time than you know what to do with? If so, let your target control when you meet with them. Let me tell you a story about what I mean. Ever heard of the ‘Star Pattern’ of appointments?
When I started this sales training business, I was leaving a sales management job that had a global reach. All of my appointments were at the far end of an airplane so it had been years since I had driven a geographic territory so I didn’t think about where my calls were going to be the first day I was setting appointments. Hey, they were all in the same city, right? Well, at that time I lived in Dallas and on the first day of going on calls, my first appointment was about as far away from my office as I could get. The second was back close to the office. The third was off in another direction all together. I was a nervous wreck in between appointments worrying about whether I could actually get to the next appointment on time.
That was the last time I ever did that. From that day forward, I would work my way away from the office in the morning and then back towards the office or home in the afternoon. If the time I asked for didn’t work, we looked at another day I’d be in that area. Because here’s the point many sales professionals have a hard time believing, if you’ve built up the value for meeting with you, the target will work with you to find a time that works for both of you.
- It takes less time to ask one question than multiple questions to finally get to an appointment and it gets the target to begin looking at their calendar faster.
- Lastly, it makes us sound busy and professional. People like dealing with other successful people who are busy, who don’t beat around the bush (they know you’re asking for an appointment) and come right to the point. If our calendar sounds full (even when they’re not), we are subtly applying Robert Cialdini’s Principle of Scarcity. People want more of what they think they can’t have.
In conclusion, if you are a fan of this blog, you know I’m an advocate of efficiency as well as effectiveness in appointment setting. The advantage of this approach is that I am controlling my calendar which can make a big difference at the end of the year by squeezing in more dials during a Call Block and more appointments in my day.
Think of it this way. My closing ratio as measured from Initial Appointments is 20%. With 44 full selling weeks in a year—if I’m able to squeeze just one more appointment in per week, I could easily make eight to nine more sales a year.
If you’d like more information on the topic of why no team of sales professionals has ever failed to at least double the number of Initial Appointments they were setting after going through one of our programs, give us a call or drop us a line. We love talking appointment making!
Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the telephone prospecting and cold calling solution called Coldcalling101™. It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations—the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. We can be reached at 817 224-9900 or at bcaponi@caponipg.com. You can also find answers to many of your challenges in our books: Contrary to Popular Belief, Cold Calling DOES Work! Volume I: Effectiveness, The Art of Appointment Making and Volume II: Efficiency, the Science of Appointment Making.
Share and Enjoy
