Scheduling Sales Appointments is Not Selling Time

You have probably heard the phrase too much information can be dangerous. It usually happens when a new rep is in training and his knowledge of sales and product is growing at a rapid pace. We are currently training a new sales rep at one of our clients and noticed how misuse of new information pulled down his results in scheduling sales appointments.

We teach our reps to focus on scheduling sales appointments when making prospecting telephone calls, not selling. They are tossing out a broad question to test interest and then asks for an appointment. The first day of calling he stayed focused on his approach and setting appointments. The calls resulted in 3 appointments, one more than we were asking him to do. The second day no appointments, and he mentioned people were a little more guarded.

After a debrief of his calls we discovered that he was applying new found knowledge from his Discovery Appointments training during his calls. He was asking probing questions to people who had not asked for them. The result was resistance and no appointments. He was trying to sell during a time he needed to focus on scheduling an appointment.

When you are calling for appointments you are really in a marketing stage. You are generating leads, finding people who want to learn more. When you meet with someone in a scheduled appointment is when the sales process begins. If you keep your selling out of your marketing you will find that you will have more people to sell to.