I started as a marketing guy. Always loved the chase for new clients. 

When dinosaurs roamed the earth I had a marketing agency which focused on professional services, think lawyers, CPA’s and other expertise businesses.

It was very typical traditional marketing. Think newsletters, yellow pages, direct mail, cable tv and more. Created a syndicated newsletter and some cable tv spots which won national awards, which was pretty cool. 

How “appointment setting” started

I was very good at direct response copywriting.  There is a art and science involved in reaching a very targeted audience with a message sufficient for them pick up the phone and schedule an appointment. These were pre-internet days.

My response writing chops caught the attention of the New England office of a large national company. They had a 30 person telecenter calling for appointments to sell home heating oil. They asked me to craft scripts and coach the team to call and set more appointments. I approached this as direct marketing by phone. That project went very well. They ended up booking more meetings in the slow time of year than they typically booked in their busy season.

Mid 90’s I saw an ad in the Boston Globe for someone to book appointments within 1,000+ employee companies. It was an employee relocations company with a 6-person national sales force that needed meetings with CEO’s or Executive level VP’s at companies with more than 1,000 employees. I was hired and ended up booking more than 500 meetings for them. These were the days when meetings were in-person and reps would jump on planes for them. It was on this project that I created the bones of the system I still use today.

Once this project maxed out I “gigged it” as I call it, practicing what I preach. Calling companies in New England, determining if they set sales appointments, then selling them a program. In those days I might make the calls, setup a program or train a team.

Time to move up

In 2003 I got tired of “gigging it” and felt I was capable of handling larger projects for bigger companies. So, in 2004 I self published my first book “Setting Sales Appointments.” This was before self-publishing was mainstream and you had to ship your books to Amazon to sell. Using my marketing chops I sold 7,000 copies of that book, most of them through my website. That introduced me to companies across the country.

Since then I have helped a lot of companies and individuals book a lot of meetings. As technologies have changed I have helped companies adapt. 

Many companies that started getting a lot more meetings would ask me to help them train their team to conduct those meetings to get great prospects deeper into the sales pipeline.  Also, with some, I would end up doing marketing related projects for them to provide better quality leads for the team.

I think the fact that I learned by doing it over a long period of time brings a different perspective to my training and coaching. I have a very low tolerance for wishful thinking and stick to what is proven to work. 

The most common compliment I get is that people like my direct no BS style. Always professional, always try to be nice, but very direct. If you are veering off the road to success I will tell you.

Since those early days a lot of water has gone over the dam. If you think we might be a fit, suggest you call to discuss your situation and some options. We may not be a fit or timing might not be right, but happy to chat.