In this day and age, how can salespeople schedule appointments when so many people are working from home? Tune in as Maddy Martin talks about prospecting in the modern sales world.  Scheduling appointments in the remote working scene The work-from-home setting has a huge impact on sales especially in website chat messages, missing calls, and others. The impact is also apparent with what your next steps will be for the leads that are coming through.  Every single call and chat is precious. This truth makes you realize that how you do in that first conversation is the most critical step.  It’s important to take that first incoming call or you do something about the first message. Salespeople have to be ready to respond and answer the calls at all times because your follow-up and other efforts will be in vain when you don’t take the first opportunity that prospects present to you.  There is a debate between profit and productivity. There’s a question of whether you can interrupt your day for every inbound new lead.  Screening and then scheduling are the most important workflows that you need to do to determine if you’ve asked the right person and identify if the prospect is right for the business.  Sales is all about preparedness. It’s important to lock in the prospect by scheduling it in your calendar. You can’t be available every second of the day but you can be open to having the appointments scheduled to be able to prepare properly. Create a system that allows you to do other sales activities and let other people help fill in your calendar with qualified leads. You need to focus your energy on walking people through your business to the point that they’re ready to sign an agreement with you because nobody else can do that better than you.  There are several tools for scheduling available today - Calendly, Acuity, and ScheduleOnce. All these are only for a few bucks a month. With these tools, you don’t need to spend so much time hiring new people.  Make sure to have a quality lead list to begin with. Know your target audience and your ideal client profile and hone that. You can give that list to Smith.ai, a superior virtual receptionist, and they will do the outbound calls for you.  At the moment, Smith.ai does social via Facebook Messenger.  Most times, your ideal clients are busy during the day. On these remote-working days, you need to be available at that time when your prospects and clients are available.  Always be on the channel where the conversations are happening about your business. This may be Facebook groups and pages. These groups are active throughout the day so look for clients there, know what they’re talking about, their concerns, and be a part of the conversation.  One effective approach is to give your prospects a video that would help them prepare as well.  Businesses that charge for consultations can integrate a payment system as well or attach an invoice link that prospects or clients can click into.  When scheduling an appointment, it’s best to ask a couple of questions ahead of time to establish expertise and control. Your goal is to establish your position in the relationship properly.  “Prospecting: Scheduling Appointments When so Many People are Working from Home’” episode resources Connect with Maddy Martin via LinkedIn. You can call 657-276-484 to start your Smith.ai experience today. Use the code sales evangelist to get $100 off for the first month.  Speak with Donald directly for more sales talks. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns.  Try Pipedrive today for FREE! As a TSE listener, PipeDrive is offering you an EXTENDED trial beyond the typical 30 days + 25% off your first three months after trial. Try it today at  → https://pipedrive.live/tse use your code: pipedrivetse.  This episode is also partly brought to you by Wingman. Wingman uses AI-software to empower remote sales teams with conversation intelligence, actionable insights