Outline Your Day

Grayson Marketing is a bustling call center in a modern glass front building. Most every desk has a terrific relaxing view of the man made lake and serene walking paths surrounding the plaza. In the breakroom, coffee and snacks are available at no charge to the employees and there are multiple quiet areas where people can make private phone calls or have personal conversations. All the necessary sales tools and/or training are made available at anytime to anyone who needs them and management has a strict open door policy where help is available most any time.

This company has gone to great lengths to create an sales rich environment where most anyone can be successful so why do some appointment setters fail and others thrive? To try and find one of the answer let's look at two of Grayson's best appointment setters.

Darlene is a fairly organized person she uses the company tools and stick close to the metrics set by her manager. She does well and typically makes her minimum goal each month. Management is pleased with her production but frequently she misses important bits of information and has set meetings for the sales team when the office is closed or its after hours due to her being confused when it comes to time zones. There have been times when Darlene has closed the appointment but leaves gaps of dead air while she takes time to think or look for something she needs and ends up losing the DM in the end and someone else has to step in and mop up.

Kim is also organized and uses the company tools when needed. She makes her minimum goal each month but Kim is also able to surpass her minimum most months and it's rare that she makes mistakes. When she does, most of the time she is able to notice and make adjustments before sending anything out to Quality Assurance. Her leads are typed in clear language and most of the time, the sales team is pleased with her work.

So what makes Kim more productive and able to put out higher quality appointments? For one thing, Kim takes time each morning to outline her day. A daily outline is an essential tool for being well prepared and part of my top 5 things you can do today to increase production. Kim's knows how many appointments she needs to get today to be on production track, what time zone she is currently working in and who's turn it is in the sales rotation so there is no fumbling to find the right time and date. Kim always know ahead of time how she will approach the gatekeeper and what she will say to the DM.

You can include just about anything in your daily outline like how you'd like to approach the gatekeeper, what you'll say to make your pitch irresistible to the DM, remembering to rebut and meetings or trainings you need to attend or even remembering to double check email addresses or name spellings.

If you have the freedom, add breaks to your outline and generate a contest with yourself to see how many leads you can get before lunch or how many dials you can get. What ever the cause, use your outline to be the best prepared marketer on your team.

Being well prepared is one of the easiest yet one of the most important items you can add to your sales tool bag. Being prepared can make a mediocre sales person great and a great sales person even better. If you want to be the best, take this advice and outline your day every single morning. Let me know how it works for you or if you have questions or comments, email me to: [email protected].