Hey,
Last week I listed five remote jobs and called appointment setting the entry door into sales. This week I read three real appointment setter listings, and I need to add something: the door has a lock.
Here's what the listings actually said, and the 30-day plan I'd use to get through anyway.
◆ // THE PLAY
The Entry Door Has a Lock (and How to Pick It)
An appointment setter books calls for a sales team. You find the prospect, qualify them, and get them on someone else's calendar. It's the simplest way into sales, and the three listings I read looked like this:
• SalesRoads (on Remotive): $17 an hour base, $22.50 an hour on target, with commission paid per qualified appointment. The posting says full-time setters typically earn $40,000 to $55,000 a year.
• ACTS360 (on Remotive): $18 to $22 an hour as a 1099 contractor, about 20 hours a week. It asks for 1 to 2 years of B2B cold calling in the last two years and wants you to make 13 to 20 calls an hour.
• A Workable listing: $50 to $63 per qualified appointment, no base pay, 35 to 40 hours a week. It asks for 2+ years of outbound phone experience and doesn't define "qualified."
Three things stood out.
First, "entry-level" isn't really entry-level. Both listings that named experience asked for one to two years or more.
Second, location. The ACTS360 and Workable listings are US-only, and ACTS360 wants a US citizen working Eastern hours. If your plan is to earn this from abroad, ask before you apply.
Third, pay structure. One listing pays by the hour, one adds commission, and one is commission only with no definition of what counts. Same job title, very different income.
If your plan is to earn this from abroad, those US-only rules are the real obstacle, and I'm not going to skip past that. I've been exploring legitimate ways to work around the restriction, and I'm still testing what actually holds up. I won't write a how-to on something I haven't proven. If enough of you want it, I'll break down what I find in a step-by-step guide.
So how do you get the experience nobody wants to give you? This is my plan, not something the listings spell out:
Week 1: Learn the job. Pick one kind of customer (say, local service businesses or B2B software), write a 30-second opener, and set up a free CRM so you can log every call.
Week 2: Make real calls. Offer to book appointments for a small business or a freelancer for free or for a small flat fee. You need 100 real dials and a few booked meetings, because that's your experience.
Week 3: Apply with proof. Send a short resume that leads with your call numbers, plus a 60 second recording of you handling an objection.
Week 4: Interview and follow up. Track every application, and follow up once after a week.
◆ // THE NUMBER
$1,560 to $1,907
That's what 20 hours a week at $18 to $22 an hour pays per month. Here's the math: $18 times 20 hours times 52 weeks, divided by 12, is $1,560. At $22 it's $1,907.
In my Cebu cost-of-living breakdown, a single person lives in Cebu for roughly $800 to $1,800 a month, from frugal to comfortable. So a part-time contract role pays about what a month in Cebu costs.
Two honest caveats. That ACTS360 listing is US-only, so this shows the pay level, not a plan to do that exact job from Cebu. And it's before taxes: as a 1099 contractor you handle your own, and Americans abroad still file US taxes. This isn't tax advice.
The point is the size of the gap. A US pay rate can cover a Cebu month on part-time hours.
◆ // THE TOOL
The Listing Scorecard
Before you apply, copy this into a spreadsheet and fill in a row for every listing:
Company | Pay structure (base / commission / both) | What counts as "qualified" | Where you can work from | Hours and time zone | Experience asked for | Contractor or employee | Applied | Follow-up date
Then ask the recruiter these four questions:
Can I work from outside the US? (Ask this first if abroad is your plan.)
Is this a 1099 contract or W2 employment?
How is a "qualified appointment" defined, and who decides?
Who supplies the leads, and how many a week?
Walk away if the pay terms are undefined, the income claim has no numbers behind it, or it asks you to pay for training or a starter kit.
◆ // THE MOVE
This week, fill in three rows of the scorecard with real listings and reply to this email with the one that looks best and why.
If you want the guide on working for US companies from abroad, put the word ABROAD in your reply so I can see how many of you want it.
Or DM me on Instagram → @ExpatBuildr. I read every message myself.
◆ // PROMPT OF THE WEEK
Practice your opener before you dial. Paste this into ChatGPT or Claude:
"Act as the owner of a [type of business] who is busy and a little skeptical. I'm an appointment setter calling to book a 15 minute call between you and my client, who offers [service]. Respond like a real prospect, raise a different objection each round (too busy, already have someone, send me an email), and after every round tell me what I did well and what to change."
Run it ten times and keep the openers that survive.
— Galaxy (Tony Long II) 🌏
Building from Cebu. Earning in USD. Sharing the math.
P.S. If you'd rather build your own business than take a job, that's what my 1-on-1 calls are for: expatbuildr.com/consulting
