So you still want to ask, “Are mornings or afternoons better for you?”
A sales professionals in one of our Prospector’s Academies told me this story the other day during a role-play session and I thought it was worth passing on to you.
He told me that he had always been afraid to say no when a target would propose a different time for an appointment than he had originally asked for; even when he had something personal scheduled. He told me that he would say yes to almost anything, even if it were inconvenient—just to get the appointment. He told me that for the first time, he countered with a third time and the prospect said yes. He was ecstatic. “It worked, it worked!” he exclaimed.
Continue reading “Asking for a specific time for an appointment does work.”
If you’re like me, you were taught to ask questions like, “Are mornings or afternoons better for you?” when asking for an appointment. I say ask for a specific day and time. Why? Well, I’m glad you asked! Here are three very good reasons:
Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is “…doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.”
I was reading an old article from the Wall Street Journal the other day (August 6, 2007–-if you’re interested). It was entitled, On the Web, English is the Coin of the Realm. In the article, the author talks about English being the language of choice around the world. It went on to say that smart advertisers, when looking for an international audience on the Web, get a better bang for their advertising buck if they use English. It got me thinking (no, not about why Illegal Immigrants don’t get the value of learning English like the rest of the world has), but about the term, Coin of the Realm. In this article, the Coin of the Realm is actually the dollars spent on advertising, not the language of English. Why? Because that is the lowest common denominator of what each of us has to spend on the advertising. It is what each medium we wish to advertise on will accept in trade for that advertising. English is, well, something for another blog on another day. So, what does this have to do with appointment setting? 
Contrary 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