You have exactly the number of sales calls on your calendar that you want. If you wanted to book more sales calls, you'd have done already done something about it.
You’re an entrepreneur.
That means radical self-accountability, extreme ownership, all that good stuff.
Now I’ve given you your wake-up call, let’s get to work.
If you want more sales calls, follow these 7 tips (plus the bonus tip at the end.)
Hell, even if you did one of two of the things I’m telling you, your calendar would be full.
But first…
WHY do you want to book more sales calls?
If you book more sales calls, you’ll be spending more time on the phones.
Will that negatively affect your ability to run the business?
Will you have to hire sales reps to handle the additional volume?
If you close more clients, do you have the capacity to fulfill without breaking your systems?
Can your team handle the additional workload?
By spending more on marketing, booking more calls, and getting more deals, does your business become more profitable?
Does your life become better? Or have you added more complexity for less upside?
You must understand that there is an opportunity cost to everything you do.
Book more sales calls and this might happen
1. Sell something people want to buy
I get it. You love the product or service you sell. It’s the best thing ever.
But does your market love it? Is it what they want?
Often, entrepreneurs are too close to their product to see the obvious:
You’re selling something people don’t want to buy.
And if that’s the case, it doesn’t matter how many times you post on social media, or how many cold emails you send, or how much you spend on ads…
Your calendar will stay empty.
This is the hardest part about being in the startup phase of a business. ‘Cause it’s a bit of a chicken and egg scenario.
You have to talk to the market to find out what they’ll buy.
But you aren’t having enough conversations with the market in the first place.
Still, there are a few proven models you can use to create and offer that converts.
Like the offer matrix and proven offer formulas.
The former is strategic and the latter is tactical.
And sometimes, it’s just that you don’t know what you don’t know.
I mean, you wouldn’t know that “I help X do Y” isn’t an offer until someone tells you.
You wouldn’t know that “In [time frame] I will [quantifiable result] without [common objection] or [risk reversal]” is an offer until someone tells you.
If your calendar is empty, fixing your offer may be where you must start.
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2. Run the numbers
Do you know how many opt-ins you need to book one call?
Do you know how many cold emails you have to send to book one call?
Do you know how many DM conversations you must go through to book one call?
If you don’t know the above, you’re flying blind.
When you do know your numbers, a magical thing happens.
You realize you’re just not getting in front of enough people.
And whatever your lead generation channel is, you need to do more of it.
Send 100 cold emails over the next 3 days and see if you don’t book at least 5 calls from that.
Engage in 3 Facebook groups every day this week and see if you don’t book at least 5 calls from that (and I mean really engage; don’t just “post value.”)
DM and have messenger conversations with 100 of your followers over the next 5 days and see if you don’t book at least 5 calls from that.
It’s not magic, it’s math.
3. Become laser focused
If you sell one thing… to one market… using one system… for one year… you’ll hit one million (God Willing.)
Don’t underestimate the value of obsessive focus.
It’s not limiting, it’s freeing.
This has been confirmed by the experience of every successful entrepreneur ever.
Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by trying to sell a bunch of things to different markets using different methods.
You can’t hone-in on an offer or messaging that converts.
And you become a victim of the 80/20 rule rather than using it to your advantage.
That is a recipe for mediocrity at best and failure at worst.
4. Pick one marketing channel
This is part of the previous section but it’s worth repeating because there are some nuances. There are a bunch of different marketing channels you could use:
- Facebook ads
- Facebook groups
- Cold outreach
- SEO
- Social selling
- Podcasting
- YouTube
And many others.
But for your offer and your market, there may only be 1 or 2 viable channels.
Cold outreach can be the best marketing channel to start with… but not if you have an offer that doesn’t work on cold outreach.
Social selling on Instagram can be very profitable… but not if your audience isn’t on Instagram.
And in keeping with the theme of focus, we’re going to stick with one channel.
So it’s essential you pick the right one.
By the way, selling the right offer to the right market on the right channel is something I call “The Ism.”
5. Make it easy for people to book a call
This one’s so obvious I kinda feel weird saying it:
Do you ask people to book a call with you on your social media profiles, your website, in your email footer?
When you post on social media, are you inviting people who’re interested in what you do to book a call?
And how easy is it for people to book a call with you? One/two steps or five?
Make it easy for people to book calls with you and watch your calendar fill up.
Might want to read this article on how to optimize your online presence for social selling.
6. Run these ads forever
When you’re starting out you can pretty much get by on organic inbound inquiries. Ads can wait. Except for this kind:
The majority of people who’re exposed to you aren’t going to book a call right away.
They need time to get to know you. Or it’s not the right time now, but will be later.
A perfect example of this is when people see you on social media or wherever and you get their attention.
They think, hmm, this looks interesting, and after clicking around your profile the next thing they do is Google you.
And if you have a “brand search” campaign running on Google ads:
- You’re guaranteed to show up at the top of the search results
- You can control their experience and guide them to pages on your website you want them to read first
So, launch your retargeting ads on day one and never turn them off. They’re cheap and they’ll book a lot of calls for you.
7. Talk to everyone (for a while)
Okay, last tip. If you don’t have enough calls the last thing you need to be is picky.
Get on the phone with anyone who even looks in your general direction.
Consider deleting the “application” process from your call-booking funnel or revise the questions to soft-qualify rather than hard-qualify.
We teach application filtration at Coaching Sales, but when your calendar is empty you don’t need it.
And besides, talking to everyone in your market will help you figure out your offer that converts (tip one) a lot faster, as well as who your ideal customer is, and the best marketing channel to reach them.
Bonus tip: grow an email list (and email them every week)
When I talk to our clients I’m shocked at how many of them don’t maintain an email list and don’t use email marketing.
Email has been and still is our most profitable marketing channel.
We make about $60-$70 per email subscribers per month.
If you know anything about email marketing and “earnings per subscriber” that’s GIGANTIC.
If you haven’t already, start collecting email addresses ASAP and emailing them at least once a week.
And next time your calendar’s looking a little dry, one email to your list will be enough to fill it.
Conclusion and next steps
Your first goal is to get to 10 qualified booked calls per week.
If you only do 5-10 calls per month, this might seem like a stretch.
But you’d be surprised how easy it is to fill your calendar if you:
- Fix your offer and sell something people want to buy
- Understand how many leads or “conversations” you need to have to book one call
- Become laser focused and sell one thing to one market using one channel
- Pick the right marketing channel for your offer and market
- Optimize your online presence for social selling so it’s easy for people t book calls with you
- Launch omnipresent retargeting ads (particularly on Google and Facebook) so people see you everywhere all the time
- Eliminate application filtration and get on the phone with everyone
- Collect emails addresses and email your list weekly
Do you have any tips to help our readers book more sales calls? Leave them in the comments below.
If we love your tip, we’ll send you a gift 😉
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