Cold calling is one of those things that is almost universally disliked by business people and specialist sales people alike – even though they know that it works. Which is where we come in. By outsourcing your appointment setting to us, our sales people will speak to your potential customers and make appointments for you, paving the way for you to go in and close a sale.

But to maximize the chances of getting an appointment, we have to go through a detailed discussion about your company, what you’re selling, who you’re currently selling to and, ideally, who you would like to sell to.

The first part of the process is to write down your value proposition, that is, what you are offering to your clients and why the target audience will be interested. It is essential that you don’t fall into the trap of thinking that everyone out there will be interested, because you will have setting yourself up for disappointment. The best way to work out what you’re offering is to write down all the key features and benefits of your products and/or services, and then being brutally honest, list your company’s strengths and weaknesses against what your competitors are offering.

The next step, is to determine who you want us to sell to. This can be to companies that operate in a particular space where you have already had success (called a repeatable solution in the trade), or a particular vertical market such as financial services or public sector, or even just a defined geographical area.

Now these potential customers have to be actually individually identified. You may have your own database, which if you spent time keeping it up-to-date, should be a really good start. But many companies don’t have a database or it’s so out-of-date that’s it’s virtually useless. Fortunately, you can buy data about virtually anything these days, although beware, you get what you pay for. We can help in recommending a reputable source for the type of information that you are after.

Our sales people need to be briefed now, and the better they understand your key value proposition, the better they will perform. We become an outsourced element of your company, but as far as your potential clients are concerned, we are your company – we will have an email address for you and we will act as a member of your staff. We organize a ‘kick-off meeting’ where you will have the opportunity to meet the people who will be making calls on your behalf, and to impart as much information as you possibly can about your organization and what if offers.

The other very important part of the pre-sales period, is to establish objectives. Assuming that all the other parts of the campaign have been put in place (good quality data, and a good value proposition), then we would say that a good sales person can probably make around 80 calls a day, with them actually speaking to 25 people and getting one appointment as a result.

There’s no doubt that getting good appointments is hard work, and a lot of in-house staff simply don’t make the volume of calls or have the necessary skills that makes the process work. That is why, using an outsourced service, is often a really good option.

Author: Andy Dickens

Company: Virtual Sales Limited

Telephone: +44(0)1798-875040

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