We regularly get asked whether we work on a "pay-per-appointment" or "pay-for-performance" basis for our appointment setting services.

Whilst our answer is always "No", it's worth exploring the subject further to explain our views on this compensation model for the appointment setting business.

Pay-per-appointment sounds like the holy grail for most clients.

It appears (at first glance, anyway) as a zero risk option. With the popularity of Google's pay-per-click and other pay-per-lead online offerings it sounds like a no-brainer, right?

Well, like most things in life, it's not that straight forward.

Here are 4 things to consider if you're looking at pay-per-appointment or pay-for-performance appointment setting:

1) Compensation - it's pretty much universally acknowledge that commission-only sales compensation packages have been discredited. Think of all those mis-selling scandals within the pensions sector. It may still exist in the world of double-glazing and time-shares (do you want your business associated with these people?) but elsewhere business has realised that a balanced compensation plan which includes both a basic and performance element is the best way.

Why? The main reason is that performance-only plans motivate people to only be interested in making a short-term sale and encourages manipulative, aggressive and hard-selling tactics (watch the films "Tin Men" and "Glengarry Glen Ross" for more on this).

In the context of pay-per-appointment setting this translates to a boiler-room approach to closing the meeting at any cost.

After all, no meeting means no money so why should they care if they upset a few people? Think about all those arrogant sales people who've cold-called you in the past, pushing for you to agree to something that you weren't interested in and simply ignoring what you were saying just to close the deal. Do you want those people calling your potential clients and representing your company?

2) Quality - OK, so you've got your appointment, the next thing you need to think about is whether it's any good. I've written previously about this (see my post Just what is a qualified appointment?) but it's worth stating again.

A "qualified" appointment means that the person booking the meeting has to apply their skill and judgement to evaluate the quality of the appointment before agreeing to book it. This involves asking qualifying questions and deciding whether the meeting is worthwhile.

If you want a qualified appointment then your appointment setter needs to actually decide to not book some appointments.

When I talk with prospective clients they all want good quality, qualified appointments with senior decision makers. No-one wants to waste their time, do they? So our clients are trusting us to follow a process which includes qualifying out some opportunities before agreeing to book an appointment. If we follow that process correctly, it inevitably means that we may work hard, pitch a number of decision makers and not book any appointments - because they didn't qualify.

Does that make sense?

People pay us to set up qualified appointments. Our performance can be evaluated in a number of ways, one of which is the number of appointments we book, another is the number of decision makers we pitch and qualify, and a third is linked to activity (such as time worked).

We've not got a problem being rewarded on a results-focused basis (all our fees have a performance-based element) but it needs to fairly reflect what we actually do.

3) Pipeline - another thing about pay-per-appointment or pay-for-performance appointment setting is that it only focuses on short-term results at the exclusion of developing a longer term pipeline of contacts.

As I've blogged about many times before (see Is telemarketing a short or long-term investment?) much of the value in a telemarketing campaign comes from developing relationships over a number of touches. In addition, utilising integrated marketing tactics, such as email marketing, seminars, direct mail, etc all add to the overall ROI.

When you pay-per-appointment you really are only seeing the tip of the iceberg and have no visibility of what's below the water line. Pay-for-performance appointment setting companies will not give you any details about who else they've called, the conversations they've had or even what stage other prospects are. You'll get no feedback on future requirements, competitors, review dates, etc.

Any why should you? You're only interested in the appointment, right?

What this means is that while you're only working with the 1% who have agreed to see you, your competitors are building relationships with the 99% who want more info, have future requirements, and generally are not ready right now.

Do you think an appointment setting company is interested in sending your latest piece of thought-leadership collateral? Are they motivated to nurture those relationships so that you're positioned to be invited on the next RFP?

Of course not! You're not paying them to do that, are you?

4) Risk - finally, the most over-looked element of pay-per-appointment or pay-for-performance appointment setting is an appreciation of risk. Most companies consider the model to be zero-risk. But, the reality is that it only eliminates one risk - the risk of paying and getting no appointments.

As we've covered already, there are other risks associated with pay-per-appointment models that are rarely acknowledged.

There's the risk that the person calling is so motivated to book an appointment (if they don't book an appointment they don't get paid, right?) that they'll be aggressive, use manipulative techniques and generally strong-arm the prospect into booking. Or perhaps they may just come across as desperate, booking the appointment for "just 15 mins" in a way that positions your time as worthless.

Remember, as far as the prospect is concerned it's your company calling them. Is that a risk you want to take?

Another risk we've looked at is the risk of wasting your time. How much does it really cost you to attend a sales appointment? Whether you're a sales person or business owner I guarantee that it's more than the cost of making the appointment.

If you get sent on a wild-goose-chase of an appointment that's been squeezed out by a paid-on-results telemarketer it will cost you. Unqualified appointments cost you in many ways, including the fact that while you're kicking your heels in reception, waiting for someone who's in their office wondering why they agreed to see you, you could be seeing someone who does want to buy.

And, finally, there's the "opportunity risk".

I'm talking here about the risk that you're leaving money on the table, letting your competition build relationships which you have no visibility of, and basically having no control of the marketing process.

This latter point about control needs some explanation.

Pay-per-appointment firms generally use their own data. This is typically a well-worn database of contacts that is shared across multiple campaigns for multiple clients.

Have you asked yourself why most of these pay-for-performance appointment setting firms focus on just one sector? It's so they can re-use the data and contacts they have. And if you're going to re-use the data then working exclusively with one company per sector just doesn't make sense.

Let's leave to one side the fact that they will often be calling on behalf of your competitors at the same time as they're working on your campaign; handling competing clients actually allows these firms to leverage their success (ever wondered why your competitor always seems to have signed into the same companies you meet with?)

Anyway, they also use the same data because they're not going to invest in new data just for you, after all, you're only paying for results. And if they're using the same data, after a while they get to know the "usual suspects" who will always see someone for an appointment. That's their low-hanging-fruit, right?

So they go after them first, get you a quick initial flurry of appointments, everything's looking great.

Then, a few months into the campaign, it starts to dry up a little. The number of meetings coming in slows down. The quality is dropping, further still. And all the while time is ticking, targets are getting closer and you're not getting the traction you need.

Why is this?

The reality is that once you get past the low-hanging-fruit and the lucky-you-called-me-today's, there's a lot of graft needed. Activity needs to continue, diligently calling back, sending info, building those relationships.

For the pay-per-appointment firm this is a diminishing return on their time.

Why should they be investing in building a pipeline they're not acknowledged for? Better to move into the next new client and start harvesting that low-hanging-fruit again.

We've worked with clients who come to us after they've been through this process and have spent months spinning their wheels. They can't get any meaningful data, they've had a handful of good, bad, and ugly appointments and now the pay-per-appointment setting firm isn't returning their calls.

Of course, if you've got no money to invest in marketing then pay-per-appointment might be all you can afford in the short-term. Who knows, you might just get lucky and close one deal quick enough to keep paying for more appointments. In my experience, it seldom works out that way.

Or perhaps you've got a hungry sales team of road warriors and you just want to keep them busy. Pay-for-performance appointment setting could be for you. After all, look at the number of meetings and activity targets they're all hitting.

But, surely there's a better model than that?

Over the years we've found it's better to have a fee model that strikes a fair balance between daily fees that ensure focused activity and a performance element linked to success.

Labels: appointment setting, appointment setting services, b2b telemarketing, pay-per-appointment

Telemarketing, like all direct marketing disciplines, has a strong tradition of measurement.

The number of dials you make, number of DMC's (Decision Maker Contacts), number of appointments you book, it's all about the numbers.

But sometimes you need to look a little deeper at the numbers to see what's happening.

For example, many telemarketers will say something like, "I make 120 calls a day"; as if that's the only metric that matters. Because if you focus just on the number of dials, you're missing something really important - the actual conversations.

If you think about it, when you're getting through to the right people and having a quality dialogue with them, then that takes time. If you pitch, say, 15 prospects in a day, that's pretty good going. Add to that the fact that you'll probably need to do some fulfilment with each one (prepare and send an email, for example) then you can see that it's not all about the dials.

In the film Boiler Room, (which is for telemarketing what Glengarry Glenross is for sales) when the new recruit is being trained he's told "this entire business revolves around the phone. A good broker makes over three hundred calls a day."

Now, when you watch the film, you see these guys pitching prospects, wrangling with them and using every rebuttal available to reel 'em in - and they're still supposed to be making three hundred calls a day? I don't think so!

It's like the sales manager who told his new recruit to make ten appointments per day. When they meet up in the field after his first day the new recruit proudly tells his boss that he did it, he completed ten sales appointments in the day. "Great", the sales manager says, "How many did you close".

"Close?", says the new recruit, "I didn't have time to actually sell them anything!"

It's like all management tools, the activity itself shouldn't be the goal. In telemarketing it's about sales leads and appointments.

Measuring activity gives you an understanding of what's happening, but the focus should always be on results.

Labels: appointment setting services, b2b telemarketing, cold calling

I often discuss the issue of blow-back with clients who are concerned about potential brand damage when considering using telemarketing to generate leads for new business.

As the saying goes, "you can't make an omelette...."

Of course, anything you do which involves making an unsolicited approach for new business, whether that's by phone or email, carries a degree of risk. I've seen sales people sit all day doing anything rather than pick up the phone and cold call because they're afraid of rejection; in the trade they call it call avoidance.

But, for a company considering working with a telemarketing agency, it's a legitimate concern to have. After all, anyone making a call on behalf of your company is representing your brand in front of potential clients.

In my experience there are two things that you should be aware of:

Firstly, scripts should be avoided at all costs.

Whoever's calling on your behalf needs to clearly understand your proposition. That's not to say they need to be experts, they just need to know your key messages, how you're positioned and why the prospect should consider meeting you (if the output is a meeting, for example). This is why we invest time in client briefings at the start of every new business campaign.

If your prospect receives a call from someone who is obviously reading a script it tells them immediately that it's a cold call from someone who probably doesn't even know who they are and what they do.

An intelligent, well-researched approach says something entirely different...

Secondly, pushy sales people will kill any chance you have.

In this business, a little guile, wit and persistence is always needed to deliver results (after all, if it was that easy....). But thinking you can strong-arm someone into a meeting never works.

At best they'll agree to the meeting and then cancel it. At worst they'll remember your company name. And if you upset them they will always remember it.

So, always make sure you work with people who have an interest in delivering quality sales appointments, not just another name in the diary or meeting notched up on the board.

That may mean fewer meetings. But, in our book, fewer, quality meetings often lead to more profitable new business.

Labels: appointment setting services, new business agency, sales lead generation, telemarketing agency

I've posted often about our approach to lead generation and appointment setting and how it's different the the way most telemarketing companies work.

But a recent conversation with an associate who's probably written the book on cold-calling made me wonder whether telemarketing as a stand-alone marketing tactic has finally had it's day.

Certainly, in the b2c sector it's days are well and truly numbered, evidenced by the growth of TPS and the Do Not Call Registry in the US. As far as business-to-business telemarketing is concerned, I think the time is also running out.

Now, let me be clear, I'm not saying that prospecting for new business by phone is dead, far from it. But, I do believe that telemarketing on its own is no longer effective.

This typically applies to larger telemarketing agencies and outbound call centres than smaller telemarketing companies, as their entire business model is based upon volume and scripts. Their approach is to keep dialling until they finally reach someone and then deliver a killer script designed to "trick" them into saying "yes".

Excuse me, but that simply doesn't work any more.

For many senior decision makers, telephone is no longer the preferred method of communication. Partly due to the telemarketing industry and partly due to the nature of work (mobility, home-working, meetings, time pressures, etc) business people today avoid incoming phone calls as much as possible.

And if you do get them on the phone, will they really sit through a six-minute scripted pitch? I don't think so.

In business-to-business, lead generation today is about one-on-one marketing, opening a dialogue and using a mix of communication methods.

Here's an example of how large call centres have got it so wrong:

I received a call a while back from a utility company (it was already my utility company as it happens) wanting to get me to switch my electricity to them.

Now, as it happens, I was interested in doing this, but I wanted to see something in writing before I made any decision ("decision strategies" are a whole other area to blog about but basically, many people want to see something before they can make a decision). So, I asked them to send me something. "Sorry, can't do that" was the reply.

If you're from the old school of sales you'd probably chalk up my request as a "time waster" or a delaying tactic and simply move on. But, I don't subscribe to all those "buyers are liars" sales cliches.

No, the reason they couldn't send me anything was because they were sitting in an office in Chennai or Glasgow and were not in anyway joined up with the whole sales process.

So they didn't send me anything. Wasted call, wasted opportunity.

When we work on new business campaigns for our clients we operate as part of their team. We hold collateral, send emails from our clients' domain, and nurture leads through the pipeline.

When we initially approach someone (by phone or email) and they ask for info, what does it tell them when we send it to them and then follow-up? It tells them that we're interested in starting a dialogue.

It may (and often does) take several phone calls, emails & voice-mails over a period of weeks or months until they're ready. Over that period we're demonstrating that we're not a pushy salesperson, we value their time and we want to do business.

When the timing is right, we'll book a meeting (or conference call, or whatever the appropriate next step is).

To me this is simple. Why have most telemarketing companies got it so wrong?

I guess, lucky for us, they have :-)

Labels: appointment setting services, lead generation agency, lead generation company, new business development, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

For me, one of the interesting things I picked up at the Being Digital event I attended yesterday (excellent event btw) was that consumers don't mind adverts as long as they're relevant.

OK, that may seem obvious, but it came out of a lengthy panel discussion on how to monetise content in a fragmented market without upsetting your audience.

When adverts as relevant (or targeted), such as with Google Adwords, then people don't object to them. In a way, there's this serendipitous effect that the advert appears to reach you just when you were looking.

OK, maybe that's over egging it, but there's no doubt that the more targeted your ads the higher the conversion, or CPR, or whatever metric you're using plus (and here's the real thing) the less you upset your target market.

This is what I've always said about targeted cold-calling for new business.

When you really target your audience, then your hit rate goes up, plus the people you are calling will respect the fact that your call was relevant to them. Even if they're not interested today, they will agree that they could have been.

Think about it. For most telemarketers they're calling you just because you're the next person on their list. How does that make you feel? Now, how different does it feel if someone contacts you because they've actually thought about whether you might be interested before they called you?

Perhaps they've done some research about your business or competitors. Or they've noticed a trigger event that makes them believe you would respond positively to their message.

Approaching any new business campaign in this way is essential to starting a relationship that you can build on for the future.

It's about mutual respect, really.

Labels: appointment setting services, cold calling, lead generation agency, lead generation company, new business development, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

OK, so there's always a point when I engage with a new client when we start to discuss fees. For "appointment setting", there are a few fee models on the market, ranging from the very bottom (setting up meetings for financial advisers or low-value B2B propositions) to the very top...CEO of a global company.

I pretty much focus on the upper-middle to top of this market.

Typically, my clients want to engage with senior budget holders and decision makers where their value proposition has the most currency. In larger companies that's not always an easy person to find. Often for consultancies I need to find a departmental or divisional head... or even a "Director" level interim who's heading up a programme. Titles can be a bit misleading...

[You can't go out and buy those names on a list, BTW.]

Anyway, we now get back to "how much" is the meeting worth?

Whilst there are methods of calculating the life-time value of your potential client, as used by many direct marketing guru's when establishing ROI and Client Acquisition methods, I find these don't really help.

In any case, the cost of getting the meeting will be far less than the cost of "pitching" for the business. For any company with a complex sale, and long bidding process this cost regularly runs into hundreds of thousands, GBP or USD, take your pick.

Therefore, when you factor in the cost of sale, it's more important to have a well qualified meeting than just any meeting.

Another way of establishing cost per meeting is to look at alternatives, such as trade shows, events, or even your own biz dev people cold-calling - OK, so we both know that'll never happen :-)

When I've sat down with clients before and looked at the costs, when you add up lost billable hours or sales "down-time", plus costs of the event etc, the cost per meeting always runs above 1000GBP.

I regularly deliver qualified meetings for less than half that amount, as well as supporting my clients with account research & intelligence that they can leverage for success.

Labels: appointment setting services, sales lead generation, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

I read an interesting article on RainToday.com called "Does Email Cold Calling Work?". The article's written by Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies. (I'm a big fan of Jill)

Reading Jill's article reminded me of my blog back in May, Email vs Cold Calling, which looked at exactly the same topic.

Jill says: -

"When I talk about email cold calling, I'm not talking about huge email blasts to everyone on your mailing list. I'm talking about targeted, focused, and totally personalized emails. That's what captures the attention of prospective clients.

Because it's virtually impossible to connect with decision makers on the phone, you need to immediately start thinking about how you can include e-mail in your account entry campaigns."

I wonder how many telemarketing companies have realised this?

Of course, most telemarketing companies are just not set up for doing this, and their people wouldn't know how to construct a targeted email that works. In a way, the majority of telemarketing companies are focused purely on one thing...the phone; they've built their whole business model around it.

Meanwhile, the corporate world has rapidly adopted email as a preferred method of communication. Think of all those executives with their Blackberry's.

To me, it's pretty obvious. If you can't get them by phone...try something else.

Labels: appointment setting services, cold calling, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

Recently, I was chatting with a client and he called me the "go-to-guy to get-you-in".

I must admit, being a "Go-to-Guy" is something I've always worked towards. It's about building a reputation for your expertise and delivery.

One of my favourtite films is Pulp Fiction. And one of my favoutire characters in the film (a personal hero, even) is the tuxedo-clad Winston Wolf a.k.a "The Wolf".

He's the "Go-to-Guy".

When Jules and Vincent are in a tight spot, having just accidently blown a colleagues head off, they are releived when their boss, Marsellus says, "Go back in there, chill them ... out and wait for The Wolf, who should be comin' directly."

From there on, what does The Wolf do?

He qualifies what his client wants, gets all the details, etc and then sets expectations that he knows he can deliver: "Expect a call around 10:30. It's about thirty minutes away. I'll be there in ten."

Next thing we see is The Wolf's car pulling up outside Jimmie's house with the caption: "NINE MINUTES AND THIRTY-SEVEN SECONDS LATER"

Now that's how to do it.

When Jimmie opens the door. We see, standing in the doorway, the tuxedo-clad Wolf. He looks down to his notebook, then up at Jimmie.

THE WOLF
You're Jimmie, right? This is your house?

JIMMIE
Yeah.

THE WOLF
I'm Winston Wolf, I solve problems.

JIMMIE
Good, 'cause we got one.

To me, this is my goal as a freelance sales & business development consultant. I'm the go-to-guy when a client wants help opening doors. Sometimes I work with clients on ongoing campaigns; sometimes it's just a one-off project.

If I can't get you in, I know someone who can.

Labels: appointment setting services, freelance telemarketing, sales, telemarketing services

There's a great phrase that Jill Konrath used in her book, "Selling to Big Companies" when discussing sending emails to targeted prospects within large organisations - "one-on-one marketing". Jill writes:

"When you set your eyes on getting into a particular big company you are doing one-on-one marketing. It's writing to one person. That's all. Totally personalized. Totally Customized."

That is so true and, I think, it's probably one of the hardest forms of direct marketing there is.

Consider this: successful direct marketing campaigns are usually measured in single digit response rates, say 1 or 2% (and you can invest a lot of time and money trying to increase that rate by a fraction of a point.)

We're trying to get the attention of just one person, and we need to carefully research and craft our approach to have a chance of success.

Also, when you're running a direct marketing campaign, let's say a mail-out, you can test your copy on a segment of the list, check the response rate, make a few changes, test again etc. Once you've found the copy that pulls the most responses, you can release it to the bulk of the list.

With one-on-one marketing there's no such luxury.

I guess this is typically why I work with companies with high ticket propositions, or where a large account could represent a major lifetime value as a customer; it's worth investing the time as the payback can be substantial.

Labels: appointment setting services, telemarketing services

The other day I had an amusing cold-call from a recruitment company. I'll not mention their name, but they bill themselves as "specialising in placing and training graduates for high-profile sales and marketing jobs". Yeah, right.

Anyway, this guy calls me up, let's call him James, and from the start he's not listening.

ME: Hello, David Regler.

JAMES: Can I speak with Mr Regler please?

ME: This is Mr Regler.

JAMES: Er...er...(He recovers and launches into his pitch) We're a UK Recruitment company specialising in placing and training graduates for high-profile sales and marketing jobs. I want to arrange a meeting with you...yadda, yadda....synergies....explore relationships...yadda, yadda....

He goes on for a couple of minutes and I don't say a word (apparantly the more he talks the more I'm convinced). His pitch is just the usual canned waffle. Eventually, he closes me for an appointment with probably the oldest one in the book.

JAMES: I'm going to be in your area either May 8th or 11th, which is best for you?

ME: James, I don't understand why you want to meet me (I ignored the fact that he obviously didn't know where my area was and I seriously doubt whether he was going to ever be in it).

JAMES: Er...er....

ME: You're a recruitment company right?

JAMES: Yes

ME: Well...we don't employ anyone.

JAMES: Er...er...(this was obviously not an objection on his script)...I don't understand...er...

ME: We work on an associate model, that means we don't employ anyone. So why would you want to waste your time meeting me?

Talk about lack of qualification. If he'd taken one minute to look at my website he'd have found that out. I mean, the clue is in the name: Maine Associates ;-)

I went on to question James about his company, got to find out that he'd been there 6 months and had been through their intensive sales training which included, wait for it, cold calling. His target was to make 6 appointments a week; obviously it didn't matter what appointment it was - the company didn't have to meet some basic criteria, such as do they hire sales people ;-). If he just wanted an appointment he should have gone to the doctor.

I emailed his MD and suggested that if they wanted to run a real training course on "cold calling" they should give me a call. I'll not hold my breath on that one.

Needless to say, James' approach is not unique. In fact, it's pretty much the standard out there. And while people like James are doing such a bad job, our life is so much easier.

When we contact prospects they instantly know that we are different - and that's what makes the difference.

Labels: appointment setting services, cold calling, sales lead generation, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services