Booking appointments too far in advance

When booking appointments with prospects how far is too far in advance? Is there a general rule of thumb on this? -Community Mailbox

I think it varies a great deal depending upon the details.

If your appointment is to fly to Paris to meet with your corporate prospect, your appointment lead-time may be quite different than if you're going to go to the next housing development to the east of where you live to discuss new windows for your prospect's home. -Skip Anderson

Skip makes an excellent point. If you were booking a trip to Australia to meet with three prospective buyers, you might schedule that months ahead.

Anyway, this is dictated by the prospect.

We regularly book them as much as two months in advance. However, for B2C this would be rare, as it would be for smaller B2B companies, they usually are not scheduling more than two weeks in advance. -Gold Calling

I agree with GC and Skip. It depends.

However, as a general rule, if I'm making an appointment to "pop in" and introduce myself, I try to do it no more than 2 weeks out or even within 1 week - I find people protect their schedules if you try too far out (who knows what will come up for them?).

As indicated by others, if logistical issues are present, try to set up your meeting as close as you possibly can to your commitment date.

Stephen -sfrenkel

I own a business, basically we clean windows, clean gutters, carpet cleaning, etc, commercially and residential.

Residential, we can book them the following day or even 2-4 weeks out. We do not typically book too far out, because they may forget, unless we remind them of course or they write it down in their calender.

Commercial, we typically will book whenever we get the chance, but that is usually a few weeks away or even a few months away, depending on urgency. -Jumpman