Don’t Waste Your Time: How To Ensure Better Qualified Appointments From Your Marketing

Last Updated on: 5th August 2022, 09:32 am

Are you asking prospects to book themselves in for appointments to discuss buying your services?

If so, it’s super important that you do NOT let the prospect book themselves straight in WITHOUT asking them some qualifying questions first.

Here’s why….

Your time must be treated as super valuable by the prospect. If they believe they can book themselves straight in with very little effort, you are sending the message to your prospect that your time is not valued, and that you will quite simply get on the phone with anyone.

The more you value your time, the more questions you need to ask on your Appointment Scheduling forms.

So a basic form might have the obvious questions of

• Name
• Telephone Number
• Email address

These are NOT the type of questions I’m talking about here. I’m talking about questions that will QUALIFY your prospect and ensure they understand they are applying to work with you.

So for example- you might want to consider questions such as:

• How long have you been in business? (I always add to this, by using this as a way of putting off newbies from applying to work with me. So I word this question with the added statement, please remember I don’t work with new businesses – sorry). This question will ensure they meet my criteria, put off non-suitable applicants and give me a better understanding of their business.
• What are you charging currently? This question allows me to identify their likely level of business success right now so I can see where the gap is, as well as identify what program level they might be suitable for. Someone charging £15 per hour for example for yoga classes, is very different than a prospect who answers this with $3500 for an 8 week program.
• What are your biggest challenges in business/live/dating/motivation/career (whatever your area of expertise is). You’re trying to establish a need for your services with this question. Look for lengthy answers that show clear insight into their challenges.
• I might then be tempted to follow up with “How long has this been an issue for you?” This question will ensure they start reflecting on why they need help, if it’s only a recent issue we might question whether it is painful enough for them to want to solve it with your help right now
• What are your goals for the next 12 months? This question will allow you to check how motivated they are to get of their current situation – and also helps you further identify the gap between where they are and where they want to be. Ideally here you want to see goals which are high, but achievable with your assistance.

Depending on how good a job you’ve done with positioning yourself and ensuring the prospect knows you can solve their problem – at this stage I would also ask something like:

• Why do you need my help solving this problem? This question will get the prospect to qualify themselves to you, and ensure you know they have been exposed to your marketing messages and are aware you have an expertise in this area. If I get a non-committal answer at this stage – I cancel the appointment… because I choose not to have to sell myself to prospects over the phone. I’d much prefer to spend my limited time on the phone with prospects who KNOW I hold the answer. (If you’re not at this stage right yet – consider watching my free training How To Use Facebook To Create Leads Who Want To Buy On The First Call

Don’t hesitate to CANCEL Appointments Who Don’t Fill In The Form or Who Do Not Qualify

You will get prospects who choose not to fill in the form completely – maybe giving one word answers. My advice to you is do not hesitate to cancel those appointments. They are clearly not committed to the solution. Whenever I have ignored my own advice and got on the phone with someone who gave one word answers – I have regretted it.  If you’re not careful, and don’t qualify your leads correctly – you’ll end up with a whole diary full of poorly qualified appointments. Before you know it – you’ll have decided that you don’t like selling on the phone – when actually the real issue is that you do not LIKE getting on the phone with poorly qualified leads! (and let’s face it – who does?)

Remember – it’s about QUALITY not QUANTITY

Would you rather have 15 poorly qualified leads per week, generated via a Facebook Post that shows to people who barely know who you are – or would you rather have 4 or 5 leads per week, all of whom are engaged members of your community? Who have read your blogs, watched your webinars, and respect your time enough to fill out the form completely?

Far better to use your marketing to create leads who choose to fill in your application forms fully as they KNOW you have the solution to their problem….

As you’d expect 🙂 If you’d like to book in a consultation so I can help you plan this out in YOUR business and where I can assist – simply click here

(P.S. Ready to take the reins? If you’re ready to set up profitable campaigns and achieve rapid Google Ads success in 7 easy steps, get your copy of my best-selling Google Ads book!))