What is a Playbook and why is it required for setting appointments?

The five ‘C’s of delivering the same message and techniques.

Many sales professionals will tell you they like to ‘wing it’ on appointment setting calls because they don’t want to sound ‘canned’ or like the proverbial telemarketer.

If you then role play a call with them (or listen in on a call) you’ll hear them fumble their way through the conversation and not get an appointment.

Continue reading “What is a Playbook and why is it required for setting appointments?”

Why do our clients say our Appointment Setting process is different and so successful?

They’ll tell you it is multidimensional and comprehensive…and it works

Everybody says their methodology is different, right? So, what do our clients say about why they chose us and why they minimally doubled the number of Initial Appointments their sales team was setting prior to attending one of our Prospector’s Academies™? More importantly, how did they sustain those gains?

Picture a three-legged stool. The three legs represent what we call the Art, Science and Best Practices of Appointment setting.

  1. Let’s start with Art. Art, said another way is skills. It’s all about what we say, how we say it, and when we say it to get through to the decision maker more often—and then once we do get through, turn more of those conversations into appointments. This is the technique component of countering the no. You can also read more about how even this is different than most methodologies by clicking here. 
  2. The second leg is Best Practices, which is all completed before an Academy is ever delivered. There are strategic and tactical components to this. The strategic includes thinking through the process we’ll follow and the preparation for calling. Things like defining what our optimal target looks like, how many of those targets we’ll need, where they are located and how we’ll compile that list so that when it’s time for a Call Block, all we need to do is pick up the phone and dial. (You have no idea how many sales professionals subscribe to the ‘ready, shoot, aim’ theory of prospecting, resulting in a less than ideal pipeline.) It also includes things like how many times we’ll call and how often.

The tactical side of things is delivered in our tailored Playbooks. Each sales professional receives their own individual version containing what we’ll say when they answer the phone, what messages we’ll send and leave if they don’t and how we’ll counter the typical ways people say no to us.

  1. The third leg is the Science of the process. It is all about speed, organization, and accurate reporting. One of the biggest causes for call reluctance, believe it or not, is not having the time to keep up with the process or simply getting overwhelmed by the process. The technology we utilize was designed specifically for this process and benchmarks at twice the speed. It also provides management with very accurate and granular reporting for accountability and coaching purposes.

This is all delivered through an eight-week, instructor led online class that includes a lot of practice to burn in the skills, tools and process. At the end of the day, our clients would tell you that it is the only comprehensive training they’ve seen on the hardest part of the selling process—setting the Initial Appointment.

If you’d like more information on the topic of why no team of sales professionals has ever failed to at least double the number of Initial Appointments they were setting after going through one of our programs, give us a call or drop us a line. We love talking appointment making!


Caponi Performance Group and Contact Science jointly market the appointment setting solution called Coldcalling101™.  It is the only comprehensive solution to solving the biggest barrier to success in most selling organizations—the inability to secure enough Initial Appointments to begin the selling process. We accomplish that through simultaneously addressing both the efficiency and effectiveness of the process.  We can be reached at 817 224-9900 or at bcaponi@caponipg.com. You can also find answers to many of your challenges in our many published articles on LinkedIn and in our books: Contrary to Popular Belief, Cold Calling DOES Work! Volume I: Effectiveness, The Art of Appointment Making and  Volume II: Efficiency, the Science of Appointment Making.

Have Call Reluctance? Two ideas to defeat it.

The Virtual Bank Account and the Check Off List.

In previous blogs, I’ve written about the causes for Call Reluctance.  Most of those refer to preparation and the components of the process that need to be addressed. There are some of us, however, that even when totally prepared, would still rather being doing something else, and hence, do something else. Here are a couple of ideas that have been successfully used to visually see the value of the prospecting part of their job and then to motivate them to do it! Continue reading “Have Call Reluctance? Two ideas to defeat it.”

Five tips to help make that first cold call of the day.

Five ways to beat Call Reluctance.

fear-quoteMany times we hear the old mantra that, “Once I get started making my daily appointment making calls, I’m okay.  It’s getting started that is the challenge.  I’ll do anything to keep from picking up that phone for the first call.”

Here are five tips to help us get into the proper frame of mind to start a Call Block. Continue reading “Five tips to help make that first cold call of the day.”

Six reasons to build an appointment making plan for the long haul.

The Cumulative Effect of Cold Calling.

Accumulation Squirrel and NutsContrary to popular belief, the time and effort we put into the calls we make today that do not immediately result in an appointment today still has value. In other words, be in it for the long run to leverage that investment of time and effort.  Design a well-defined Best Practice that defines how you will pursue a homogeneous set of targets and stick with it because appointment making has a cumulative affect over time.  Then make sure to employ a technology that enables the Best Practice to be efficiently executed.

Here are six reasons to build a Best Practice for your appointment setting efforts and to stick with it over time: Continue reading “Six reasons to build an appointment making plan for the long haul.”