If you sell a product or service to other businesses, you probably understand how important lead generation is to sales and marketing. Savvy business owners and marketers would agree that constant lead generation is imperative to growing a small or medium-sized business. However, most people don’t know that to successfully close more deals, B2B sales leads and appointment setting have to go hand in hand.
In other words, B2B appointment setting is an integral part of a B2B lead generation and sales cycle. But while lead generation only provides you with a lead’s contact information, appointment setting takes the next steps to handle lead nurturing and qualification and, most importantly, set a sales appointment with that contact to close the sale.
In this article, we will cover what B2B appointment setting is, what a B2B appointment setter does, and the ultimate B2B appointment setting process. Without any ado, let’s get started!
B2B Appointment Setting Explained
What exactly is a B2B appointment setting strategy, you may ask? Well, in its simplest terms, it’s the process of scheduling meetings or appointments with qualified leads, mainly to persuade them to buy your product or service. The sales reps in charge of this process are called appointment setters.
B2B appointment setting aims to divide the prospecting task, or rather ensure sales specialization by allowing the closing sales representatives to spend their time only on qualified leads. This is especially important when dealing with B2B interactions, which may take a little longer to nurture and close sales. An appointment setting strategy will not only expand your sales pipeline but also increase your revenue and ensure business growth.
What Does an Appointment Setter Do?
An appointment setter is primarily concerned with scheduling sales meetings and product demos by reaching out to sales leads. Generally, appointment setting services include prospecting, qualification, and nurturing of leads. As part of the sales cycle, an appointment setter has to determine whether a lead is a good fit for their company’s products and services before converting them to the closing stage.
What Does an Appointment Setter Do?
Getting a prospect to commit their time and energy to an appointment isn’t typically a walk in the park. However, with proper planning and preparation by the sales team, you can simplify the process and achieve your goal. Below are the six stages involved:
1. Define Your Target Customer
The first step in B2B appointment setting is to define who you want to target. This involves identifying a target base for your business or finding audiences that are genuinely interested in your products and services. Again, you will need to create your ideal customer profile (ICP) or buyer persona, which is useful for appointment setting and the entire lead generation process.
Defining your ideal prospects is the first step to successful appointment scheduling.
2. Conduct Research
Before contacting a potential client, the appointment setter needs to carry out their own research to identify pain points and other crucial information. As they say, it’s important to know who you want to sell to before selling to them. Some of the most common sources for information about your prospects may include their social media pages, websites, or blogs.
This stage is crucial since information about the prospects will help you personalize your outreach and increase your chances of converting them.
3. Make the Initial Contact
First, reach out to the potential client through email or phone and introduce yourself to them using information about the products and services you provide. Also referred to as a discovery call, this step aims to establish if the prospect is a good fit for your products and services. And since you have information about the prospect from the conducted research, you will know exactly what to say and what questions to ask. You should even be able to anticipate some of the questions they may ask.
Even so, if the call doesn’t result in an appointment, finding out why a prospect isn’t willing to engage with your sales team can still offer you valuable insights to refine your next pitch.
4. Conduct Screening
After the first contact with your prospects, screen, qualify, and rank them to determine which of them qualify for an appointment. Screening is essential because only the most qualified leads should be passed to the appointment setting stage.
By this stage, the sales rep should also be able to establish those with the decision-making authority in the organizations. The appointment setting conversations need to be directed to those with the authority to make decisions and purchases for their company.
5. Schedule an Appointment
The primary goal of the appointment setting process is to schedule an actual meeting between your sales rep and the potential client to close the sale. The closing sales rep should plan and confirm the proper time and agenda of the meeting—whether in person or through a call.
With the insights collected through the sales journey, the representative should be able to present a unique and compelling offer tailored to the prospect’s specific business requirements.
6. Evaluate the Results and Conduct a Follow-Up
Finally, compare the results of the appointment with the expected or set outcomes. When you examine how the process worked well, you will be able to make the necessary adjustments to improve. And remember, your job is not done when the appointment has taken place; you still need to continue nurturing the lead further through the sales funnel.
Always schedule a follow-up conversation and continue to nurture that opportunity.
What Does an Appointment Setter Do?
B2B appointment setting may benefit your business in different ways, such as increasing your conversion rates, shortening the sales cycle, and improving your targeting and prospect identification. And since you now have a better understanding of what B2B appointment setting is and how it is conducted, it’s all up to you to schedule more appointments.
If you don’t have the time or resources to establish your own B2B appointment setting strategy, consider outsourcing. Rely on Sapper Consulting’s refined lead generation process to generate more leads and secure more appointments for your sales team. Reach out to us today to learn more about our expert approach to the B2B lead generation process.
