Cold Calling - The Value Of An Appointment According To A Pro

In at least one of my best-selling books, possibly in YOU CAN SELL ANYTHING BY TELEPHONE, I declared, “There is nothing as easy to do over the phone as setting an appointment.”

It’s far harder, for instance, to actually open and to close a deal on a single call, which is the way I cut my teeth in selling for Time-Life Books. Getting people to reach for a charge card at the end of an outbound cold call that you initiated is a lot more challenging that asking for 15 minutes of someone’s time.

But if you chat with some so-called telemarketing “specialists,” for-hire call centers that specialize in lead generation and appointment setting, they’d have you believe establishing a meeting is the power-lifting of dialing and smiling.

Yesterday, for instance, I spoke briefly with the head of a telemarketing firm and I asked him if he had ever set appointments for consultants, and after clearing his throat, he said he had.

“About how many appointments can you set per hour?” I asked.

“It takes 5 to 10 hours to set an appointment,” he responded with an authoritative tone.

“And how much do you charge per hour?”

“Fifty to one hundred dollars,” was the reply.

My math tells me he is saying it costs $250 to $1,000 to arrange a meeting. That’s outrageous.

We’re not talking about getting 15 minutes with CEO’s of the Fortune 1000, but with middle managers, people who are a lot more accessible and much less fortified by personal assistants.

Why is this gentleman’s call center so costly?

(1) His people and processes are probably inept. He could be telling the truth, that it actually takes his minions forever to get an audience with an executive. In that case, of course, he doesn’t deserve our business.

(2) He’s lying. It takes a fraction of that time, but his group is really doing “value billing” which is masquerading as hourly billing. Instead of saying, we charge $250 to $1,000 for an appointment, he’s making it seem that it takes a lot of effort to accomplish results. If he’s playing a shell game, then of course he doesn’t deserve our business.

I told him I needed a firm that could actually open and close deals by phone and earn its pay from RESULTS, that I wasn’t in the market for mere “hours.”

He reacted like a vampire that had been presented with a cross.

Shriveling away, he gasped, “We, uh, don’t do t-h-a-t.”

Dr. Gary S. Goodman is a top trainer, conference and convention speaker, and sales, customer service, and negotiation consultant. A frequent expert commentator on radio and TV, he is also the best-selling author of 12 books, more than 1,000 articles and several popular audio and video programs. His seminars are sponsored internationally and he is a faculty member at more than 40 universities, including UC Berkeley and UCLA. Gary brings over two decades of sales, management and consulting experience to the table, with impressive academic credentials: A Ph.D. from USC, an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School of Management, and a J.D. degree from Loyola Law School, his clients include several Fortune 1000 companies..

His web site is: http://www.customersatisfaction.com and he can be seen on CNBC at: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=417455932# and reached at: gary@customersatisfaction.com. His blogs include: YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS! and ALWAYS COLD CALL! at: http://www.alwayscoldcall.blogspot.com

Tags: appointments, Coaching, consulting, customer, keynote, leads, phone, Sales, service, speaker, telemarketing

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