The first step to a successful appointment setting program is to set clear goals. Without well-defined objectives, gauging your campaign’s performance becomes a complicated task. These targets also set clear expectations among employees and motivate them to do their best.
What are Appointment Setting Goals?
Appointment setting is a strategy that aims to drive qualified leads into the pipeline. Before launching a campaign, it’s crucial to have clearly defined goals to increase your chances of success.
Appointment setting goals will be different for each business, but here are some of the most common ones:
- Improve sales pipeline quality: An efficient pipeline converts leads faster. Making this a goal for your program clarifies which aspect needs changes to get the intended results.
- Boost revenue: One of the most common reasons for building an appointment setting program is to generate a return on investment (ROI) and increase revenue. That’s why this target is on the agenda of nearly every business investing in this strategy.
- Increase sales funnel efficiency: An appointment setting program aims to build a bridge between the sales and marketing departments to minimize missed opportunities and increase productivity.
Benefits of Defining Appointment Setting Goals
Having clearly-defined appointment setting goals will benefit your business by:
- Setting your team in the right direction: Solid goals can serve as a blueprint for your team, as they’ll know how to carry out your appointment program. It also sets clear expectations, minimizing the risk of miscommunication.
- Encouraging organizational alignment: Having clear goals allows your appointment setting teams to make decisions that contribute to other departments’ success.
- Keeping your team motivated: Achieving goals will give your sales development representatives (SDRs) and managers a sense of accomplishment. This helps them stay motivated and reduces the likelihood of burnout.
How to Make Goals for Appointment Setting
Appointment setting goals vary depending on the company’s needs and circumstances. One of the best ways to make objectives that fit your business is by following the SMART framework, which stands for:
- S – Specific
- M – Measurable
- A – Attainable
- R – Relevant
- T – Time-based
Specific
Making your appointment setting specific requires you to be explicit with your expectations and provide a step-by-step plan on how these will be reached. According to a Harvard Business Review study, properly communicating these objectives inspires your employees to perform better.1
You can make your goal specific by making sure it answers the 5W1H questions:
- What: What do you want to achieve by building an appointment setting program?
- Why: Why is this important for the growth of your business?
- When: When will your appointment setting program start, and when do you want to see results?
- Where: Are you building an in-house appointment setting program or looking to outsource a third-party service provider?
- Who: Who will implement and be responsible for the appointment setting program? This could be an internal or outsourced team.
- How: How will the appointment setting program be implemented?
Answering these questions allows you to create a guide that describes the stages of your appointment setting program. As a result, you will be able to clearly see the prospecting, outreach, and meeting scheduling process you need to achieve your goals.
Measurable
It’s hard to determine whether you are making progress if your objective is not quantifiable. Knowing what appointment setting metrics to monitor avoids miscommunication and guarantees that your program is on track.
Most appointment setting metrics focus on the performance of SDRs. Here are important ones to keep in mind:
- Calls made: This metric informs the quality of leads SDRs generate for the pipeline by categorizing the engagement based on outcomes.
- Schedule appointments: Refers to the number of appointments SDRs were able to make for account executives within a specific time frame.
- Pipeline generated: Indicates the amount of money generated from successfully booked appointments by SDRs.
- Future appointments: You can anticipate your team’s performance with the help of this metric. If it’s on the lower side, SDRs will know they have areas to improve to achieve their quotas.
- Revenue generated: This number shows the value of the closed deals that directly result from appointment setting efforts.
- Meetings to Sales Accepted Opportunities (SAO) rate: Displays the percentage of SDR-generated leads deemed worthwhile by account executives.
Measurable targets do more than help you gauge progress; they also reveal which SDRs in your team are excelling and which could use extra help.
Attainable
Achievability is another vital aspect of a quality appointment setting goal. Your objective must be challenging but feasible with the organization’s current resources.
To ensure your goal is achievable, you can ask for feedback from your sales team. Their direct involvement with the program gives them valuable insight into whether your goals are feasible at the moment.
Relevant
Your appointment setting goals should contribute to the growth and development of your organization. To analyze if your objectives are relevant, you can analyze the following:
- Is it a practical business move that can generate ROI?
- Is it the right time for your company to pursue this strategy?
- Does it align with the organization’s vision, mission, and long-term objectives?
Time-based
Every appointment setting goal should have a starting date and a deadline to help your team focus and organize their day-to-day operations.
To make an accurate timetable for achieving your objectives, you need to have a firm grasp on how much time is required to:
- Onboard and train SDRs
- Prospect and qualify leads
- Cold call and successfully set appointments
Knowing how long these processes typically take allows you to allocate enough time to accomplish your goals.
Tips When Drafting Goals for Appointment Setting Programs
Here are additional tips that will make creating goals for your appointment setting program more manageable:
Don’t Be Afraid to Make Changes
Be flexible with your appointment setting targets. Nearly half of businesses adjust their annual objectives at least once.2
Here’s a video from world-renowned business mentor Brian Tracy explaining why being flexible with business goals is often necessary:
Break Down Goals into Smaller Milestones
Large-scale appointment setting goals can be daunting. Breaking them down into shorter-term and longer-term targets will help your team develop more manageable and actionable approaches to achieving the final objective.
Identify Potential Obstacles
Your goals will often come with potential setbacks and challenges. If you can anticipate these, your objectives will become easier to achieve.
Potential obstacles that can hinder you from reaching your appointment setting goals include:
- Lack of skilled and experienced SDRs
- Inefficient lead qualification process
- Unproductive outreach strategies
You can mitigate these challenges by finding reliable service providers with experience and proven success in working with your target market and industry.
Bottom Line
Goals for appointment setting act as a road map for how the program will be carried out. Your business objectives must be properly laid out to ensure that your strategy is implemented seamlessly and the results are accomplished within the intended time frame.
