Article 101

THE CHALLENGES CREATED BY APPOINTMENT SETTING SUCCESS -- AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM.

Moving from not having enough appointments with good quality accounts to having a lot, solves a lot of problems. But, it also creates some issues. If you are not ready to overcome them, your appointment setting success will explode.

The issues are:

- Time management
- Selecting the best from the rest
- Follow-up and referral generation

TIME MANAGEMENT

A current coaching client illustrates this issue perfectly. She went from being
starved for appointments to setting 22 meetings with top people at companies fitting her perfect client profile.

That's good but now the issue is one of time. Even though all of those companies at
some time could be great accounts - some will close sooner, some will close later,
some will change vendors in 3 months, some in 12 months, some will buy more, some will buy less. How do you go on all these initial meetings, attend follow-up meetings, prepare proposals, service your existing accounts, follow-up.... and still have time to set appointments?

Most people drop the ball at this point. They get overwhelmed by the time issues and stop setting appointments or do erratically. So rather than keeping a steady flow of good opportunities entering their sales pipeline they start to stall, stagger and lurch, and their sales suffer as a result.

SELECT THE BEST FROM THE REST

Example: Once you are up and running you might only have the time to attend six first meetings a week. But if you have the ability to schedule 12 first meetings a week - all with top decision makers at companies fitting your target account profile, what do you do? How do you choose?

You must do three things to select the best opportunities deserving of your time
immediately and still get and keep those other six in your pipeline. It's a tough
transition to make. Go from dying for new appointments to proactively deselecting
meetings within your best target profile, but you must anticipate this and be ready
for it.

My recommendation always is to go on between 12 and 20 appointments. Conduct your first meetings in a unique and comprehensive manner so that you can gather the info and recon you need to make the best selections. Then, alter your appointment setting scripts and process to select the best from the rest, while still keeping "the rest" in your pipeline until the most worthwhile time for you to go on an appointment.

FOLLOW-UP AND REFERRAL GENERATION

The mothers milk of appointment setting. Plan B. This is the real world. Your
appointment setting program must MUST MUST get you in the doors of enough quality accounts that close within a reasonable period of time to make your efforts worthwhile. But, in the slightly longer term there are far more accounts, much more revenue and better margins among that group that you de-selected, meet with and nothing closed immediately or "raised their hand from the crowd" but aren't ready to meet with you yet.

Before you start setting appointments you prepare for this by creating Plan B. The
means by which you will follow-up and communicate with all these suspects/prospects in a simple, time effective, consistent manner so that when they are ready to evaluate vendor options -- you will be at the table. Short term success is wonderful but your PLAN B creates long term top producers rather than one hit wonders.

In the above example this coaching client got off to a fast start because she had
read my book "Setting Sales Appointments: How to gain access to top decision makers at your most desired future accounts (and your competition's best clients.)" She is ready to face these issues and you can be also.

Best wishes for selling,
Scott Channell

copyright 2004-2009 Scott Channell

Article 20	Overcoming Appointment Setting Success Issues
	by Scott Channell