You’re driven to increase your B2B business’s bottom line like never before in 2023, but there’s one area where you’re still not seeing stellar results: B2B appointment setting.
B2B prospecting remains one of the most challenging parts of the sales process, but it’s also necessary for you to achieve your B2B sales objectives.
Fortunately, that’s where honing your B2B appointment setting skills comes into play. This will help you to fill your sales pipeline with plenty of prospects and generate ample qualified leads. As a result, you’ll close more deals.
Here’s a rundown on everything you need to know about the B2B appointment setting process and how to streamline it.
Let’s jump in!
B2B Appointment Setting: What Is It?
B2B, or business-to-business, appointment setting involves contacting possible buyers and promoting your business’s services or products to them. You’ll then schedule a sales appointment between each prospective client and your company.
During sales appointments, your company’s sales team members will have the chance to speak with your prospective clients. Each client will be the KDM, or key decision-maker, representing the business you’re trying to sell to.
Each sales appointment is an excellent opportunity for you to show how your company can solve the pain points your prospective client is experiencing.
The concept of setting B2B appointments may seem simple. However, the task is far from easy. This is true even for an experienced sales representative.
That’s because successfully setting a B2B appointment requires that you create and use a solid strategy to achieve sustainable results. In addition, you must focus on setting appointments each day. If you don’t routinely connect with prospective customers, you may not experience the results you desire long term.
When B2B Lead Generation Is Needed
B2B lead generation shouldn’t start when you’ve just created a product or service you’re excited to offer to other businesses. Rather, it should come into play right after your company has developed a demo of the service or product you wish to offer. Then, when the final version of your offering is ready to go, you’ll already have potential buyers lined up.
You may especially benefit from B2B appointment setting if your sales cycle is long, which is common in the B2B world.
B2B appointment setting will help you to qualify prospects early on and therefore shorten your company’s sales journey. Sales representatives will be able to jump right in to push sales forward and close your deals.
B2B appointment setting can also help with selling expensive products.
Let’s say your business specializes in high-cost services or huge deals, for example. B2B appointment setting will help you to find critical decision-makers and continuously follow up with prospective buyers.
This process will help you to prepare your prospects for more complex pitch meetings. At these pitch meetings, you should be able to easily seal the deal.
B2B Appointment Setting Process
Setting appointments with prospective business buyers involves several key stages. These include defining your desired buyer, finding them, and researching them.
Target Buyer Definition
When you embark on the appointment setting process, you should first define your target buyer. This involves developing the perfect customer profile and buyer persona.
The customer profile summarizes your previous customers’ main features, as this will help you to define your future customers. You will use this information to determine which prospective buyers to contact.
The buyer persona highlights specific social and personal characteristics of your prospective buyer. This information will help you to understand these potential buyers’ motives. In this way, you can more effectively target them.
Target Buyer Search and Research
Once you’ve defined your target buyer, you will need to focus on finding them. This step includes analyzing your buyer persona and customer profile. Then, you’ll search for leads that match them.
During this process, you will need to find your potential buyers’ contact information.
One of the best places to search for leads is social media. Sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter can give you access to users who may be interested in buying your offering.
While on a social media platform, you can use video marketing and paid ad campaigns to determine who is interested in what you have to offer. Once you see who has clicked on your ad or viewed your video, you can reach out to them or search for their email address or phone number.
What’s great about social media is that people naturally put a lot of information about themselves on their social media pages. You can draw from this information to make your future communication with them via phone or email more personal and human.
This is important given that personalization is one of the best ways to land customers and ultimately achieve your sales goals.
Phone B2B Appointment Setting Process
Now that you have secured some prospective buyers, you’re ready to contact them. An effective way to do this is by phone.
To make a cold call work, you should try to find your prospective buyer’s direct line. This will connect you to your lead right away. You won’t have to go through the gatekeeper.
Also, if possible, send your contact a cold email first (more on this next). Doing this will help you to “warm up” your contact and therefore make them more likely to listen to what you have to say.
Finally, you can make the cold call. Be sure to personalize your call. For instance, you can mention that you have family members where the contact lives if this is true.
You should also have a script to follow during your phone call.
Your script should begin with an introduction featuring an appropriate greeting for building rapport. Here, you should mention your name and the business you represent.
Then, you should explain what your company does and why you are superior to your competitors. You should also highlight how much your offering costs.
Next, you should emphasize why your offering will make a major difference in your prospective client’s business. Your pitch should be client centered.
Finally, if your communication with the prospect has been successful, you’ll need to negotiate your next steps. For instance, you may be ready to schedule an appointment with them. If they’re not ready to do that yet, you may need to follow up with them to provide them with more information and answer any additional questions they might have.
Email B2B Appointment Setting Process
Cold emailing remains one of today’s most effective strategies for reaching potential clients.
Cold emails are initial emails designed to kickstart business conversations. You send them to prospective buyers without prior contact.
Note that you may not be able to schedule a sales appointment on the first try. Ideally, you should send about three to five emails several days apart until you manage to schedule an appointment.
Your email should feature several parts, including the following:
- Your subject line
- Your opening line
- Your sales pitch
- Your closing line
- Your signature
You should also add a personal touch to various spots in the email to further engage the reader.
If your emails offer value and a human touch, you’ll have a better chance of setting B2B appointments.
Timing
It’s not enough to send out emails or make cold calls that are personal and well thought out. You must also send out your emails and make your calls at the right time of the day and week.
As a general rule of thumb, one of the worst times to schedule B2B sales appointments is between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. The rate of no-shows is highest during this period.
Meanwhile, you may experience the most success with setting appointments later in the business day, between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.
When it comes to the time of day to set appointments, you may experience the most challenges on Monday or Wednesday. Meanwhile, you might minimize your rate of no-shows by making your cold calls or sending out your cold emails on a Friday.
How We Can Help
The B2B appointment setting process involves contacting possible buyers and pitching your company’s service or product offerings. Then, you schedule appointments to close the deal. You can do this by both phone and email.
Fortunately, at SalesPro Leads, we offer several tools to streamline your B2B appointment process. We’ll put together a custom program for you to generate leads via phone, email, and even social media.
Get in touch with us to learn more about our lead generation services, and schedule a consultation today!