Want to use calendly to book meetings, sales appointments, and consultations on autopilot without all the back-and-forth?
I’m going to show you how to set it up and put it on your WordPress website in a few simple steps.
The problem with scheduling meetings
We’re all familiar with how scheduling meetings online normally goes.
Typically there’s significant back-and-forth while trying to figure out the perfect time:
“Hey does this timework for you?”
“No, that doesn’t work for me. Let’s do another time.”
“What time zone is that? Is that Eastern? Is that Pacific?”
The benefit of using Calendly or similar software is that it allows you to say when you’re available. Then, it lets the other people that you’re trying to book a call with choose the time tha tworks best for them.
In the meantime, it takes care of time zone. So no matter where they are in the world, it’s going to automatically adjust for them.
Other benefits of Calendly
Calendly helps in a few other ways:
- It takes care of the reminders for the meeting it sets up
- It links automatically to zoom or go to meeting — whatever you’re using
- It allows you to set buffers in between your meetings so they’re not too close together
- It helps you sell more by making sure that there’s not as much friction in the sales process
- Without all the back-and-forth, you’re able to have more meetings and make the sales process a lot smoother
It works with the calendars most people use: Google Calendar, Outlook, Office, iCloud.
Who is Calendly for?
Typically Calendly works best for businesses and people that need to have scheduled appointments or consultations.
It doesn’t work as well for people that high volume products or services that don’t require consultations or a high-touch sales process.
It’s also not great for people who are owner-operators and are often out in the field, and are not able to commit to certain meeting times.
Pretty much, if you have meetings and want to cut out the back-and-forth, it’s for you.
How to set up Calendly
On the Calendly homepage, just click sign up if you don’t already have an account.
Once you’ve logged in, on the first screen you see, you’ll be able to set your calendar URL. This is the web address that you’ll be able to send to people so they can see your calendar.
Next, you want to integrate Calendly with your calendar. It’ll ask you to give permission to view and edit your calendar so that it can add events. Click “allow”.
Then, you’ll want to set up your availability. Unless you only have certain hours you want to be available for meetings, you can set it up as Monday to Friday 9:00 to 5:00.
Next, you’ll need to set up a new event type. A 30 minute meeting is typically a good amount to set up, but you’ll want to adjust it depending on how long your meetings normally take.
You can also set up a “round robin” style invite, which allows people to add multiple invitees to the meeting. This is great, because it means there’s even less admin work you have to do to get the meeting set up.
You’ll want to set up the format of the meeting. Is it Zoom? Is it just a phone call? If it’s a videoconferencing platform like Zoom, you’ll be prompted to integrate Zoom and Calendly.
You can also set how far into the future it’s possible to set up events. For instance, you might not want someone scheduling a meeting for three months down the line. Usually, a month or so is a good window, but this depends on how you like to arrange your schedule.
Next steps
After you’ve set up your meeting, you’ll be prompted to input the questions you’d like to ask people who are booking meetings with you.
You have the option to make questions required or optional.
Then, you’ll be able to set the autoresponders you’d like to go out.
Typically, this will mean one email that’s sent out as soon as the meeting is booked, and another email that’s sent out as a reminder as the meeting gets closer.
Getting Calendly implemented on your website
These are the basic steps to set Calendly up!
To integrate it on your website, Calendly will give you some code that you can copy and paste wherever you like on your site.
Feel free to watch the video at the top of this page for a fuller step-by-step walkthrough.