How to Qualify Your Appointment Setting Leads

Appointment setting with clients who are ready to close a deal is a tempting prospect. Lots of companies make every effort to succeed in this matter. Although the result may be negative due to the poor preparation phase. This goes to show why it is essential to qualify leads. In this article, we cover such issues as:

• appointment setting basics
• types of qualified leads
• methods to evaluate a potential client.

Qualified Appointments: What is It?

This term refers to contacting a potential client in order to assess whether they will purchase your services. It implies the sales rep to meet potential customers interested in your products. However, a meeting does not always involve physical contact. It might even be a simple phone call.

An essential key factor should be that the customer is initially motivated to purchase your services. This means that the lead is already qualified, and you will get a more effective result.

Appointment Setter Services

There are many useful appointment setter software that automates this process, thereby increasing productivity. However, many of these apps often make appointments, even with unqualified leads. That is, you cannot be sure that your “interlocutor” is motivated to purchase your services. It can only waste the sales representatives’ time and brings no results. That’s why it’s essential to qualify a lead before appointment setting.

The main role in this process should be played by the appropriate specialist. These are the persons who are the first point of contact between the business and potential clients, so they must have strong sales skills. In enterprises and large companies, an entire department may be responsible for setting appointments. But regardless of the size of the business, this process should include best practices focused on the needs of the company to achieve the highest quality results.

What are the Types of Qualified Leads?

There are two cryptic abbreviations: SQL and MQL. And we will talk about them in more detail below.

Sales Qualified Leads (SQL)

A qualified sales lead is a potential customer who is interested in your products or services and is willing to accept your offer. Usually, this is the individual who accepts the offer or at least the one who can indicate the decision-making person. Focusing all your efforts on a qualified lead you can successfully close a deal.

Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL)

At the same time, there is a different kind of potential customer. These are the ones who have shown interest in your products and services based on the efforts of your marketing department, but are not ready to close the deal yet. Rather, their actions are aimed at examining your proposal to assess whether it can solve their pain points or not. Here we are talking about Marketing Qualified Leads.

MQL is taking the first step towards becoming your client. The process looks like this: with the right approach, MQL turns into SQL, which later may become a full-fledged client.

How to Qualify Your Leads for Appointment Setting

Lead qualification is the process by which the marketing and sales teams work together to determine if a prospect is an ideal customer and ready to make a purchase. Ultimately, the main goal is to understand whether it is worth continuing to negotiate with the lead or is it just a waste of time.

Qualification occurs at every stage from lead generation to closing a deal. Responsible teams collect detailed information about the lead, and then conclude whether they meet the criteria for an ideal customer.

Here are some of the most common sources for collecting information about lead:

• Visiting their website, studying social networks, searching the Internet for general information about a potential client’s business.
• Telephone conversation. This is an opportunity to ask a lead clarifying questions that will assess the potential client’s readiness to close a deal. It also provides additional information that reveals some details about the structure of the company, namely who has the power to make decisions.

Lead qualification saves time and costs in the customer acquisition process. This method of interviewing helps to effectively determine if the lead will be able to become a full-fledged client. If not, then you simply stop communicating with them. The lead qualification must be completed before setting an appointment.

Lead Scoring as the Best Way to Define Leads for Further Cooperation

Not all leads are created equal. While some can bring significant benefits quickly, others can take too long to complete a deal. So it is important to prioritize and focus first and foremost on those who are about to become a full-fledged client. Lots of successful appointment setters companies use lead scoring to define perspectives.

Here are some steps that can help you with this matter:

1. Define your metrics. This is necessary in order to assess which result is positive and which is not good. Understand your prospect’s industry, their performance, location, profit margins, and so on. The more data you collect, the easier it will be for you to measure leads later.
2. Create a grading system. Based on the criteria developed, it is worth awarding points to all the leads you interact with. Further, the points must be summed up separately for each potential client. This will help you identify the highest priority partners.
3. Work on the portraits of the ideal client. This step consists in deep market research to determine the details of the characteristics of those companies with which you are most profitable to interact. It’s good if you can create multiple portraits. A global characteristic shifts boundaries, which can make it harder to qualify a lead later. But when you have several detailed images of the ideal client, you can more accurately distribute your leads, and in accordance with this, build further strategies to turn them into full-fledged customers.
4. Set the passing level. Identify the moment when you realize that the prospect is ready to cooperate. For example, it might be the number of points they need to earn based on your grading system.

Methods to Qualify Sales Leads

Let’s take a look at the basic qualification methods to help you determine who set an appointment with.

BANT

It is a basic methodology that takes into account budget, purchasing power, internal influence, and the lead’s need in your product (Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing). In other words, you can immediately see the potential of a possible client and whether you can meet their needs. How to determine this? Just ask them the appropriate questions for more information. For example, if a lead’s budget does not allow purchasing your product or service, then it makes no sense to waste your time on them.

You can qualify leads with cold calls. But first, it’s worth collecting more information to determine whether your product can solve their problems. Focus on social media profile analysis and research their corporate website. It will also allow you to find the most suitable person for the first contact.

SPIN

Interestingly, this method has been actively used for over 40 years. Its main goal is to stop selling and instead focus on finding solutions for the prospect. That is, to begin with, you need to identify the issues and aspects that the leader faced. Help them analyze the situation by asking leading (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-Payoff) questions. Motivate them to fix the problem.

An essential nuance is that your main strategy should be aimed at selling the solution. That is, those ways that will allow the client to easily overcome pain points. This method requires sales reps have emotional intelligence and psychological skills to present a proposal in the best light.

CHAMP

Its abbreviation of Challenges, Authority, Money, and Prioritization. Here’s how it’s used in appointment setter services: you focus on the prospect’s problem first, and only then take note of their budget. Before moving on to the amount of the deal, the client must understand how effective your offer is. Therefore, you have to assess their priorities and develop an approach that will demonstrate the value of your services.

ANUM

This framework is for Authority, Need, Urgency, and Money. It has similar principles to BANT or CHAMP. Qualification means that the lead is the person who makes important decisions in the company. Before moving on to discuss the budget, the sales representative evaluates the credibility of the “interlocutor” and can decide whether to continue the dialogue.

MEDDIC

This approach allows you to sell your services to the right people in the right way. That is, it helps you to understand if it is worth making further efforts to close the deal, or whether the potential client will refuse. This method attracts more qualified customers and increases your sales accordingly. MEDDIC is beneficial as it helps to accurately predict your sales based on gathered client’s information. It refers to Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision, Decision, Identify pain, and Champion. 

Final Words

Top-notch lead qualification is an important step before appointment setting. Now you know the basic rules of how to succeed in this matter. But lead qualification can be tricky, especially if you have limited experience. In such a situation, it is best to seek help from trusted professionals. Belkin is a seasoned appointment setting company that has helped over 400 clients achieve strategic goals. Benefit your business with the quality delivered appointments.