5 Cliches About appointment setting services You Should Avoid

Businesses these days are in a tight bind, and why not? These are difficult times, with the world still reeling from the effects of the US financial crisis. Tough times call for tough measures, and that includes the search for an advertising model that will snatch an appointment setting for the firm. But it has to the one that will not cost much, and still be able to produce the same desired results. Luckily, we do have one. It's been around for many years, and yet it's been the most misunderstood. It's called telemarketing. ™

Many people these days view telemarketing with a heavy dose of disdain. It really can't be helped. Telemarketing earned a bad reputation with the public as a disturber of the peace, and it's an image that is hard to do away with. That's no thanks to the numerous firms who have abused its potentials. What was initially seen as the salvation of many struggling small firms has been turned into a tool for con artists and other scams to steal money from unsuspecting people. That's how bad things had turned telemarketing into.

It's just a good thing that things are being done to correct it. Professional telemarketers go to great lengths just to clean up their ranks, making sure that only responsible and professional people are allowed to take even a single phone call. With the government passing laws to protect people from unscrupulous telemarketers, private citizens can finally have some privacy for themselves. A good example of this kind of federal legislation is the creation of a Do Not Call list. Now, con artists and other criminals will not be able to freely call people anymore, lest they end up in the wrong side of the law.

As for professional telemarketing itself, lead generation and appointment setting has become a more common need from telemarketers. Telemarketing services these days are more engaged in business to business, or B2B, transactions. This is a very lucrative venture for telemarketers and the businesses they serve. In the first place, they can get the proper reaction from the people they call. And since businesses are also in need of other businesses to trade with, then telemarketers can be the perfect middlemen for this.

Besides, other marketing tools cannot achieve the same level of market penetration compared to what telemarketing can do. Do business executives spend their time watching TV or listening to the radio? Nope. They are busy people who can only be reached by phone. Now this is where telemarketing shows itself to be the best. TV and radio can only do so much, but if you really want to gain some foothold in the business you're interested to trade with, then it's telemarketing for you. Executives and other decision makers prefer talking directly to the promoters so that they can make a quick decision over the matter. And telemarketers are the best at that. That's the beauty of such an often understated tool.

So where does that leave you? Appointment setting and lead generation is possible with telemarketing, and it doesn't take a genius to tell us that this job is the perfect fit for telemarketing. It can catch the attention of people, since the phone is constantly ringing. It has this personal touch that many people favor when something is being advertised to them. There's that magic in the craft where you can elicit a positive response from people whom you call by name. And there's no running out of firms who are willing to work with you. Many are already reaching out to firms in need of an effective advertising tool. The only thing that remains is for people like you to reach back at them.

There are sales scripts that get people to commit on the phone and scripts that get you "face time". On larger investments it is often necessary to get an appointment with your prospects. You might be selling software projects, business solutions, or even real estate. In many industries the more people you get in front of the great your net income.

With so many demands on people's schedules it can be tough to get an appointment. Some prospects can just feel that you are going to ask them for a meeting and will drop clues like "it's the end of the quarter" or "our budget isn't done" and any number of other excuses. Most people feel a meeting appointment setting services is going to be a sales pitch. Appointment setting scripts should carefully set the stage on at least the three following items.

Most appointment setting scripts fail because they are too vague and give your prospect plenty of room to reject you. Take for example a common script like the following:

"Sounds like this might work for you, when would you like to meet?"

Many sales professionals and business owners consider this to be courteous. The reality is that this question will result in you facing rejection 8 out of 10 times. With an open ended question like the above the prospect now is thinking about EVERYTHING they have to do BESIDES meeting with you. They are thinking about the other tasks they have at work, picking up the dry cleaning, picking up the kids from school, etc. The question is too friendly!

Instead of a question that is open ended consider a question that provides a can't lose scenario for you and makes it easy for the prospect to decide when (not IF) to meet with you. You could change the original question to:

"Sounds like this might work for you, would Tuesday at 4pm work better or maybe Thursday at 10am?"

By providing your prospect with two times you have now got them out of deciding IF they will meet with you to WHEN they will meet with you. No longer do they have to think about everything else they have to do, they just have to look up two times on their calendar to see what works. Even if neither time works out they will suggest a better time!

Discover more appointment setting sales scripts to use for your business. Get more appointments and get more sales by diving in to my free 5 day video powered course on Questions that Sell.