I have already written about how to arouse the interest of potential partners using cold emails. Today we’ll go further: we’ll talk about what to do after you’ve received an answer.

A cold email can cause 9 types of reactions:

• Not interested (no answer);
• Maybe (the letter was forwarded internally);
• No (negative answer);
• In progress (contact has taken place, needs to be continued);
• Open your diary (make an appointment);
• Meeting Booked (there is an agreement on a meeting);
• Failure (the person did not show up for the meeting);
• Perhaps later (it makes sense to write again);
• Out (the letter has not been delivered).

One time I was lucky to have close contact with the head of an outsourcing appointment setting company, from whom I learned many useful tricks. This is one of them.

To manage correspondence directly in my Gmail inbox, I use cloud-based CRM Streak, which greatly simplifies email labeling and the entire process of communication with the client.

This is what it looks like:

If you have several mailboxes at your disposal and keep statistics via Excel or Google Sheets, I advise you to try Streak; it's simple, free and convenient.

What is Streak used for in my company:

1. Uninterrupted monitoring of responses to mailing letters

2. Setting up custom funnels with monthly status recording, which is very convenient when collecting statistical data, which is also used for assigning sales appointments

3. Adding useful notes to each email indicating the status, time the last email was sent, the total number of attempts to establish contact with this subscriber, the name of the person responsible for the contact, and comments on the topic. Streak has several dozen useful metrics and the ability to customize, so all the top-priority information will always be before your eyes.

4. You can monitor the opening of your emails.

When I previously wrote about cold letters and cold calling lead generation, I talked about how painstakingly I collected and sifted out information in order to clearly understand who I would be dealing with. If you also have this habit, the prepared dossier will be enough to personalize the invitation to a meeting as much as possible, touching on those topics, advantages and bonuses that will be especially significant for the person.

Besides:

• Be concise. Starting a letter with the phrase “I hope everything is well with you” and similar ones is a waste of energy; a simple greeting will be enough. In the same way, there is no need to delay the introduction, go straight to the goal. Let the person understand that you do not want to waste his time.
• Press on painful points. What worries your potential client? Why did you decide to offer him your products/services? Show how cooperation with you can solve his problems or bring tempting bonuses – for example, a bpo call center will allow you to process calls more efficiently with less financial investment.
• Outline next steps. Offer the recipient several communication options to choose from to schedule or confirm a future meeting – by reply email, phone call, Skype or Hangouts. Let the client be able to agree to the meeting without taking unnecessary actions.

The answers may vary, but you can assume their general content depending on whether you are corresponding with the owner of the company, a sales manager or Pre-sales.

For the latter, it is important to give an answer as quickly as possible, since the number of appointments is reflected in his KPI. This happens in any b2b lead generation agency, and in my company too.

1. I will be happy to discuss the issues raised in the letter with you by telephone. Please inform me about the most convenient call time for you. Are you available for a telephone conversation on Thursday?
2. Your proposal interested me. Can I call you on Tuesday at 10:30 am Eastern Time?
3. If you are interested in discussing the possibility of cooperation with our company, let's do it next week. Is Wednesday 11:00 am Eastern Time or 2:30 pm Eastern Time right for you?

The manager will be more careful and will first want to collect information about you, as you did for the b2b lead generation, in order to understand to what extent a partnership with you will allow him to meet the needs of his company. He rarely makes an appointment right away, so the answer would be something like this:

1. The easiest way to make sure that our interests coincide is to discuss them in a direct conversation. Let me know what time I can call you.
2. Your ideas have potential. If you are interested in working with our company, please let me know what time we can schedule a meeting next week to discuss prospects.

If the manager answers you, most likely he has already made a decision. Whether it is concluding a deal, a service agreement or searching for a remote coworker, the manager does not deal with intermediate stages, he makes the final decision. The answer here might be:

1. Tomorrow I will have three free windows – at 10:00, 13:45 and 16:20. You can also call me any time between 15:00 and 17:00 on Tuesday.
2. This week I have a flexible schedule, but every day I will have the opportunity to talk from 11:15 to 12:00.

At my company, for SDRs who are engaged in looking for clients through cold emails and calls and deal with 8-10 emails each, there is a strict rule that another good friend in outsourced email marketing taught me: by the end of the day there should not be a single unopened letter left in the mailbox.

At the same time, it is unacceptable to open the letter, skim through it, and then mark it as unread again in order to return to it later. This makes you spend twice as much time, so I try to instill a simple philosophy in everyone in the sales department: open an email only when you are ready to answer it.

Streak's capabilities allow you to add response templates in two clicks. Of course, we use this widely.

When consent to the meeting has been received, you want to praise yourself. Hooray! You have managed it and even have done it without appointment setting services, you can relax a little, but it’s too early to do this. Firstly, many clients may ignore the agreement, suddenly losing interest in your offer under the influence of someone else's opinion or their own random thought. Secondly, you can once again emphasize your professionalism with the right actions.

Send the client an agenda, emphasizing your seriousness and respect for him and his time. Along the way, briefly, in the form of notes or a short bulleted list, remind him why the meeting is needed, what issues will be discussed at it, what solutions to what problems will be sought. Those who have worked closely with b2b appointment setting services know how well clients perceive such moments.

Example agenda from my company:

Intro call (15–30 minutes):

— Introduction. — Discussion of sales needs. — Deciding whether an in-depth conversation makes sense.

It's also a good time to show your interest by sending a request on LinkedIn if you haven't done it yet.

It's easy to get lost in reminders if you have a lot of meetings on a regular basis. I suggest using Google Calendar or Calendly to automate this task. This makes life easier than an answering service or a smart home system, if such a comparison is acceptable.

Set at least two reminders:

• The first is a day before the event. Personalize this message and include a link to your calendar.
• The second is an hour before the event. True, some of my colleagues believe that this approach gives the client time to reschedule the meeting or refuse it, so decide for yourself whether this is worth doing.

It’s always unpleasant to go through a lot of steps, prepare the basis for your proposal, collect data about the client, receive confirmation, and end up losing. It's offensive, but no matter what you do – from offering personal va to technical servicing of sectional doors – such cases will still happen.

It is important how you react:

• Don't bombard the client with messages. After 1-2 minutes, remind about yourself with a brief message: “Hi, I’m ready to talk... Let me know if you can’t join the call.”
• Wait no more than 10 minutes. If the client does not show up, send a message indicating that the meeting did not take place and offer to reschedule it.
• Communicate in short phrases. “We weren’t able to talk on Wednesday. Would you be okay with a call on Friday at 11:00 am?”

Perhaps this is all an accident, and the client will be happy to reschedule the arrangement. But if he disappears again and again, you should pay attention to someone more promising. You are not a 24/7 chat service to be always ready for dialogue.

If you regret the effort, send a final email: “We have rescheduled the meeting again. If our cooperation is no longer a priority for you, please let us know." Usually, in response to a direct question, a direct answer is received with an explanation of the reasons or a refusal. At least you'll know exactly what to expect.

What a productive meeting should look like:

1. You must have a clear plan indicating timing: who will participate in the call on your part and on the client’s part, what issues you are going to discuss, how much time is allocated for them. This speaks of your seriousness, business spirit, and punctuality.
2. Employees of the best b2b call centers are taught: before completing a call, you need to get answers to all key questions. So you must understand what exactly is the priority for your interlocutors, where their pain points are, who exactly will be responsible for your cooperation, what actions should be taken in the future on their part and on your part. I would advise recording calls (with the permission of the interlocutor, of course), this may come in handy later.
3. End the meeting with mutual obligations.

The call should not resemble a monologue about how incredibly cool you or your client are. Information that you can offer a company an excellent b2b outbound marketing strategy will be received much more favorably than listing past victories. A dialogue is required at a single, even pace, in which both interlocutors can hear each other.

Actions after the call:

• Immediately send a follow-up that exactly and clearly states what you talked about.
• Put commitments on the calendar, asking for confirmation from the client.
• After 3-4 days, send the client a case that is relevant to him to maintain interest in you.

I encourage you to get into the habit of writing down your thoughts in the form of short notes after completing a call and entering them into your CRM. It is important to do this within 10-20 minutes while the impressions remain fresh.

These are the main secrets of organizing meetings that I can share as the owner of a bpo agency.

Always try to convey to your interlocutor the idea of the value of your meeting. Prove that it will save money, make it easier to make a profit, and free up time. Use simple and concise language, be creative and inventive.

Don’t neglect personalization; nothing will ensure such customer loyalty as focusing on his interests and pain points.

That's all in general terms. If something remains unclear, write, I will try to answer.