How much effort does it typically take for business-to-business (B2B) professionals to successfully schedule a meeting or call with one another? For most of us, the answer is likely “too much,” with a flurry of back-and-forth email messages, confusion about time zones, and crossed signals often serving, unfortunately, as the norm. Now, the technology enabler of online appointment scheduling is impacting how successful B2B sales teams are overcoming these inefficiencies.

From the perspective of pure analytical research, online appointment scheduling tools make a great deal of sense. Take a peek at the following sales effectiveness KPI results, which Aberdeen’s research has shown two reveals significant deltas between users and non-adopters of this technology:

The overall corporate benefits of better customer retention, larger average deal sizes, and shorter sales cycles are of particular relevance to contemporary sales teams looking for every possible edge that supports better results they can bring to their companies. The net-net here is all about the velocity of B2B sales efficiencies: everyone wants to sell more, sell faster and reach President’s Club ahead of everyone else. They want to spend time with prospects and customers focusing on the features, advantages and benefits of their solution – not chasing people down to book appointments. It can be said, moreover, that ping-pong is a nice addition to a physical office environment, but an unnecessary inconvenience when it comes to business communications. My research proves that online appointment scheduling tools improve the performance of sales teams in terms of:

Knowing the Customer: Online appointment scheduling users are 11% more likely than other firms (41% vs. 37%) to actively seek ways to better understand the behavior of their prospects and customers. Using the scheduling tool to get a feel for how soon – or not – a prospect is willing to meet, for example, can help classify an opportunity as more or less likely to close a deal within a certain selling period. This strategic action is also taken more often by Best-in-Class companies than under-performing firms by a 49% to 37% margin.

Automating the Process: Fifty-two percent (52%) of the Best-in-Class support a “guided selling methodology to help sales reps identify the optimal message and timing at each stage of the sales cycle,” compared with 45% of Laggard companies. The idea of guided selling represents a process that takes guesswork out of many sales situations, via a wizard-driven application or simply a left-to-right checklist designed to speed up the overall sales cycle. Indeed, the average sales cycle among Best-in-Class firms was shortened by 4.2% from year-to-year, while Industry Average and Laggard firms saw theirs lengthen by 1.3% and 3.0%, respectively. Online appointment setting is a natural fit for adding a simple but effective technology-supported stage to the seller’s process.

Improving Workflow for the “Last Mile” of Selling: My research details a number of practices that top-performing sales teams use to help close deals faster and more often, which are supported by technologies such as electronic signatures, configure/price/quote and sales contract management. The process of proposing, presenting, quoting and negotiating sales deals is less cumbersome when seller and buyer, using online appointment scheduling, can more easily access calendars and meet to hammer out contractual details.

Making Every Customer Interaction Count: It is safe to assume that B2B buyers are plenty busy, and are less inclined to buy from a high-maintenance seller who takes too many steps – and emails – simply to schedule their calls and meetings. Online appointment scheduling users are 58% more likely than other firms (19% vs. 12%) to marry their focus on sales cycle shortening with making the most out of a smaller number of interactions, neatly fitting their conversations into more easily-scheduled meetings.

In the end, let’s make sure we are all working smarter, if not also harder:

To download the full research report, Click Here…

1. Let Clients Book Meetings via Facebook

You’ve built a great Facebook page for your business, have a ton of likes and crank out great content.  But, your prospects and customers who want to talk to you now have to track you down.  Sue B. Zimmerman put together a great video on Basecamp (which we love) and how she uses TimeTrade.  In the video, she shows how she empowers clients book meetings with her right from her Facebook Page:

2. Get Sales Meeting through LinkedIn

Jamie Shanks from Sales for Life is an expert in social selling.  Recently he blogged about how 52% of his Q1 2013 opportunities came from inbound activity using TimeTrade.  Jamie put together a video where he shows how he prospects using LinkedIn and TimeTrade:

3. In Email and Salesforce.com

Vala Afshar, CMO of Enterasys, recently listed TimeTrade as one of the “The 10 Must-Have Sales and Marketing Business Tools” in the Huffington Post.   Vala says, “We have generated many opportunities we would have otherwise missed just by having this simple convenience in our mails. TimeTrade reduces the constant back and forth of trying to schedule meetings, allowing us to better focus on our customers.”  And because its integrated into Salesforce.com, the salesperson is alerted and prepped for the call.  Check out the full article with some great tips and tools here…

4. On the Go Mobile Scheduling

I got this one from our own Chris Carroll.  While at a tradeshow I was jotting down information on the back of business cards from prospects who were interested in learning more after the show.  I looked over and Chris had his iPhone up showing prospects our TimeTrade Mobile App on his iPhone and was sending them meeting invites while they were at the booth.  Not only did they get to see the full product experience, he left the show with scheduled meetings – not just business card leads.  iPhoneLife has a good article on our App and others which is worth checking out at: Top 10 iPhone Apps to Market, Manage, and Monetize Your Business.

5. Schedule from Your Webinars

You’ve got a great webinar topic which drew a large audience who is interested in what you have to say.  Then, at the height of their interest, you thank them for joining the webinar and tell them you will follow up after.  That’s the way I’ve always done it.  Recently, I was speaking with one of the major web conferencing providers and they told me that some of their customers were getting great conversions from their webinars by simply dropping their scheduling link into the public chat during the webinar.  Simple – if you are interested in learning more, just click the link we just posted, pick a day/time that works for you and we’ll have one of our experts call you.

I hope you found these innovative sales use-cases helpful.  If you’ve got a good one, feel free to share it in the comments.  We’d love to hear it!

Signup for A Free TimeTrade Account

I’m still bitter about Blackberry swallowing Tungle and then killing it. It was a fantastic tool that I’ve not been able to replace… until now. I happened across a site that was utilizing TimeTrade’s Click to Schedule feature and discovered a technology that’s worth sharing.

Watch the video above and read the full review from Market Tech Blog’s post on how they are looking forward to using TimeTrade!

Check out Edge Of The Web Radio

Check Out Marketing Tech Blog

Download The Files

Collecting leads and offering appointments is a great way to utilize your TimeTrade account to connect with your prospects faster and close more deals. In this Google Hangout, we are going to talk about creating simple HTML contact forms you can use on your website or blog that will email you the lead information and offer the prospect an opportunity to book a meeting with you all while carrying their information over to the booking process so they don’t have to fill out two forms.  Download our email script and form example and follow along with the video!

Signup for A Free TimeTrade Account

Requirements:
A TimeTrade Account
A Website
FTP/ Web Upload Access to your Website
HTML Noob Skills

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In her piece, Munchbach declares “the marketing funnel no longer applies to modern marketing,” and then elaborates that the “customer life cycle” (which she defines as the “customers’ relationship with a brand as they continue to discover new needs, explore their options, make purchases, and engage with the product or service experience,”) is now the right approach to connect with prospect and customers.

As a developer of online appointment scheduling software that streamlines how and when professionals and customers meet, TimeTrade agrees fully with Forrester’s counsel to put “customers at the center of marketing!”

Corinne’s recommendations are a good read, and if you’re a Forrester client, you can dig deeper by reading their new research report “Embed The Customer Life Cycle Across Marketing,” which encourages marketers to focus on the complete brand experience: “particularly customer satisfaction and engagement.”

Taking a page from TimeTrade’s own marketing playbook one observation in Corinne’s blog post really resonates with us:

“A purchase does not always (or even often) equate to loyalty.
Loyalty is something that has to be earned and nurtured on an ongoing basis. The life cycle emphasizes that goodwill must be built up and continually delivered on to build successful — and profitable — long-term relationships.”

Amen.

Forrester’s take on the death of the funnel echoes a collection of Sales 2.0 articles that TimeTrade president Gary Ambrosino wrote on his personal blog on “Selling at the Speed of Trust.”

Gary reminds us “the traditional sales cycle doesn’t work as well as it used to,” describing that’s “because the power of social media combined with the level of participation of the average buyer has thrown a monkey wrench into traditional thinking.”

In his oft ReTweeted article “Checklist for Launching a Time-to-Trust Sales Campaign” Gary shares “three things to do to modify your sales approach to match the new reality.” There’s lots to learn in the article, and from Gary’s Webinar presentation on “Selling at the Speed of Trust.”

Ding, dong – The marketing funnel is dead!!

As our friend Harry Klein has written, the new era of customer engagement will bring a synchronicity of promises, processes and experiences in which conversations and relationships will drive mutual fulfillment and sales success.

Something to look forward to!

• How to feed the sales pipeline with Social Selling
• How to use Social Media to find valid and actionable leads
• How to convert your Marketing leads into Sales opportunities

Our Expert Panel Includes:
Jamie Shanks, Social Selling Expert from Sales For Life
Scott Miller, President of Social123
Mike Puglia, VP of Marketing from TimeTrade
Peter Gracey, Co-Founder & COO from AG Salesworks

Time management is the key to success in the age where every minute you have counts. Kathryn Mckinnon, the author of Triple Your Time Today, and host of Time Management Radio had recently invited Heather Campion of Able Banking and Gary Ambrosino President and COO of TimeTrade on her latest episode “Leverage Your Time with Innovation.”

In this episode Heather discusses how she leverages her time while managing a new innovation in business and Kathryn invites Gary to discuss how online appointment scheduling will help you retain control of your calendar, whether you are a consulting individual or optimizing scheduling for your sales team, bank, or retail store.

Download the Show

Cancelling and rescheduling meetings can be a nightmare.  In part with our release of TimeTrade 6, we have a new hassle free way for anyone to cancel or reschedule any meetings they book with you.  When someone books a meeting with you, they will receive a confirmation email giving them the opportunity to cancel or reschedule a meeting.  They will also have this option in the calendar invite they add to their personal calendar!  Both options will bring your user to their confirmed meeting online where they will have the option to cancel their meeting, or reschedule to a new available time on your calendar.  Users will be able to list a reason for the rescheduling and you will receive an email notifying you of the update.  Remember this is a new feature included with our new TimeTrade 6 update.  If you haven’t switched over yet, click here to learn how!

The best part is you don’t have to do anything!  TimeTrade will update your calendar with the cancelation or new meeting and free up your time for someone else to book with you.  No manual updates, or running around trying to get a new time for your meeting.  All of this is part of the new TimeTrade Click To Schedule Interface available now!

Click here to learn more about hassle-free canceling and rescheduling.

Click here to learn about TimeTrade 6 and our new OneMobile Technology.

Download Our Templates

Today we are creating personal booking pages you can use to enhance your booking experience. Using a personal booking page gives you the opportunity to customize the look and feel of the page you send to your prospects and clients to book times with you.  We have two templates for you to work with.  One is a stand alone HTML page you can just upload to your website, and the other is great to add to your Blog when you have limited creative resources from your CMS.

Remember to watch the video and download our templates to get you started.

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