B2B appointment setting – Effective tips for more sales meetings

B2B sales is undoubtedly a tough nut to crack. Here you are selling to a business, so the level of difficulty and risks are too high. Before even thinking about closing, you need to get over the hurdle of B2B appointment setting, which is surely quite challenging here.

Businesses are well informed and abreast of the market as well as its changing trends. You need to get in front of them to convince them your product is worth their precious dollars. Besides, good communication skills you even need to have excellent persuasion skills. Businesses don’t easily meet strangers and invest in their products.

Scheduling a B2B appointment requires a lot of effort. You need to stay focused, get past the gatekeepers, connect with the right decision-makers, and convince them to meet you. You should be able to get the decision-maker at ease as quickly as possible for setting a meeting.

Effective B2B appointment setting tips to get more sales meetings

The chances of reaching your sales targets increases if you succeed in setting appointments consistently.

Here are a few tips for increasing the odds of setting appointments:

1. In-depth research is a must

No one has time in this business world. So, make sure you do your research before thinking about asking the decision-maker to spare some time for meeting you.

You’ll rarely get chances to speak with the decision-maker. If you get one, ensure you make the most out of it.

For that, you need to stay prepared. Garner as much information as you can about the prospect and his company.

• Go through the prospect’s company website
• See if they have any PR or blogs regarding their accomplishments
• Try to find the prospect on social media profiles like Twitter and LinkedIn
• See if you’ll have any mutual contact with whom you’ve worked before
• Try to find the prospect’s areas of interest. Like on LinkedIn you can see if a person liked any post or commented anywhere
• Read the company’s reviews of various reviewing sites to find out their weak areas

The more you know about the prospects, the better rapport you can build for setting an appointment.

2. Connect at the right time

In B2B sales, you need to be very careful about the time you choose to send an email or call your prospect. Like you, even they are busy focusing on increasing the revenue of their business. If you disturb them at the wrong hour, they might get annoyed and not meet you.

So, you need to find the right day and time to call or email them.

At Salesmate, we conducted a study to find the best day as well as time to call the prospect. After observing 12,480 calls spanned across 60 days, we found out that Wednesday is the best day and 4 to 5 in the evening is the best time to call a prospect.

Well, emails are equally important as calls for setting appointments. So, sending the email at the apt hour is essential for scheduling a meeting. As per the data provided by CoSchedule, Tuesday is the best day and 10 am is the best time to send an email.

3. Don’t take much time and be a problem solver

No one likes interruption while they are working. So, if in case you call the prospect at the wrong time, then apologize and take their convenient time.

Even when you call them at their convenient time, ensure you convey the necessary message as soon as possible. Don’t take a lot of time. Which is why I asked you to research about them earlier. Get to the point once you identify their pain points.

65.2% of B2B buyers found value in discussing their situations with salespeople.

Gain their trust and explain how you can solve their ongoing problem. You need to make them believe that your product or service has the capability to solve their problem. Only when you give them solid reasons, they will agree to meet you.

4. Listen to your prospect

You shouldn’t be the one only speaking on the sales call. Listening is a vital skill for setting up a B2B appointment. Till you don’t listen to your prospects, you won’t understand them. No business would prefer wasting their time on someone who doesn’t understand them.

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69% of buyers say that the quickest way to their hearts is to listen to their individual needs.

Strike a meaningful conversation to impress them; only then they would be interested in meeting you. Ask relevant questions and listen to their response. As per the data, the top sales performers talk for 46% of a call means they listen for at least 54% of it.

There are chances that the prospect might spill out the beans and share some information that might be a strong base for setting an appointment. So, it is pivotal to listen to your prospects.

5. Use multiple media

Well, most of the sales reps only use the medium of the phone to reach and book an appointment. Which is why most of them fail. Besides calls, there are many more channels that can be utilized to set appointments.

For instance, you can use emails. It is one of the most effective communication channels to connect with prospects. There are chances that the prospect might be too busy to speak to you over the phone. But there are some possibilities that they might read your emails at a convenient time. Provided your subject line and content is catchy enough to capture their interest.

Besides, there are even social media channels where most of the businesses are active. So, you can use these social media channels to build a rapport and then gradually set an appointment with the prospect.

6. Follow-up

The main issue why sales reps fail to book an appointment is because they don’t follow-up consistently with the prospect.

44% of sales reps give up after 1 follow-up

You need to grab the prospect’s attention. They might not receive your call or respond to your first email. That doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in your offering. They might be occupied somewhere. So, don’t give. You need to walk the extra mile and put in more effort.

Call them on another day at a different time. In the case of emails, you can take the smart route and automate your follow-up emails.

Most of the software give you the flexibility of creating automated sequences. So, you can create a sequence of follow-up emails that will be executed automatically at different time intervals as per the pre-defined criteria. This will help in following up with the prospects.

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Wrapping up

Setting an appointment is a crucial part of the sales process. So, ensure you make the most of every opportunity you get to set an appointment. Once you manage to set an appointment, make sure you keep them organized. A smart CRM like Salesmate helps you in managing your appointment. With a neat calendar view, you can see all your upcoming appointments so that you can set your priorities and manage your time efficiently.

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