Answer: both.

Both approaches are highly effective for building sales pipelines.

Appointment Setting gets you in the door, while Lead Generation not only gets you in the door but gives you the right hot buttons to press with prospects that are actively evaluating solutions.

In other words, with Lead Generation you only get appointments with accounts that are pre-qualified when the appointment is being set according to a robust list of qualification questions.

There are eight criteria that you can use to determine which teleprospecting method will be most appropriate but let’s start by contrasting the two methods.

Appointment Setting is best deployed against Named Accounts or accounts that you are very sure are a good fit to your value proposition. Appointment Setting is also great for early stage solutions where active projects cannot be found because the early adopters are not aware of a solution in the marketplace. Another scenario is where sales reps need all the appointments they can get to fill their pipeline.

Lead Generation is best used when highly paid sales reps are selective on the opportunities they pursue and do not wish to waste time on unqualified accounts. For these reasons, most B2B organizations are focused on generating more quality leads and less quantity.

Further, when the sales reps do engage a lead, they want to be able sell a solution based on pain points and decision criteria identified during the lead generation process. Solution selling on complex solutions requires this type of insight on the prospect.

When a face-to-face sales meeting is required as part of the buying cycle, field sales reps will prefer leads to be fully qualified to ensure that the travel expense is warranted.

Should a B2B organization target a market segment where the solution may beyond the reach of many prospects, it becomes crucial to confirm that a budget is committed or obtainable. Lead Generation would be favored in this case. However, with the popularity of affordable, SaaS applications, this may become less of an issue for software vendors.

Finally, the marketing team may value market intelligence that is gathered during the course of Lead Generation for market assessment and segementation: competitive landscape, use of custom solutions, engagement of third parties such as consultants, systems integrators or service bureaus etc.

Eight Criteria
To recap: the below seven factors can be used as criteria to select the best method for your team. (Lead Generation = L.G., Appointment Setting = A.S.).

For example, should you wish to pursue SMB accounts with a mainstream, complex solution, Lead Generation (L.G.) would be your best choice.

Type of Accounts – Named Accounts (A.S) vs. General Business (L.G.)
Size of Accounts – Enterprise (A.S.) vs. SMB (L.G.)
Stage of Solution Adoption – Early Stage (A.S.) vs. Mainstream (L.G.)
Size of your Sales Pipeline – Small Pipeline (A.S.) vs. Large Pipeline (L.G.)
Type of Solution – Volume Sale (A.S.) vs. Complex Sale (L.G.)
Distance from Prospect – Easy Commute (A.S.) vs. Long Commute (L.G.)
Solution Affordability – Within reach of most prospects (A.S.) vs. out-of-reach of many prospects (L.G.)
Market Insight – No need (A.S.) vs. High Need (L.G.)

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