How to Set Sales Appointments using B2B Telemarketing

When you run a B2B business, your telemarketing can (and should) look different from other run-of-the-mill telemarketing operations. 

You need every call to drive a deeper relationship with your prospects. You need your leads to not just agree to set a sales appointment – but you need them to WANT to set up a sales appointment. 

Sales appointment setting through telemarketing can be a daunting task, so we’ve compiled a how-to guide to help you get started! 

Let’s dive in- 

What You’ll Need to Start

Before you dive into telemarketing, you’ll need to have:

• A great business that delivers exceptional products and/or services
• A clear vision of the goal you mean to accomplish through telemarketing
• A plan for how to handle a rapid influx of customers or clients
• A branding style guide or company persona profile, 
• and most importantly- a list of leads

There are very few people who can handle their telemarketing all on their own. This is true for two reasons: 

1. Lead Generation takes a LOT of effort (if you do it yourself)

Going to trade shows and networking events can help you build up a list of leads manually, but it would take more time than you have to offer. If you’re going to use digital marketing to acquire leads, you’ll need to learn a range of skills from copywriting, to design, to ads management, and even more. Of course, you can purchase email lists on your own – but not all email lists are created equal. If you want to acquire an email list, you’ll want to trust professionals to choose what lists to buy and where to buy them from. 

2. Time spent on the phone prevents you from running your business

Assuming you’ve hauled yourself up by your bootstraps and built a robust list of leads – you simply can’t scale your business while you’re qualifying leads, calling prospects, and facilitating sales appointments – there’s just not enough hours in the day to do it all. 

Furthermore, this isn’t a job for your intern or your entry-level hire. Especially for B2B businesses, it’s crucial that your telemarketing is done with expertise so you actually close deals! 

Find the Right Telemarketing Agency

Since telemarketing is no one-man-job, you’ll want to find people you can trust to handle it for you. 

Telemarketing agencies get a bad rep. Tragically, a lot of them deserve it. 

To help you find the cream-of-the-crop telemarketers, here’s a list of what to look for (and avoid) to ensure you get the most out of your telemarketing service. 

Signs of a BAD Telemarketing Agency 

We’ve all been exposed to bad telemarketing before. The spam calls that you don’t want – selling things you don’t need – receiving those calls leaves a bad taste in your mouth 

The spammers always seem to be coming from non-native english speakers, and they try to pressure you into making a deal right then and there. They flagrantly try to fool you with persuasion tactics and lies.  None of them care if you are ready to talk – they are ready to sell. Even when you agrily hang-up, the spammer doesn’t care. They already has their next phone number ready to call once you leave. 

If your prospects are getting calls like this from YOUR business, you can count on underwhelming results If you don’t want your prospects to be subject to this kind of telemarketing, watch for these red flags when selecting your telemarketing agency: 

🚩Red Flags for Telemarketing Services 🚩

• Low hourly rate 
  • Businesses who can afford to undercut industry-standard pay are typically off-shore or foreign owned & operated, meaning non-native english speakers are handling the telemarketing with your english-fluent target audience
  • When telemarketing agencies cut-costs, they cut quality along with it. In B2B telemarketing, you can’t afford to cut corners. If you cut corners, you’ll lose leads faster than you can find them.
• No lead qualification process
• No reviews or testimonials
• Doesn’t offer access to the qualified database – even if you leave
  • Your qualified database is where telemarketers and lead-generation agencies store your leads whie organizing them into lists, prioritizing leads according to how much value they can bring. Some agencies will hold your qualified database hostage when you leave – and that could hurt you badly.
• Can’t assist with lead generation
• Low quality leads 
• Fake reviews, or reviews with poor grammar and punctuation
• They pressure you into partnering with them (sometimes by using scare tactics)

What to Look for in a Telemarketing Agency   

The process you go through when you reach out to a telemarketing agency is the most accurate indicator of what your leads will go through when that agency does your telemarketing. 

A good appointment setting telemarketing service will learn about you, what your needs are, and why you are pursuing telemarketing solutions.They will meet you where you are. They’ll know if you’re feeling ready to commit – or if you need more time and information.They’ll walk you through every step of the way until you’re ready to set up an appointment to start doing business. 

The people you talk to will be kind, articulate, and easy to understand. They won’t pressure you, but they’ll follow up if you haven’t spoken in a while. Most importantly, when you’re ready to set an appointment, their sales team will make it smooth and easy. 

Ensure the telemarketing company you choose has been around for a while.Agencies with experience provide better results

Here are a few other elements to look for in a telemarketing agency:

✅ Green Lights for Telemarketing Services ✅

• American Owned and Operated (or owned and operated in your country) 
• Been in operation for over 5-10 years (minimum)
• Implements a robust Lead Qualification Processes
• Has genuine positive reviews and testimonials
• Can assist with lead generation
• Great communication skills
• Transparency in messaging and onboarding
• High QUALITY leads
• High QUANTITY of leads

How MarketReach Works

MarketReach recognizes the downfalls of conventional appointment setting and telemarketing businesses – so we built our agency to deliver telemarketing that actually works for B2B businesses. 

People that partner with us get more appointments set with big-ticket prospects. We do this better than anyone because our callers are rigorously trained professionals. Plus, we implement a robust lead qualification process to ensure that we call leads EXACTLY when they are ready to commit. 

Once appointments are set, we deliver a comprehensive leadsheet to your sales team so that they have all the information they want and need to close the deal. Sales teams that use our leadsheets save time, bandwidth, and get to focus on what they do best – making sales. 

We’re 100% American owned and operated. We’ve been in business since 2001, and we’ve served hundreds of happy clients since then. 

If we’re the kind of agency you’re looking for, we’d love to meet you. Just click the button below to set up a free consultation – or contact us here.  

Build Your List of Leads 

Once you’ve identified your ideal telemarketing agency, you’ll need to deliver a list of existing leads for them. 

If you work with a reputable agency, they may be able to sort and qualify your leads for you. If not, you may need to do this yourself. Great agencies can even perform lead-gen to build a list of leads for you!

If your appointment setting/telemarketing service provider does not have the means to provide lead-gen services, then you’ll have to do this on your own. You can do this with: 

• Social media advertising
• Google Ads
• Traditional marketing (billboards, flyers, print ads, commercials), or
• Cold-calling

When you get a lead, you’ll want to categorize them so that you know which leads are high priority, low priority, or somewhere in-between. 

Qualify Your Leads

Let’s say you run a business that sells medical equipment to hospitals – you wouldn’t want to waste your time on the phone with an ice cream salesman, right? Of course you wouldn’t!

That’s why your telemarketing efforts need to focus on the highest priority prospects, your pre-qualified leads.

Pre-Qualified Leads 

Pre-qualified leads are leads who have been verified as meeting a certain number of criteria that matches your ideal buyer’s persona. 

Example: If your business sells medical equipment to medical institutions like hospitals – a pre-qualified lead may need to meet prerequisites, such as: 

• Being currently employed
• Working for a medical facility
• Is in a management role at their current job
• They are a decision maker for a hospital with regards to equipment, inventory, and medical equipment providers
• Has an available budget for equipment exceeding $_____ amount

Your prospect list will likely have hundreds, if not thousands of contacts. Regrettably, a large portion of your contact list won’t meet your qualification criteria. 

Your telemarketers should focus their effort toward tending to your pre-qualified leads so you’re sure you’re talking to people who really want and need the goods and services you provide. 

Get On the Phones!

Once you’ve got your leads collected, categorized, and consolidated, it’s time to pick up the phones! 

Entire books have been written on how to be effective in telecommunication and telesales, so we won’t bore you with all the details. We can share a few pointers for you or your telemarketing agency of choice. – 

Whoever is the voice behind your telemarketing, make sure that they are: 

•  Personable, professional, kind, and curious
• Articulate 
• Not long-winded, but are through in their explanations
• Responsive, 
• Understanding of your bottom line objectives

In no time, your sales team should have their calendar filled with appointments, and you’ll be ready to make some sales! 

Close Deals & Deliver Great Service

The final stretch to getting money in the door rests on your sales team. A good telemarketing agency will get the prospect in the door, and it’s the sales team that gets them through it. If your telemarketing service has delivered all of the relevant information to the sales team – they’ll be ready for a slam dunk of a deal. 

If your sales team needs more training to help them close more deals faster, MarketReach offers workshops that can help! Check them out here. 

Even still, the most important part of all of this comes after the deal is made. 

Once the sale has closed, it’s imperative that you deliver a service so good that it’s worth talking about. Your existing customers have a network of people who could be high-quality qualified leads if they come to your door. 

Deliver great service, and your best leads will come straight to you. 

Summary

This article only scratches the surface of what it takes to set B2B sales appointments using telemarketing, but that’s because it takes a lot to do it right. 

If you want to try doing lead gen and telemarketing on your own or with an in-house team, you’ll all have a lot to learn. Expect for growth to be slow, and plan for the long-game. 

Most businesses need a partner they can trust to do their telemarketing in a way that sets their sales team up for success. 

MarketReach has been that partner to hundreds of companies like yours, and we’d love to be your telemarketing partner too. 

If you want to learn more about us, contact us or click the button below for a free consultation!