Time Management and Appointment Setting

[musicmesa]

OK – here’s my quandary – I have had good luck with calling and getting appointments, but I am having a difficult time sticking to the idea: “9-10AM every day I make my calls” or 10-12 or whenever.
If I plan on calling 9-10 everyday – I get people wanting to see me at 930, or at 1030 and it’s an hour drive away so I have to leave at 930.
Also – using a 9-10 calling time kinda shoots down getting together for breakfast or morning coffee -
In short, I am having problems with time management – scheduling, and sticking to it as my die hard rule of how I will work on a daily basis. It's really frustrating and it really messes with my motivation and putting real structure to my business.

Did anyone else have this challenge once calling and setting appointments got easier for you? How did you remedy this? Who uses a set time they make their calls and are able to stick to it? You think it the solution is easy – it’s becoming obvious that time management is not my strong point. Any advice would be appreciated – thanks so much!

 

[Larry Tew]

The idea of a set time to call is fine, but not everyone is available at those times. If having a set time each day or week to call helps you make the calls, then keep doing it.

But... if you will make yourself make the calls during the empty times in your day, you free up the times for meetings as you mentioned. As long as the calls get made, it doesn't matter when you make them.

 

[DecisionMan]

Well some flexibility is needed for anyone in sales.

Its great to have a fixed time to make prospecting calls - that's fantastic. And I believe the earlier one gets in their allotted dialing time the better.

Question: What's better? Dialing for appointments - or - conducting the appointments?

There's nothing better than running appointments and making sales, so if I happen to book up a week and I really don't have time to dial then I just don't dial. I'll have more time to dial when I don't have appointments.

The reality though, is that few agents (in my opinion) are so busy they can't fit in an hour of dialing.

I use Salesdialers and live on it till I'm booked. I also print-out a separate list of prospects to call from my car or a library when I'm between appointments or too far away from the office to bother driving back and firing up the dialer.

Is it really that hard to squeeze in dials? We all waste a lot of time during the day even when we have decent bookings.

 

[musicmesa]

Thank you - Both you and Larry! - Yeah makes sense - after I posted I realized - you dial when you can - Dialing never trumps an appointment - Maybe I will try having dialing "days" rather than dialing hour ea day - One trick as I recall a lot of places use - is Monday is always appt day - so the agent has a good feeling going into the week - I think I will go back to that -booking on Mondays - try to leave Tues Open for dialing - thanks for the tip on that dialer - funny, on their sales vid - Coco Ins (Vicky) she uses the same Salon as my GF - and she is a spit-tin-image of a gal I saw in the Mass office Newport Beach - small world - thanks again for the feedback

 

[medsuptage]

In the end, only thing that matters is sales, so of course you're not going to cancel your appts too keep dialing.

One thing you can do, is make yourself dial every day no matter what, It doesn't have to be 9-10 or what ever your schedule is. If you have 2-3 appts that day, Dial from 5-6pm.

That's one way.

Or, I'm sure calling 1 hour a day or 1-2 hours a day, is what gets you the appointments you need to hit your production goals.

If you dial Monday, Tuesday is slammed, Make up for it on Wednesday. So dial twice as much, on Wednesday to make up for missing Tuesday.

That way your pipeline is always full.

I would be less worried about time management, as I would be Production goals.
Just make sure you're always doing the best thing you can be at the time, to hit your production goals. Run those appts, if there's no appts to run, get on the phone. That's all there is too it.

 

[Norwayguy]

If I was going to devote all day Monday for setting appointments I would Not leave time Tues to make more calls. Getting Tues booked in full would be my first goal with Wed next followed by Thursday. Once you miss out on running appointments in a day its gone and is not going to get it back.

 

[Jake07712]

I don't like to make appointments more than 1 day out. Once I'm in the territory, I call the leads that I haven't contacted. During a break, I call leads to set up tomorrow's appointments.

 

[Josh]

If I was going to devote all day Monday for setting appointments I would Not leave time Tues to make more calls. Getting Tues booked in full would be my first goal with Wed next followed by Thursday. Once you miss out on running appointments in a day its gone and is not going to get it back.

Call Monday for Tuesday and Wednesday, call Thursday for Friday and Saturday.

 

[jdeasy]

OK – here’s my quandary – I have had good luck with calling and getting appointments, but I am having a difficult time sticking to the idea: “9-10AM every day I make my calls” or 10-12 or whenever.
If I plan on calling 9-10 everyday – I get people wanting to see me at 930, or at 1030 and it’s an hour drive away so I have to leave at 930.
Also – using a 9-10 calling time kinda shoots down getting together for breakfast or morning coffee -
In short, I am having problems with time management – scheduling, and sticking to it as my die hard rule of how I will work on a daily basis. It's really frustrating and it really messes with my motivation and putting real structure to my business.

Did anyone else have this challenge once calling and setting appointments got easier for you? How did you remedy this? Who uses a set time they make their calls and are able to stick to it? You think it the solution is easy – it’s becoming obvious that time management is not my strong point. Any advice would be appreciated – thanks so much!

If you are going to be makiing calls to set appointments then you must have a time set aside to make calls and a time set aside to run the appointments you set.

It depends on the market but I don't set appointments more than one day out. Monday is my day to set Tues appointments. I don't have a time for dialing. Sometimes I start calling at 10:00am some times I don't make my first call until the afternoon.

Doesn't matter what time I'm calling the prospect, I still them what time I have available on the next day. I'm an hour drive to most of my appointments so I set them all in that area starting at 10 in the morning.

The hardest thing for me to learn in doing this was to say "no" to people. When they say, "I can't meet with you tomorrow but I can meet in 2 days ot this afternoon". Of course your first incination is to say OK, I'll see you then or I'll be right over. But you have to say, no, I'm not going to be there this afternoon or in two days, I'm going to be there tomorrow.

It amazed me in the beginning, and still some now, how people will change their schedule to meet with you. Now, some won't but just how much interest do they have if they won't make accodations to meet you?

You have to develop a BS meter and that comes over time. Sometimes they really can't meet with you that next day but they do want to meet. I tell those people that I will call them back the next time a day before I'm in the area and I do follow up with that. You will find that most of those will have another reason to not meet that time as well.

The reason you can't just go off the schedule is because it takes you other scheduling time away. What if I'm calling today for tomorrow and some one wants to meet with me today and I go do it? Yeah, I did meet with someone today but now I don't have any appointments for tomorrow because I have thrown away my calling time.

When you chose to do it is up to you. You just have to stick with your plan long enough to see if it's a viable plan. I know a guy that in the field 4 days a week selling FE. He calls every morning for appointments that afternoon. He tries to schedulke 3 to 4 appointments every afternoon starting at 1:00. He usually gets on the phone at 9:00 am and calls until he gets his day seto or until he has to leave for his first one.

Still, he has calling times and appointment times. He is quite successful.

I do know of agents that just call and will go whnever the person says they can meet. I don't know of a single successful agent that works in that manner.

 

[musicmesa]

Thank you JD - That is really good advice I will try that - The ones that bombed on me last week were set a week or so prior - seems when you make an appointment too far out - the only one who remembers is you - I am sure there has to be exceptions - I am meeting a CEO today of a large non-profit (Well I THINK I am - you can bet your ass I will call and confirm this time) But his calendar is usually full - I feel blessed he gave me the time - That is a good plan booking the day before - I will give it a try - Thanks!