Five Steps to Improve Your Sales Appointment Setting Attempts

Are you looking for advice on how to set appointments over the phone and secure more face-to-face meetings? Then you’ve come to the right place!

In this article, I’ll give you some useful tips to help you set your appointments efficiently and turn more of your calls into sales.

#1 – Consider a Power Dialer

We all know that manual dialling is slow and tedious. The good news is, the power dialer allows you to call two or even three lines at the same time. This allows you to spend more time talking to people than listening to dial tones.

Using a power dialer will allow you to work through your list of prospects faster. You’ll be talking to more prospects and therefore booking more appointments.

Just keep in mind that a power dialer is most suitable if you’re selling business-to-consumer and that you will still get lots of non-answers even if you sell to some businesses.

Power dialers cost anywhere between $100 and $150.

#2 – Triple dial

Triple-dial is another strategy that is suited to business-to-consumer selling where the major challenge is people ignoring your phone calls. And if people are screening incoming calls to avoid telemarketers, then they can’t get your calls and the information that they requested online. 

So how are you going to provide that information if the prospect doesn’t pick up the phone?

The answer is a triple dial.

Here’s how it works:

• Make the call
• Your call will go to voicemail.
• Hang up
• Call again and repeat the process.

By the third dial, the prospect will start wondering if it may be an urgent call or someone they know and they will answer the phone.

This strategy often results in successful conversations with prospects that you wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise.

#3 – Dial Early or Late 

Dialling early or late is a strategy you can use with prospects who are hard to reach. 

Business owners usually start working in the office before other people show up. And they tend to work late, too. So calling in the morning can help you reach prospects that would otherwise be difficult to get a hold of during the day. Calling late is a great idea too, especially on Fridays.

#4 – Sell the Appointment, Not the Product 

Remember that when you’re trying to set an appointment over the phone, what you are selling is the appointment and not the product. 

It’s easier to understand this if you keep in mind that the function of setting an appointment is to discuss the details of your product or service. It’s very unlikely that a prospect will have time to listen to your pitch over the phone anyway. 

That’s why you should ideally convince clients to spend a few minutes of their time meeting you in person. You’re only asking for a brief, no-obligation meeting.  A face-to-face pitch means you’ll be able to communicate with your prospects more clearly and use “props” to help explain your product or service.

How Do You Sell The Appointment And Not The Product?  

The script below is designed specifically to set a quick, casual appointment:

“Hey, Mrs Jones, this is David Duford calling. I’m following up regarding the information you requested on our burial insurance programs. 

My job is to deliver the info you requested. It only takes 10 minutes to show you how this works. I wondered if I could stop by tomorrow at 2:00 PM, or would 10:00 AM work better?”

Let’s break down this script sentence by sentence, so that you can adapt it to your particular sales pitch.

“This is David Duford calling…” 

Simple and straightforward. You can also add your company name:

“This is David Duford from Aramark Uniform Services.” 

Then you explain the reason for your call:

“I’m following up regarding the information you requested on our burial insurance programs.”

If you’re cold calling, you can say something like:

“My name is David Duford, and the reason I’m calling is that I help businesses save money and improve their BLANK and BLANK service program.” 

Short and straightforward is best. The next line sells the appointment:

“My job is to deliver the info you requested. It only takes 10 minutes to show you how this works.”

Again, simplicity is crucial. Your prospect will likely refuse the meeting if it seems high-pressure and time-consuming. 

Besides, stating that it’s your job to deliver the information places responsibility on the company and not yourself, just like when store clerks say, “its store policy” or “my manager said…” 

Now offer your prospect a choice:

“I wondered if I could stop by tomorrow at 2:00 PM, or would 10:00 AM work better?”

Providing a couple of options will make saying “no” slightly more difficult. 

#5 – Anticipate Objections

As a new salesperson, you have to be prepared to counter objections on almost all calls. Have your rebuttal objection series ready. That’s how you will build a successful appointment setting strategy.

I call this strategy the “ASC method.”

• A - answer the objection
• S - sell the appointment
• C - close the appointment

If a prospect says, “I already have life insurance, I’m not interested,” here’s how I would rebuttal using the ASC method:

“No problem, Mr Prospect. All I need is five minutes to show you how our programs are different, and what you do with this information is totally up to you. Would 10:00 AM work, or is 2:00 PM better?”

The key takeaways are:

• It’s okay if they have life insurance already.
• The appointment will be quick and casual.
• There’s no obligation to buy insurance from you.
• The prospect can choose the most convenient time slot.

This simple script will easily convert objections into face-to-face appointments. I hope you enjoyed this article and that you found my advice useful. Try putting these strategies into practice right away, and you’ll start seeing immediate results.

Author Bio: This article is written by our guest author David Duford. He owns Buy Life Insurance For Burial, a virtual insurance agency helping seniors source quality final expense life insurance coverage. He is the author of 3 best-selling insurance sales and marketing books, including “The Official Guide To Selling Insurance For New Agents, “The Official Guide To Selling Final Expense Insurance,” and “Interviews With Top Producing Insurance Agents.” David is also a YouTube Influencer in insurance sales with more than 17,000 subscribers and more than 1.7 million total views.