When Should You Outsource Appointment Setting?

To bring sales opportunities to fruition, you’ve got to set appointments with qualified leads. But at what point does keeping appointment setting in-house no longer make sense? The following factors can have a serious impact on your ability to consistently set appointments without third party assistance:

• Hiring and onboarding: Building an inside sales team takes time. It can take several weeks or months to select the best candidates and an additional month or so to onboard and train them. In the meantime, potential sales could be slipping through the cracks.
• Opportunity cost: If your salespeople currently handle appointment setting themselves, that’s time they could dedicate to bigger, more imminent opportunities.
• Management: Managing an internal team can be a costly venture, often times more so than outsourcing to a dedicated provider. When you handle appointment setting yourself, you have to account for ongoing training and supervision, both of which will incur additional costs.

For many organizations, it is simply too costly and time-consuming to handle appointment setting internally. One solution is to hire an external firm to set appointments for you. This is classic outsourcing, and you should choose a firm that understands your brand, your offering, and your objectives.

Another solution is sales insourcing, which involves hiring a firm experienced in the management of hiring and managing inside sales/business development teams. While a relatively new model in the marketplace, your insourcing partner selects and manages your team, but the agents work for you.

To discuss an outsourced or insourced appointment setting campaign, contact Intelemark today!