How Do You Produce B2B Sales Appointments With Fewer Resources?

The Problem: Before the pandemic, you may have had an entire team of salespeople who were responsible for prospecting, cold calling, emailing, and scheduling appointments with prospects. Now, you may not have as large of a staff. You may only have one sales resource responsible for everything. Not only can you not do as much, but if your sales reps are doing everything, you actually had a problem long before you downsized. Your sales reps shouldn’t be doing everything. You should have some people who spend 100% of their time prospecting and some people who are solely responsible for producing meetings. Now, with the pandemic, you may have two problems: (1) a smaller staff and (2) your small staff is responsible for too much.

The Solution: The most successful sales programs include at least one dedicated person who spends 100% of their time prospecting and at least one dedicated person who spends their time with B2B appointment setting (producing meetings for a closing sales rep).One solution to keep the sales appointments coming in: allocate budget toward B2B lead generation services. Now, all your company has to do is take virtual meetings with qualified leads who have already expressed interest in your product or service. All you have to focus on is serving current customers and closing deals with warm leads.

The reality of this situation is that many businesses just lost their provider and need help. Don’t be ashamed to reach out to prospects and don’t be ashamed if you lose clients. It goes back to the old saying, “you’ll never know unless you try.” New prospects have no other way of knowing you can help unless you reach out and start having conversations. You’re very likely to pick up some market share if you reach out and offer your help, so don’t stop selling.

Business development representatives are tasked with the responsibility of researching, prospecting, and qualifying leads before passing them off to the sales team to further develop and close. Without a sales development team, sales reps would have to spend more of their time on prospecting and lead qualification instead of solely focusing on closing deals. Essentially, business development representatives use cutting-edge prospecting tools to find the best leads for sales reps to pursue. This helps sales reps set more appointments.

There is no better time than now to outsource your sales efforts. An outbound lead generation program gives you access to an entire team and industry-leading tools for less than the cost of one full-time employee. Plus, if you’ve downsized, you don’t want to overwhelm your sales reps with the task of prospecting and setting appointments. A lead generation partner can do both for you, help you produce more, all at less than the cost of hiring your own staff.

The Problem: If you had to downsize and you’re now working with a smaller sales staff, the problem is pretty obvious—you can’t produce as much now.

The Solution: If you have a small sales staff, your solution to keep the appointment volume high is to outsource your B2B appointment setting efforts. Your sales reps and management team should be responsible for closing deals and speaking with warms leads who have already expressed interest in what you do. 

But, how do you consistently get appointments with qualified leads? That’s why it’s important to have a focused B2B appointment setting partner. Outsourced inside sales representatives are the people responsible for starting conversations with prospects. They initiate the first communication either via email or phone and continue to nurture and qualify prospects until they express interest in a product or service that you offer. Then, the lead gets passed off to you.

Even before COVID-19 wreaked havoc on businesses across the world, outsourcing was always the better option because it allows you to do more with less. Downsizing might be inevitable at this time, and it’s a tough pill for any company to swallow, but it doesn’t mean you have to reduce your activity. A trusted B2B lead generation partner can help.

We also can’t forget about inbound lead generation, which brings leads to your business rather than you reaching out to them. Using marketing efforts, you can attract potential customers to your business who are already interested in what you do.

The Problem: Pre-pandemic, you may have had an internal marketing team (or maybe you never did). Regardless, having an entire marketing team on staff is a huge investment, and it’s almost impossible for one person to do everything. So, whether you never had a marketing team or you’ve downsized, it’s probably time to start looking at different options so your inbound lead generation efforts don’t stop.

The Solution: A digital marketing team can help you drive leads with a variety of services, including:

• Website Development
• SEO Services
• Content Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Video Production
• Marketing Collateral

Between people and tools, handling digital marketing efforts in-house would be a huge investment. But, a dedicated lead generation partner has an entire team of experts who are responsible for growing your business.