Right now, many businesses in the United States are navigating a complex landscape. While certain sectors are experiencing growth, others face economic pressures, tightened budgets, and cautious decision-making. In these conditions, retaining your existing customers is not just a smart move—it’s a necessity.
Amid slower buying cycles, increased competition, and tighter procurement processes, building stronger relationships with your current customers can provide the predictable revenue and brand trust your company needs to remain steady and scale strategically.
The best-performing sales organizations don’t leave leadership to chance. In 2025, as remote-first models continue and sales stacks become increasingly complex, the pressure is on for sales managers and executives to lead with clarity, agility, and measurable impact. Whether you’re building an SDR team, refining your sales enablement strategy, or leading an enterprise-wide transformation, strong management and leadership practices remain your greatest leverage point.
Despite the dominance of digital marketing channels, one method continues to stand out for its ability to convert high-value leads and foster long-term business relationships: B2B phone telemarketing.
According to Forrester, nearly 75% of customers still prefer voice communication—via a phone call—over any other service channel. This preference is particularly true in complex B2B transactions where prospects seek clarity, confidence, and human guidance before making a decision. The phone call remains the most direct, dynamic, and trusted method for building those relationships.
B2B appointment setting is a crucial part of many companies’ lead generation strategy. But without the right approach, it can become a time-wasting, low-ROI endeavor. Whether you’re conducting cold outreach or following up with inbound leads, avoiding these common appointment setting mistakes can drastically improve your chances of success.
Mistake 1: Going in without clear targeting
When targeting is vague or overly broad, reps often waste time calling on companies that aren’t a good fit. This leads to unqualified leads in your sales pipeline, which drives up costs and burns out sales reps.
What to do instead: Build highly detailed buyer personas that include company size, industry, budget, key decision-makers, pain points, and buying triggers. Use firmographic and technographic data to pre-qualify your lists. Targeting the right people at the right time significantly increases conversion rates.
Bonus Tip: Use intent data tools like Bombora or ZoomInfo to identify companies already researching your solution category, so you can prioritize outreach to warm leads.
Mistake 2: Not customizing your outreach
Generic scripts and emails are a fast track to the spam folder. Prospects can instantly tell when they’re receiving a canned message—and they tune out.
What to do instead: Personalize your outreach by referencing specific details about the prospect’s company, recent news, or shared connections. Tailor your pitch to speak directly to their role and pain points. Even small touches of personalization—like mentioning a recent blog post they published or noting a relevant trend in their industry—can greatly improve response rates.
Pro Tip: Use personalization at scale with email automation platforms that allow dynamic fields and branching logic based on prospect data.
Mistake 3: Focusing on your product too early
It’s tempting to dive straight into talking about your product’s features and benefits—but this often backfires. Prospects don’t care about your product until they believe you understand their challenges.
What to do instead: Lead with value. Ask questions to uncover the prospect’s current situation, goals, and pain points. Position yourself as a helpful resource and frame the meeting as a discovery conversation—not a sales pitch.
Practical Application: Use the SPIN selling framework (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-Payoff) to guide early conversations and build trust.
Mistake 4: Not setting clear goals for the appointment
It’s not enough to just “get a meeting.” Without a clear objective for the call, both parties may walk away without next steps—and your deal stagnates.
What to do instead: Define what a successful appointment looks like before you make the call. Are you qualifying the lead? Introducing a solution specialist? Sending a proposal afterward? Set that agenda clearly at the start of the conversation.
Pro Tip: End every appointment by recapping what was discussed and confirming next steps. Book the follow-up meeting while still on the call, if possible.
Mistake 5: Booking with the wrong person
Meeting with the wrong contact can stall your sales process. Even if the person is interested, they may lack decision-making power or budget authority.
What to do instead: Before booking, qualify for decision-making authority. Ask, “Who else should be part of this conversation?” or “Will anyone else need to be involved in making a decision?”
Advanced Tactic: Use a multithreading approach—engage with multiple contacts at the target account to increase your odds of buy-in and reduce single-threaded risk.
Mistake 6: Following up poorly—or not at all
According to industry research, most sales happen after the 5th follow-up. Yet many reps give up after just one or two attempts. Poor follow-up—or worse, no follow-up—leaves money on the table.
What to do instead: Create a structured follow-up cadence with multiple channels (phone, email, LinkedIn) and varied messaging. Keep providing value at every touchpoint—share an article, offer a helpful tip, or reference a previous conversation.
Stat to Know: The average sales cadence includes 8–12 touches across 14–21 days. Test different sequences to find what works best for your audience.
Mistake 7: Ignoring no-shows and cancellations
No-shows are frustrating, but they’re also an opportunity. Ignoring them means losing a warm lead who may still be interested but got pulled away.
What to do instead: Have a no-show and cancellation recovery plan. Send a polite follow-up email, reshare your calendar link, and reinforce the value of the conversation. Don’t assume disinterest unless they explicitly say so.
Re-engagement Script: “Hi [First Name], sorry we missed each other earlier. I know how busy things can get. Still happy to chat about [benefit discussed]—here’s my availability if you’d like to reconnect.”
Mistake 8: Relying too heavily on cold outreach
While cold outreach has its place, relying on it as your primary channel can lead to inconsistent results. Buyers are increasingly wary of unsolicited messages—and most are doing their own research long before talking to sales.
What to do instead: Combine outbound appointment setting with inbound lead nurturing. Use content marketing, paid search, SEO, and webinars to drive warm leads. Align your sales and marketing teams to ensure a steady flow of qualified prospects.
Best Practice: When cold outreach is necessary, warm it up with light touches first—LinkedIn comments, email opens, ad retargeting, or a shared connection intro.
Mistake 9: Neglecting to optimize your scheduling process
Making it hard to book a time with you kills momentum. If prospects have to email back and forth to find a slot, they may lose interest or never respond.
What to do instead: Use scheduling tools like Calendly, Chili Piper, or HubSpot Meetings to eliminate friction. Embed scheduling links directly in your emails or landing pages and offer flexible time options that work across time zones.
Power Tip: Route inbound demo requests based on territory or rep availability using automated scheduling software to reduce time-to-meeting.
Mistake 10: Measuring the wrong KPIs
If you’re only measuring appointments booked, you’re missing the bigger picture. A high volume of meetings doesn’t mean much if they aren’t converting to pipeline or revenue.
What to do instead: Track KPIs that reflect quality and progression—qualified meeting rate, conversion to opportunity, show-up rate, cost per opportunity, and ultimately, ROI. Use this data to refine your scripts, targeting, and outreach cadence.
Marketing + Sales Alignment Tip: Create a feedback loop between appointment setters and closers so everyone understands which meetings are most valuable and why.
Conclusion
Improving your B2B appointment setting doesn’t require reinventing the wheel—just refining your strategy and avoiding these costly mistakes. With better targeting, consistent follow-up, value-first conversations, and smarter metrics, you can generate more high-quality meetings and turn them into real pipeline.
If you’re struggling to consistently book qualified appointments or convert meetings into pipeline, MarketReach can help. Our outbound sales programs are built on real-world experience and refined strategy—designed to deliver results where it matters most.
Want more qualified appointments on your calendar?Let’s talk!
See if MarketReach is right for you!
If you are looking for more qualified B2B leads, more sales appointments with decision-makers, and a reliable telemarketing partner – then MarketReach may be the partner you’ve been waiting for!
If you’re looking to grow your business through B2B telemarketing, it’s essential to understand the laws governing the industry. The United States maintains strict federal and state regulations to ensure ethical outreach and protect businesses from non-compliant practices. Violating these rules can lead to hefty fines, legal penalties, and brand damage.
At MarketReach, we bring more than 20 years of experience in compliant telemarketing and appointment setting campaigns across the U.S. We stay current with evolving regulations so our clients can focus on results—not risks. This guide outlines everything your business needs to know to comply confidently with B2B telemarketing laws in 2025.
The new year always brings a fresh start, new ideas, new strategies and hopefully, new sales. Now is the perfect opportunity to revamp your company’s B2B sales and marketing plan. This article will show you how any company can improve its sales in the upcoming year, despite the challenges that may come along the way. Consider these sales tips for 2025:
Prospect List and Qualification
Get started by evaluating your company’s prospect list. Identify your most qualified business opportunities. Take some time to reconstruct your target market and focus your attention on them– particularly, your Top 100. It’s important to requalify your list to be sure you have the most practical targets during this time.Refine your list by deciding what factors make for the best segment to target. (more…)
Having a motivated and happy team can be beneficial for a company in many ways. As we near the end of the year, it’s important to keep your teams’ spirits high! We all know the dreaded “Call Me After the Holidays” line that is bound to come up in November and December, but making sure your team is prepared mentally and physically can prevent that from becoming an issue.
As the cold weather approaches, so does the infamous objection that anyone making prospecting calls dreads to hear: “Call me after the Holidays”.
With Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years and other holidays on the horizon, the excuse that prospects won’t have time to talk until after the New Year is going to pop up often. Many prospects will get lost in the thought of good food and spending time with friends and family. While your mind may drift off into similar thoughts of your own, you can use this time to increase your sales pipeline into the New Year!
The work-from-home environment is the ultimate test in staying on top of prospects. Unnurtured relationships can easily fade, or you can take this as an opportunity to put your best foot forward. One thing we know for sure is that everything has changed since the COVID pandemic. However, the need for insurance has not. That yearly renewal is happening no matter what. Opportunity awaits when you follow these tips to stay on top of prospects!
Build Rapport & Empathy
Gatekeepers have one job as it relates to receiving sales calls – they are expected to screen out calls that may be deemed as not deserving of their boss’s time. For this reason, it’s not shocking when you make a phone call and get shooed away. Yet, insurance does require discussion at least once a year, and either they will renew or switch. There are few topics that are difficult to cold-call for, but there are two things we know for sure:
Producers have the power to make a difference in gatekeeper responses by building rapport and demonstrating empathy.
Making warm calls over cold calls wins every time.
When you call, be sure to show the person on the other line that there is a name, a face and a real human behind the call. Use cues from the gatekeeper, such as tone and pace, to build some commonalities. If there is a timely light-hearted topic (upcoming holiday, weather event, etc.), use it before rushing into a sales pitch or asking for important information. Did you ask them their name on a prior call to utilize it on the next call? Use a script to cover all of your qualifying questions, but mostly be (your best) authentic self.
After a strenuous year, empathy has become essential. Prospecting by phone does not have to be robotically transactional. According to Hubspot, 69% of consumers said a positive sales experience begins with a representative listening to their needs. Another 61% emphasized the idea of not being too pushy. It is essential to listen to your prospect carefully and deliberately in the answers they give and explain how your value-proposition benefits them. If you have historically been a “quote shop generalist” – this may be an opportunity to rethink your value proposition by industry. Consider how you can use your expertise to be thought of as a “trusted advisor” through consultative selling. This means asking the right questions and demonstrating your understanding of their type of business and industry. By building rapport, being empathetic and asking solid questions to understand needs, you can connect to prospects on a deeper level. In turn, your company can develop long time customers and gain referrals.
Requalify and Research
Closing a sale requires more than just one good conversation. A relationship is excellent on the surface, but if the prospect is not a qualified opportunity for your company, it will not result in a profitable sale. Some groups only pay commission past the first year to commissions over $2,000, for example. So, if you’re going to spend your time, you may want to do so in the larger commissioned opportunities. To delve deeper, your company should first determine whether current qualification factors make sense in light of the pandemic and reduced workforces. Various industries had to pivot, including your prospects’ businesses. By requalifying, you do not waste time and resources targeting your marketing and sales efforts to the wrong organizations.
Your qualifying questions may include decision-make name and staff size (since we can’t ask the receptionist what premium they’re paying or what their MOD is). These qualifying questions answered make the next call show that you are ‘researched’ and you may have an easier time getting in the door – thusly – creating the warm call. A well-researched prospect will make your next phone call better and establish credibility.
Research requires both qualification phone calls and the internet. Both are important and should be used in tandem to determine whether a prospect is the right fit. Talking on the phone with a gatekeeper can give you the tiniest bits of information, from makeup and structure of the company to how many trucks they have, staff size and even an upcoming vacation for your decision-maker. When researching online, be sure to check out the company’s website (the “about us” and leadership page, especially) along with their LinkedIn pages, where you can find information about decision-makers, size of business and further contact information such as email. See if they have any statements about COVID-19 and their current situation. However, do not fall into a Google research tornado. Look for the key points quickly, know when to reach out by phone and know when to move on to the next prospect.
‘After a strenuous year, empathy has become essential. Prospecting by phone does not have to be robotically transactional.’
Research not only allows you to qualify, but it also helps with our first point, building rapport. It will show the prospect you spent the time to get to know the company and make a unique connection with them!
See if MarketReach is right for you!
If you are looking for more qualified B2B leads, more sales appointments with decision-makers, and a reliable telemarketing partner – then MarketReach may be the partner you’ve been waiting for!
Now that you have built a foundation and researched your prospect, it’s imperative to stay fresh in their minds. Though the prospect only renews their insurance once per year, subtle brand awareness throughout the year will allow your name to become recognizable once it is time to give them a ring.
How do we continue to let automation allow us to stay top of mind with our prospects? Consider the use of email along with each sales call, as well as an automated email newsletter once a month and direct mail on occasion. An email gives the decision-maker the path to gain more access to your company through links and calls to action. Even better, email marketing statistically measures its efficacy, so you can understand if it works for your target market. Retention Science has shown that using a decision-maker’s first name in the subject line will make them more likely to open the email.
Dale Carnegie said, “A person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
In a fascinating episode of the Transform Sales Podcast, hosted by Amir Reiter, guest Amanda Puppo, a seasoned expert in the outsource sales industry, shares her journey and insights. Puppo’s story begins with a candid admission of being fired from her first job due to a lack of closing skills, despite being adept at cold calling. This moment of adversity propelled her towards entrepreneurship, eventually leading to the founding of her company, MarketReach, over two decades ago.
