The work environment is changing and growing from how we know it traditionally. This has led to the development of new and unique positions -most of which require the employee to work from home using their own equipment, and to work their own hours or the ones they have agreed with the employer.
This job requires you to work from home, whereby you make cold calls from a calling list. You can be calling prospect for busy sales people, working closely with a company’s sales team or other professional.
Companies hire virtual appointment setters to set up appointments for busy sales professionals. Since in an ideal sales environment, the sales person may not always be in a position to make calls at their convenience, sometimes when they need to make the call they may be help up in a meeting with another client, hence, the need to have another individual who can set up appointments on their behalf.
On the other hand, busy professionals and business people are sometimes help up in meetings and are unable to make follow up calls. They specifically choose virtual employees because this reduces the cost of doing business, and the employee does not have to spend the entire day calls, they could be performing other duties as well, actually many times, they double up as virtual assistants.
You need to have good phone etiquette, attention to detail and the ability to multi task. Ideally, as you set appointments you will be required to make cold calls, which means you must know how to handle a pre-sales call and get the appointment, and you must also learn how to identify cold and warm prospects and know whom to spend more time on and when to end the call. This requires some sales skills, while acquiring more skills like hands on sales will help you grow in the career.
The average salary of a virtual appointment setter can range from $35,000 to $105,000 that largely depends on your skills and expertise. The higher the number of qualified prospects you are able to provide the higher the pay will be.
Busy professionals and sales people often hire virtual appointment setters, while some bigger companies will hire them on behalf of the sales team. On the other hand, people who are running start up and small businesses find it necessary to hire an appointment setter, which allows them to concentrate in other areas of the business like product development and production.
You can find a virtual assistant job by registering with employment agencies that normally have large databases of companies that want to hire these professionals. They usually contract you on behalf of the hiring company, eliminating long interview processes. On the other hand, you can sign up with a freelancing company and look for potential employers in this field.
It is notable that many of them will request an audio file to confirm that you speak English flawlessly and that you have good telephone etiquette as desired. Signing up with a freelancing website may be challenging because the competition is stiff, however employers can identify you easily if you have the right skills.
Ideally, employers will require you to make outbound calls to potential customers and set up appointments on their behalf. It is also your responsibility to follow up and confirm the appointment prior to the meeting, which requires great organizational skills.
