Cold Calling: 5 Best Tips for Booking More Appointments

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For many salespeople, an initial stage of their funnel is calling prospects to book appointments. These outreach calls are great for getting acquainted with decision-makers without all the pressure of having to make a sale. But when it comes to bookings, you still have to lock in a date and time, which is a close in and of itself. Here are five ways to make sure you fill your calendar with quality presentations.


Video Transcription

If you’ve been in sales long enough, you’ve probably had to book appointments over the phone. If that’s a struggle for you, in today’s video I want to give you my top five tips to help you turn every phone conversation into a closed appointment.

1. Treat the gatekeeper with respect

When you’re calling to book an appointment over the phone chances are you’re not going to reach the decision-maker on the first call; you’re going to reach some form of a gatekeeper. My tip is to treat the gatekeeper with respect—be friendly to them, and don’t pass them off as second-rate. Spend a minute with them. Get to know their name because chances are you’re going to have to follow up multiple times with this person before you get the decision-maker on the phone.

2. Don’t oversell

The second tip is make sure you don’t oversell when you’re calling for an appointment. You’re not trying to sell your product on this call. So be brief, don’t oversell because time is of the essence, and that leads me to the third tip.

3. Call out the objection

Make sure you call out the objection before they give it to you. When calling for an appointment, the primary objection to speaking with you is that they don’t have the time. Make sure you call that out before they do because if they mention it, they have control of the call. If you call and say, “Hey Luke, I know I’ve probably interrupted you and you’re busy, but I’ll be real brief.” Now they can’t use that against you.

4. Do your research

The fourth tip is to do your research before every call. You can find out something about everybody, whether it’s on LinkedIn. social media, or a webpage. You want to look for two things: is there leverage you can use, and what pain point can you touch on?

Leverage would include knowing someone who might also know the person you are calling. Can you get an introduction, or can use their name to spark a conversation? Or maybe you know the competitor and you can drop their name to intrigue them into a conversation.

On the pain point, make sure you figure out who this person is and what they do but, more importantly, what’s the pain they’re facing in their business right now that your product solves?

5. Provide two, and only two, options

The fifth and final tip I’ll give you is when you go to assume the close, make sure you give two options of a date and time, and explain why you’re giving them two options. But why explain? Because people are familiar with the two-option approach; they’re experiencing it with every sales call and are poised to object.

Instead of just saying “I’ve got Monday at 10:00 or Wednesday at 3:00,” tell them why you’ve only got two options. “Hey Luke, I have Monday at 10:00 or Wednesday at 3:00, and the reason why I only had these two slots available is because I’m calling so many managers, and I’m booking up super fast. I have a lot of them calling me, saying they want to get on this product demo. I know spring is your busiest season, and all of you are trying to increase your sales at this point.”

Notice that what it allows you to do—it allows you to not only explain some logic behind giving two dates but also gives you a chance to create urgency and reiterate the value proposition, so they feel they don’t want to be left out.

The takeaway

So there you have it guys. There are five tips to help you turn every phone conversation into a closed appointment for your business. If you like these tips make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check us out on Instagram and Facebook, but most importantly, take action on this today!

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