3 Powerful Tips For Creating Sales Appointments

When selling on the phone, whether it’s our services or the specific products that drive our commission, we seldom get people who agree to make the decision to buy immediately. We know it’s a long-drawn-out process to go from initial discovery to firm commitment.

Because we know there is a flow to the decision-making process that buyers make, we would find it difficult to by-pass the normal way that buyers deal with their challenges. The most obvious stage would be going from initial interest to agreeing to find out more information.

Naturally, this would involve making the arrangements to prove the value of your services through an initial meetup. So, what would be our tips to help you achieve this aim?

Here are three that can help you:

1) Focus on selling the appointment

We often put the emphasis on what we have to offer and hope that the quality of our products will convince the prospect to see us. That’s not what happens in the mind of the buyer.

The buyer or decision-maker you are trying to get in front of only thinks about their business, not your products. They only consider their increase in performance or improved productivity or higher profit opportunities (or something similar).

So, your call’s aim should be to convince your prospect of the value of their time in discussing how you can deal with their biggest challenges.

They’re not interested in your products…only how those products will help them achieve their goals. So talk about how your products help them to do that, and convince them that the first stage to achieving them is a meeting with you!

2) Build the value of the appointment

As noted above, you are trying to secure a meeting with the people who will be making decisions. What would convince them that it’s worth spending time with you?

Well, think about what would make the person give up half-an-hour (or however long the appointment would be for) to listen to you?

This would be the value message, or the value proposition, as it’s known as.

To do this,

• Research how your products or services will assist their business to improve in some way.
• Have examples of how you have helped others to achieve their goals.
• Create reasons why their time would be well-spent in seeing you.
• Highlight the overall value of doing business with your company.

That way, your value will be seen as worth their time in seeing you.

3) Be human

Have you received a call from a company and then sat through a series of statements from the other end that are obviously being read from a script? How does it make you feel?

We advocate you to simply be human and have a ‘friendly professional’ attitude. This means making it sound as if the person you are talking to is the most important person you’ve spoken to today.

It’s quite difficult to sound perfect, so don’t even try.

Instead, be natural. If you be yourself and allow the conversation to be between two business people, one of whom has a challenge, the other the answer to it, you are on equal terms and have a great opportunity to build a relationship based on improvements for all concerned.

In today’s digital age, incorporating a QR code in your initial outreach materials can also be an effective way to provide quick access to more information about how your products or services can address their specific challenges during your conversation.

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So, think how these simple tips could be applied in your case and see how many more opportunities for appointments can be achieved.

Does your team need extra training in appointment creation? Take a look at our Appointment Setting Training Course.

As a Sales Training Provider, we can help you develop further check out our wider range of Sales Courses that can help you.

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training