Expecting an appointment for every call made is unrealistic. Here’s where drawing a line between appointment setting and cold calling becomes crucial.
Appointment setting in the 90s was all about the traditional cold calling method. The decision-makers either picked up your call or they didn’t. And to avoid the risk of losing the buyer account, you found another channel to get in.
Over the years, this process has not remained stagnant; it has actually improved. From merely conducting cold calls, it came to comprise follow-up strategies, recon tactics, plan Bs, among other things.
It’s because with more access to information, prospects hold a tiny bit of the upper hand. They can seek out qualified providers and vendors online, so why should they even go to the extent of setting appointments with your brand? It’s not worth the risk, and prospects have it all calculated.
These changes have also instilled new doubts and confusion surrounding appointment setting and cold calling- Do you abandon the cold calling altogether? But then, what’s left of appointment setting?
These are the questions this piece will set, as it comprehensively decodes the difference between cold calling and appointment setting. And then we jump into the nitty-gritty of cold calling as a vital tool for appointment setting.
The (very) fundamental differences between appointment setting and cold calling
1. Initial contact
Appointment setting used to be just cold calling, and keeping your pitch forward in case the decision-maker receives your call. Or you get through the gatekeeper.
But in recent decades, it’s become more proactive.
In appointment setting, you engage potential buyers who are qualified and deemed the right fit for your brand offerings. There are much tighter screening processes and qualification frameworks. Each account that appointment setters reach out to entails a degree of intent.
The initial brand interaction of the prospect has already taken place. And now you’re initiating contact based on the level of interest they illustrated- did they browse your webpage for a couple of seconds, or download your whitepaper and even sign up for your newsletter?
Cold calling is, as they state, cold, i.e., devoid of any connection. The prospects you’re reaching out to aren’t even aware of your brand or offerings, let alone interested in it.
The first three seconds are where you make the most impression, whether they’re interested or not. Because the prospect doesn’t know your brand, you must underscore in those first few seconds whether you’re worth listening to or not. And the other thing is, you don’t even know if they’re in-market or even your buyer.
But the point isn’t that- it’s to communicate value under any circumstance. If the POC (point of contact) doesn’t vocalize their lack of need, it’s even better. Maybe they can point you towards someone who might be, and that’s what your cold call should aim towards.
So, cold calling functions crucially as a tool to create interest or awareness.
Those few seconds are the foundation of your brand, and it is all that holds precedence. This starting point will always remain the foundational interaction that’ll come to pass if the prospect actually sets a meeting and closes the deal. Or drops off even before meeting with your AEs.
Bottom line? Cold calling = selling a meeting.
From here on, the difference in how accounts are approached in appointment setting and in cold calling shall foreground every other difference between the two.
2. Lead quality v/s quality
We highlighted that cold calling is all about volume. There’s no targeted approach leveraged here, at least in the traditional methodology. It’s about making discovery calls to your TAM and hoping the one on the other side of the dialer will have the interest to hear you out.
So, cold calling seeks out more volume of potential leads. These accounts don’t undergo any pre-qualification or screening process, which is why a majority of them could easily turn out to be a waste of time. Or on the other hand, you could miss an opportunity, just because your call didn’t reach the accurate POC.
Meanwhile, appointment setting is targeted and precise. Here, you’re interacting with an interested account to set meeting with your AEs or CMO.
The account you’re sending further should be the right fit, ICP, and intent-wise. This demands an intuitive qualification framework- one that recognizes warm and hot leads, but also offers space to nurture cold ones. It ensures your accounts are vetted and highly researched.
You don’t want to waste your AEs’ and the prospect’s time and resources to set a meeting that’ll go nowhere.
Hence, appointment setting is all about lead quality. By screening the target accounts for intent and the correct context, you’re only setting appointments with high-quality ones to elevate the chances of conversion.
3. Communications approach
Cold calling is a much more linear strategy compared to appointment setting. There’s a general script that you can personalize based on the account you’re attempting to access. Nowadays, SDRs have access to the latest tools such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which allows them finer details of the contact person. They outline your ICP and reach out to accounts based on that.
This makes the cold calling approach more directed, rather than it being a shot in the dark. Previously, the callers held no information regarding the prospect. The strategy was a dart game in the dark. It was literally all about skills and experience.
But these elements of cold calling have been abolished. It’s now a more informed first interaction with the prospect.
Appointment setting falls along the same lines. It’s not linear but a tad more diverse and diverging. Your qualification frameworks paint a very comprehensive picture of your target accounts. Your SDRs and appointment setters are more aware of who they’re talking to, their needs, pain points, and what exactly they want.
This has facilitated a more value-focused and purpose-led appointment-setting strategy.
4. Impact on sales cycle
As cold calling deals with more unqualified and ill-fitting accounts, sales conversion could take a relatively long time. First, it takes time to qualify accounts and gauge interest manually.
And second, the sales cycle naturally lengthens as your SDRs and BDRs spend more time building a proper relationship with the prospects, researching their needs, and then personalizing the communications accordingly. Basically because there have been no previous brand-related interactions, your sales team will spend the sales cycle length developing a positive rapport.
Whereas appointment setting ascertains that your AEs are conversing with well-vetted and quality prospects. This results in much smoother communication and a better flow in dialogue. Your team already knows where the challenges lie and what the gaps are, so this builds a bridge beforehand.
The sales cycle ends up being typically shorter. Your appointment setters aren’t just handing off qualified leads to the AEs. But also, the research they’ve carried out, and the background of the account.
Appointment setting ascertains this- A relationship has been initiated, now it’s in the hands of your AEs to build on that relationship.
5. Resource allocation
With the amount of strategy and branching out that appointment setting requires, more resources are allocated. And it takes more time to get to setting meetings.
If you look at the whole picture, scheduling appointments begins with research and curating a qualifying framework. This necessitates more time upfront and more time for each strategy development and execution.
But these are easily overlooked. Shorter sales cycle and elevated conversion rates make appointment setting worth the effort. And in the long run, it’s cost-effective.
Meanwhile, it’s different for cold calling.
Cold calling doesn’t need a lot of time upfront. If one call doesn’t reach a specific prospect, most cold callers move on to the next contact and reroute later. This technically saves time, but in the long run, this approach could prove resource-intensive if there aren’t slightest returns at all.
It begs the question-
Is cold calling dead, as the majority of the market says?
Cold calling isn’t limited to ‘calling’ anymore. It’s about meaningful interactions and strategic follow-ups.
But if you think of sales, it’s a craft that doesn’t really follow a very strict rulebook. You learn, try, fail, try again, test, and learn all over again. It’s the experience that offers the advantageous edge when the selling environment shifts or when the top players announce ‘new’ rules of their own, or when new technologies appear.
It’s in the inherent skills and experience. And having the skill set to change and adapt where it matters.
A crucial portion of the sales population announced that cold calling is dead. Just because it didn’t work for them. Isn’t that the reality? It’s because they’re assuming that the buyers are the same as before, and the process doesn’t represent a spider’s web.
What changed?
First and foremost, prospects are now better informed. They can easily segregate the qualified providers and consultants who are worth their time, and actively reach out to them.
And second, your prospects don’t trust you. Overstated claims, half-truths, and lackluster promises have already wasted their time before. With this market knowledge, the risk/reward scales are tipped against you.
So, the question is- will just cold calling hit the appointment setting goals as you want it to?
Appointment setting might start with cold calling. But it doesn’t end there.
Instead, cold calling is just one integral part of it. And there’s more to cold calling than just scheduling appointments with potential buyers.
This is the primary difference between appointment setting and cold calling.
Cold calling is a marketing and sales tool- a mere step in a very long creative process. And just like any marketing tool, it isn’t good or bad (or dead). The tool could work wonders in some places and prove a disaster in others. That’s how all tools and software work, so why has the market declared cold calling dead?
Cold calling is a crucial component of appointment setting. It’s not “the” process itself. This is what sales and marketing professionals must realize-
If your sales prospecting isn’t working as it should, that doesn’t mean you declare it dead and jump onto riding the coattails of a new trend or tech. The answer for improving your sales performance is generally a well-coordinated combination of tools and ideas.
It’s all a performance- “Sales is a whole different ballgame today. And with new tech, strategies, and techniques flooding the market, the age-old concept of cold calling should be declared dead.” With this, decades of sales fundamentals are out of the window.
It’s become in vogue to declare new rules- cold calling is discarded, and appointment setting is all about using tech correctly.
But there’s an underlying facet to these that ties them together.
From cold calling to appointment setting, it boils down to communicating value.
You can’t isolate one approach from the other, and that’s the bottom line. The desired outcome of cold calling is appointments, whereas a larger number of qualified appointments demands strategic cold calling.
They’re two peas in a pod. And the pod is valuable for communication. It’s about undertaking a communications strategy that doesn’t position your brand as ‘the other one.’ But it is the only and top choice in this saturated market.
With traditional cold calling, there were a few seconds to make an impression and communicate value. And in the crowded market, this has worsened- there are even fewer seconds. Do you think a company’s stakeholders have the time for ordinary and vague?
This is where a combination of cold calling and appointment bears fruit, which goes beyond just blocking dates on a calendar. The objective becomes building relationships and nurturing them in a way that benefits you and the prospects.
