For many salespeople, an initial stage of their funnel is calling prospects to books appointments. These outreach calls are great for getting acquainted with a DM, without all the pressure of having to make a sale. But when it comes to bookings, you still have lock in a date and time, which is a close in and of itself. Here are 5 ways to make sure you fill your calendar with quality presentations.

Video Transcription

Alright, so 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 guys my top 5 tips to help you turn every phone conversation into a closed appointment.

1. Treat the gatekeeper with respect

The first tip I’m gonna give you is when you’re calling to book an appointment over the phone chances are you’re not gonna reach the decision-maker the first call, you’re gonna reach some form of a gatekeeper. And my tip is treat the gatekeeper with respect be friendly to them don’t pass them off as second-rate. Spend time with them get to know their name because chances are you’re gonna have to follow up multiple times with this person before you get the decision-maker on the phone.

2. Don’t oversell

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 really leads me to the third tip.

3. Call out the objection before they give it to you

Which is make sure you call out the objection before they give it to you. The main objection you’re gonna face when calling for an appointment is they’re gonna say you interrupted me and I don’t have time right now. Make sure you call that out before they do because if they mention it, they have control of the call. So if you call up and say, “Hey Luke I know I’ve probably interrupting you and you’re probably busy, but I’ll be real brief.” Now they can’t use that against you.

4. Do your research

The fourth tip I’ll give you guys is that you should be researching before every call. You can find out literally something about everybody whether it’s on LinkedIn or over the Internet the two things you want to be looking for is what leverage do you have? And what pain point can you touch on?

With your leverage that would be, do you know somebody that might know this person so that introduction could happen, or you could 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.

Then on the pain point make sure you figure out who this person is, 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

And then the fifth and final tip I’ll give you is when you go to assume the close on that appointment, because you should be assuming the close. Make sure you give two options of a date and time, but not just the two options give the reason why you’re giving them two options.

The reason why I say this it’s because in sales today everybody is teaching you to go, “Luke does Monday at 10:00 work better for you or Wednesday at 3:00.” That’s awesome.  You should give two options and make sure you’re just assuming that they’re gonna give you an appointment, but they know this now they’re experiencing this from every salesperson. Give the reason why you’re giving two options say, “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 they want to get on this product demo because I know spring is your busiest season and all of you guys are trying to increase your sales at this time period.”

Notice that what it allows me to do, is it allows me to not only explain some logic behind giving two dates but it gives me 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 increase every phone conversation and turn it into a closed appointment for your business. If you like these tips make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you’re on the phones all day long, and you have a Golden Nugget please comment below let us know what you’re doing to book more appointments over the phone. Make sure you check us out on Instagram and Facebook, but most importantly, take action on this today!