Illusion #4 "I only want to meet Warm Prospects"

Although this question appears to address quality, once we dig deeper, this is essentially a valid concern of economic cost (actual $), opportunity cost (time), and psychological cost (pain). Many of our new clients begin a new lead generation campaign with the following goal: “I am very busy, don’t waste my time with cold or semi cold prospects, I only want to speak to prospects who are actively interested in learning about my services or products.”rnThis is a reasonable goal, we get it, we are all after the ultimate art of efficiency and increased productivity. This never ending chase for efficiency and productivity is evident in Fortune 100 Billion dollar multinational corporations all the way down to one person entrepreneurial start ups in your neighborhood. Our new clients are simply afraid of going down a path of meeting with prospects who will not buy their services or products. This fear is completely understandable and deserves a deeper discussion. Every individual experiences immediate guilt of spending money (economic cost) on something that is not yielding results or produces gratification. The opportunity cost is less immediate, but applicable nonetheless, our clients are always pressured for time, there are never enough hours in the day to accomplish everything they set out to accomplish each morning. If our clients are spending this valuable time pitching prospects they can’t close, their time is much better spend doing something more productive, more valuable. Finally, there is the psychological cost. No individual, no matter how experienced in sales, is capable of becoming immune to the pain of rejection. Recurring turn downs by prospects could lead to a client to just give up on a campaign altogether, a conclusion that is simply not acceptable to Idea2Result mindset and Idea2Result philosophy of operations.rnKeep in mind that Appointment setting is a numbers game after all. Let’s analyze the numbers behind a hypothetical Lead Generation Services and how these numbers ultimately play out:rnAverage Day: 150 calls, 20 qualified prospects, 2 cold appointments and 1 warm appointment.rnYour immediate first question for us is probably “What is the definition of a cold appointment?” Let us explain, our agents come across many extremely busy high level professionals who are by natural reflex not inclined to offer more than a few minutes of their time for some random inbound call from a stranger that was never solicited. While switching from being pleasant to direct on the phone, our agents could be successful in getting the prospects to agree for their time to meet, but our telemarketer may not have had a chance to address key qualifying questions. Perhaps the prospect was distracted or simply didn’t have the time or desire to answer these qualifying questions to a stranger. What is most important is that time has been scheduled while delivered content and qualification process remains uncertain. From our many years of direct experience of spearheading lead generation phone campaigns, we know that a high percentage of these appointments will be “blanks”, but not all, some will be beneficial, may open doors to other prospect referrals or opportunities, and some will actually be successful and result in closing a sale to a prospect.rnBy removing all “cold and questionable” appointments, quality will certainly go up, but as illustrated above, some potentially lucrative opportunities of a sale or referral will be lost forever.rnThere is no right or wrong answer on whether you want to pursue cold or semi cold prospects, it’s not black and white, it is actually very subjective as our discussion hopefully showed. We recommend considering the following while making your decision to “turn up or turn down appointment setting faucet”:rnPositives for Quantity: - Some “cold or semi cold appointments” will convert to sales or referralsrn- Appointment setter is quickly tested, since the volume is there to review performancern- Appointment setter’s job is a bit less stressful, volume elevates anxiety to get results and makes the job more rewarding / meaningfulrn- Campaign tweaking is easier when there is volume to work withrn- Per appointment cost goes downrnPositives for Quality: - Opportunity Cost (Time spent chasing unqualified leads) - Economic Cost (Money spent on unqualified leads) - Psychological Cost (Feeling the pain of rejection from unqualified leads)rnConsider this question carefully. We recommend starting with “appointment setting faucet” opened full blast and then working backwards to refine and qualify as you learn all the crucial intricacies about your Lead Generation Campaign.