Good Marketing, Good Business

007: Using Calendly To Book More Sales Calls - Part 1

• Shannon Stone • Episode 7

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Whether you use Calendly or another booking system, using this piece of automation creates a prime opportunity to increase your leads, sales and ultimately the number of clients and people you help. 

By listening [and taking notes], you’ll learn:

  • How you can embrace your ‘hot prospects’ in the moment it matters
  • How you can ensure only the highest quality leads get on a call with you
  • How to turn your ad hoc conversations into sales conversations so you stop pushing good clients away

We’re going deep in this episode and you’ll be blown away by the ways in which you can book more sales calls in.

Enjoy!

Resources:


If you’d like to work together with me as your 1:1 business and marketing consultant, book a call here.

Shannon Stone:

Hey guys, welcome to the podcast.

Shannon Stone:

Today, we are talking about using Calendly to book more sales calls. When I say you're going to need pen and paper for this one, I 110%, absolutely mean it, and what comes to mind is one of my clients who is always saying Shannon, no stone unturned. And this is going to be something where we go incredibly deep with using Calendly to get more sales calls. We are not surface level on this podcast, but definitely not in this episode, and because of that, we are turning this into three episodes. Unless you want to sit here for a few hours, I decided to make the executive decision that I will keep these a little bit more bite-sized and we will turn it into a mini series. So we're going to cover how to use Calendly to book more sales calls and, instead of just giving you a few high-level tips and things, I just had to stick with the way I love to do things and that is going deep. So have that pen and paper and let's get into it.

Shannon Stone:

So, using Calendly to book more sales calls. So, whether you're using Calendly or any other type of online booking system, it really doesn't matter. I find they're all pretty much the same. Really, some might have a few bits and pieces that are slightly different, but they all do the same job, right? So for today's conversation, it doesn't matter what tool you decide to use or are using. I do know that Google has recently released their version of Calendly, so you might want to check that out as well, especially if you are a fan of the Google suite. So whatever you're using is perfectly okay.

Shannon Stone:

Now I'm going to make one assumption in today's episode, and that is you are already doing sales calls in your business, so I'm not introducing you to this idea of sales calls. I'm imagining that you do sales calls in your business. They're already something that you do so. How can we use Calendly as a tool to get even more sales calls booked in? Even if you're already using it? I'm sure there's going to be some things that we cover today that you may not have thought about, so use today as a bit of a checklist. That's where the transcript can be really helpful as well.

Shannon Stone:

Okay, so our focus here is about getting more sales calls booked in. If this is your goal and this is part of helping you to grow your business, I always say to people to make a commitment and a declaration to getting sales calls booked in. If there is one key measure that's going to help you to grow your business, it's the number of sales calls that you get booked in. There's nothing that is going to interrupt that from growing your business. So if you can make a true commitment and a declaration that you are getting sales calls booked in, and you might even do what myself and a lot of my clients do will say what mode we're in or what season we're in. Some people say they're in growth mode, they're in sales mode, they're in client acquisition mode. That was a real technical one from one of my clients. It just creates this bubble of commitment, that this is what I'm doing, this is what my life or my business is about at the moment, and it creates this tunnel of focus I find, and, by default, everything that is not that falls to the wayside. If I know anything, the more tunnel vision we can be in things like this so we can be really dedicated and focus, the upside is going to be much, much greater. So, instead of like dipping your toes into saying, yeah, I want to get a few more sales calls, I am someone who rather just go full force towards it and make that declaration and make that commitment towards it. We have to set the scene there for us today.

Shannon Stone:

Now, one last thing I will say, before we jump into all the bits and pieces of how Calendly can help us, is that when I say we have to make a commitment to getting sales calls booked in, sometimes people's mind will go to funny places of procrastination. But there's this thing that I call fancy procrastination, where we're getting ready to get ready, and so if the focus needs to be getting sales calls booked in, some people will say, ok, well, I need to practice my sales calls more, or I need to improve my product, my service, before I do those sales calls, or I need to fix my website where they're going to book in for those sales calls, or I need to fix my proposals before I get more of these sales calls in. All these bits and pieces are just a way of procrastinating, and I do know that business is something where we're always going to improve all these things. They're never, ever going to be a one and done and you'll never look at them again. And so if the focus is that you need to get more sales calls booked in, but then you go start fixing your website or fixing your proposals or improving your service, all of them are amazing, but they're not the focus right now and they're just ways of procrastinating in a really fancy way. And it's really sly because it seems like you're doing the right thing. It's like you're doing these things so you can get more sales, but it's adding way too many steps in front of what you need to be focusing on, and that is just the idea of getting more sales calls booked in and nothing else. So I had to share that with you, because this is what happens to a lot of people. It's like, yes, this is exactly what I need to do and then they go fancy procrastinate, but it's like disguised in a way of where it seems like they're working on the right things but they're actually not. That's our lay of the land. We're making a commitment to sales and we're not doing any kind of fancy procrastination. And if you want to, you can declare what season you're in as well.

Shannon Stone:

Okay, so first things first. Let's get to the foundations of using Calendly to book more sales calls in. So the first thing you have to really recognize is what is this call that people are booking in for? And I find that there's two type of calls that lead to sales calls or sales at the end of the day. So I'm going to call them sales calls, but you might call them discovery calls or strategy calls or clarity calls Whatever you may call it. The name is perfectly fine, but I'm just going to call it for what it is today, which is a sales call. It's about how to turn someone into a sale. You have to know what that call is about.

Shannon Stone:

So there are two ways you can go about it. One is where it is a pure sales call, and this is where often people will call it something like a discovery call, a strategy call or a clarity call where People who are coming to that call are coming for the sole reason of I want to know if you can solve my problem. And so the both of you are there because you know that person has a problem. They know you can solve it, but we want to see if you're the right fit for them. If you tick each other's boxes and all those kind of things, that's one type of call that we have which is a real direct sales type conversation.

Shannon Stone:

The other type of call that you may have is a lead magnet call. So for example, say you are a website designer and you could have a discovery call or a strategy call or a clarity call any of those type of things. But maybe your call could be a lead magnet call where you do an audit of their website on that call with them. So in your marketing you can say book in for this 30 minute audit call, I'll audit your website and if it's a fit, I can see how I can help you. Or you may not even have the pitch in there about seeing how you can help them, but the call is just focused on the audit.

Shannon Stone:

This is coming a little bit back in the customer journey, so it's not going straight for the sale. You're doing an audit, so you're providing a lead magnet, you're providing something ahead of the sale. So wherever you end up putting your call is completely up to you. This all depends on your sales process. Someone else might do mortgage brokers, for example, might do a borrowing capacity check. How much can you borrow from the bank so you can get your, your home loan, your mortgage? So they're not pitching sales calls or discovery calls. They are pitching a borrowing capacity check and so that's the call that people are booking into using Calendly. So it's almost like this is a lead magnet rather than a direct sales call, and both of them work. Both of them are great. You just have to work out which is the one that you need, and we'll touch a little bit more on this later on as we talk about campaigns and strategies.

Shannon Stone:

But you have to know first things first, what is that call and be really clear about it, because we don't want to do any kind of bait in switches. We don't want to say, okay, well, I'm going to do this type of lead magnet call with you and then you are trying to sneakily turn it into a sales call. That can feel really funny and really icky. So say it for what it is. What is it that it actually needs to be? And then, if you do need something to warm people up some more, maybe you do need to have a lead magnet call first.

Shannon Stone:

So the next thing to do is to input your availability. So imagine you've got your Calendly or your booking system and you're putting in when people can actually book in with you. Now this is completely up to you and what this looks like on your end. You might be someone who batches your days. You might have certain client days or certain marketing days or whatever it may be, but make that schedule work for you. If you are someone who works with clients all around the world, then you might need to factor in a few different time zones that are relevant to the people that you work with or that you want to work with. So input your availability in a way that it suits you, but it also suits the people that you want to work with as well.

Shannon Stone:

Now also with your availability and this is something where I find people are not quite sure what they should do when they've got lots of times available in their calendar. It's like what is the perception? Well, people think that I'm not busy and I don't have any clients to work with, or whatever it may be. Now, this would depend on your business. If you have a sales team, then it might make sense to have a lot of spots available, but if you're quite a boutique business, it's just you or it's a couple of team members. Having too many spots available can bring up that perception of well, are they actually busy? Are they actually working with people? And it's almost like, you know, should it really be that way? Should people's mind really go there? But it does. You can decide how many spots available for people to book in, as it's relevant to you, but I do know a lot of that perception does come up of oh my God, there's like 30 spaces for people to book in. Are they actually that busy? So you can decide what that looks like for you.

Shannon Stone:

Now, with inputting your availability, I do recommend that you put buffers between your sales calls or your any calls that you do. When you input your availability, it would be linked to your Google Calendar, whatever calendar that you're using. So if you've got client calls already in the calendar, that is not going to show up when people hop into Calendly to book in with you. But what you can do is add buffers between calls, whether it's like 15 minutes after each call or 15 minutes before each call, whatever you may need in case calls go over, because one of the things that will stop people from converting sales is the feeling of being rushed. So if you are like, oh my God, I've got another call to get to or I've got these calls all back to back, if you are rushing it and that person feels it or they're feeling rushed because you guys only scheduled a 15 minute call but you knew it had to be a 45 minute conversation, whatever it was, put the buffers of time in so you're not having to jump from call to call and not closing anyone or not converting anyone.

Shannon Stone:

The last thing I'll mention when it comes to inputting your availability and this would depend on you you can put in time frames to stop people from booking within a certain time period. So you could put I don't want anyone booking in less than twelve hours in advance or twenty four hours in advance, because and this comes back to how you work, how you operate, how you run your business maybe you'd like to know what calls you have on tomorrow, so you can prepare for them today and so you won't let anyone book in for the next day for twenty four hours in advance. And so calendar, whatever system you're using, will set all of that up the way that you tell it to set it all up. So use all the features there and I'm pretty sure all the all the softwares have all of those the buffers of time, the time frame if you want them to book how far out in advance, all of those different bits and pieces. Alright, the next thing when it comes to the foundations of calendar is Optimizing the description with results.

Shannon Stone:

So when people come to your booking page, there is an option for you to add in a description so you might say, hi, I'm really excited to have our call. Or here's how to book the call. Or here's what happens after you book the call. There's a little box there where you can add in some details. Now, with my sales hat on and Recognizing who are the people that are coming to this page, these are hot buyers. These are people who are really willing to have a conversation with you to see if you can help them. So they're pretty keen to buy and they're pretty keen to buy really, really soon.

Shannon Stone:

So I think In my head I go through the steps of what is the information those people need to see from me or see from you at that time To, one, make sure they do book a call and two, to prime them and warm them up to wanting to work with me as much as possible. And one of the best things you can do here is to add in some results into that description box, the results that those leads or your prospects really need to see from you. So, in the context of whatever it is that you do, you want to add in the results of the things that would make them say you know what I really want to hire this person over those people, whatever it may be. So use that description box, put in some results and the results that your people, your leads, your prospects really need to see from you. All right, the next bit in the foundations is the qualifying questions, and I know we're going deep here and you'll learn this from me. It's like we really do go deep. We do no stone unturned and it's all these little incremental things that makes such a big impact. We will get to how you can increase call bookings in a moment, but let's keep going with the foundations.

Shannon Stone:

Okay, the fourth piece in the foundations is the qualifying questions. When people want to learn more about you or book this call and they see, say, 10am on a Thursday, they can put in that time 10am on a Thursday and you have the option to ask them questions. Now. This is a prime position for you to Ask them the right questions, gather the right information ahead of that sales call with them, and it also helps to ensure that you're not getting random people filling up your time, which I know is a really big thing for people when they are allowing anyone to book into their calendar. When you turn your business into something like this, where they can't just reach out to you in order to book a call, it's like here's my link, you'll find a time that suits you and go from there.

Shannon Stone:

It can feel really funny for a lot of people to say, well, I don't want anyone and everyone to book in. So when you add in these qualifying questions, it allows you to vet the people that are booking in as well as gather the right information ahead of that call with them, so then you can be prepared. Even they can start thinking of the right things as well. You know, one of the questions I asked is you know what are your top three goals in the next six months? So I want to know that from them. And then it also gets them thinking as well. It also gets them thinking as well. It also makes our conversation, our discovery call, run much smoother because we're not having to think about that on the call. They've already thought about it, they've already answered the questions.

Shannon Stone:

The other thing with the qualifying questions is that, say, worst case scenario and I honestly haven't seen this happen, but this is like your calling card. If it were to happen, say, you got the wrong people book in and you're like you know what, they're not a good fit or for whatever reason, because you've put in the questions to gather all this information, you can kindly reject the call. You don't have to go ahead with any of these calls that people book in, just so you know. In case you didn't know that, you can decide that you know what. I'm not going to be talking to this person because of these reasons. They don't reach the criteria that I need them to in order for me to go ahead with this conversation. Now, this all depends on you and your business and the way that you run things. But say, for example, you did get someone who was just a not fit, not a good fit at all. Say for me if someone with a product-based business filled in the form because I do work with service-based businesses that could raise the question of well, do I want to have this conversation with them? Or maybe I'll reach out to them before the call and I'll just say, hey, I'm looking forward to our call, but I did notice you're a product-based business and I can have a few words with them before the call and see if the two of us do want to go ahead with that call. So the qualifying questions are really great for that.

Shannon Stone:

Okay, the last piece on the foundations is that you always need to direct people to this one call. So this call that you're setting up in Calendly this is the pivotal piece for a sales transaction. I don't want you doing ad hoc calls here and there or messaging and communicating with people backward and forwards. Or if someone reaches out to you and says, hey, I want to learn more about your packages, can you send me some of your details? You're not emailing all these people all the details. You're not messaging these people. You're not jumping onto a call to just say, oh, here's my package and here's my price, goodbye. We have to be committed to this call. So if someone says, hey, can you send me details on your packages, I would say, look, I'd love to send you details on my packages, but I would actually need to have a chat with you first to see one, if I can help you, but two, which of my packages would be the best fit for you. So let's book in this call and we can go from there.

Shannon Stone:

You want to use this call as the anchor, as like the real filter. So wherever the leads are coming from, wherever the conversations are happening in your world, you want to be directing everyone back to this one call, because this is how sales calls can really boost your business, instead of having ad hoc conversations online, offline, in bits of different places. You don't really have control over the conversion, whereas if you're sending everyone to Calendly to book in, to fill in these questions for a committed time in the calendar where you both show up, this is already doing so much of the heavy lifting for the conversion that's hopefully about to happen. So always be directing people to this one call and when I mentioned at the beginning, are you doing a sales call, a direct to sales call, or are you doing a lead magnet call, such as a audit or a borrowing capacity, say?

Shannon Stone:

If you are a mortgage broker, again, when people have these ad hoc conversations online, there's nothing wrong with having these ad hoc conversations, but still be leading people to this call. So if you were a mortgage broker and someone was chatting to you about bits and pieces around that process, you could say look, I'd love for us to book in a borrowing capacity check. Here's a link to my calendar. Hop on, find a time that suits you. If you can't find a time, let me know, we'll see what works. But all of a sudden, it's like you're not having to exert as much time with all these conversations online or leave people's questions unanswered. You can book them into this call and you can address it all there in one go. Okay, so they're the foundations and please don't underestimate them. When people underestimate those things, it almost doesn't matter what you do with getting all the leads booked in if you're not doing these things. So don't underestimate the foundations. Okay, so let's recap what we've covered.

Shannon Stone:

First and foremost, what is this call? Are you doing a straight to sales call, straight to sales type conversation, or are you doing a lead magnet call, such as an audit, borrowing capacity check, roadmap? Whatever works for you? That's the first thing. The second is you need to input your availability and just know. With this you can adjust this from time to time as it suits you. Maybe one week you want to add more, or one month you want to add more another month. You know you've got all your clients now, but you still want to have a few spots in the calendar available. So you can adjust this as it works for you.

Shannon Stone:

The third is that you optimize the description with results. So make sure you've got results in that little box where you can say hi, really looking forward to the call, or here's the things to know beforehand. Make sure you've got a few results in there. Number four is the qualifying question. So what are the questions you should be asking so you can vet the people who are booking in and, second, gather the right information ahead of that call? There's a third thing you could be doing is seeding the sale, but that gets a little bit technical. But could there be questions you ask that start to see that sales call you have with them, and number five is to always direct people back to this one call. So we're not doing ad hoc calls with anyone. We can obviously have conversations and things like that lots of dialogue to get people wanting to have this call, but we're not telling people packages and sending people prices. We're directing them to this call, always direct them to this call. So this is the first part in using Calendly to book more sales calls.

Shannon Stone:

I hope you found this episode incredibly useful. Now what I want you to do is go and apply everything that you heard from this episode that you don't already have in place, and I want you to do it before part two comes out, because in part two we're going to talk about places. You can publish this link so you can get it into more places keyboard shortcuts. We're going to talk about social proof, so we'll be talking about some tactical and strategy things that you can do to really get this out there. So do the foundations first, get these in place, and then part two will be out on Monday.

Shannon Stone:

If you're listening to this in real time, so keep an eye out for that one, but don't listen unless you haven't applied. So make sure you go and apply everything you've learned from today. First and foremost, that's my little push to make sure you turn this into practice. I hope you've enjoyed today and do keep an eye out for the next episode, and we will chat very, very soon.

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