If you're a financial advisor and don't have anybody to see, you're basically unemployed. But not everybody you meet is a fit for you. Therefore, not all suspects are going to make great prospects and in turn, great clients. You must identify the best potential clients when prospecting so you don't waste your valuable time.
4 Steps of Prospecting
- Engagement with suspects
- Filtering out prospects
- Leading the right fit prospects through a process to make a decision and take action thus
- Converting them to clients.
Not everybody you meet is a fit for you. Therefore not all suspects are going to make great prospects. Once you've identified a prospect, understand that not all prospects will be a good fit for your organization and process. You'll need to weed out the people who don't believe what you believe. Convincing them against their will eventually leads to a client relationship you wish you never had. What drips out at the bottom of this large funnel of prospects are a handful of people that resonate with your philosophy. They are the exception. They are the people that you meet that are actually a good fit for your organization.
Prospecting with Purpose
Are you selective on whom you choose to do business with? We are. It may seem contrary to belief, I know. However, in reality some agents and advisors are a fit with us, and others we don't want to work with.
Perhaps you’re like other advisors or agents: When you think of insurance and annuity marketing companies you think of a necessary evil. We’re just intermediaries between you and the insurance company who want to paper the country with contracts. One advisor I spoke with recently had such a poor perception of marketing companies that she said, “You are all the same. You need me more than I need you.” We can only imagine the kind of disappointing experiences that have shaped her belief? What a shame!
Contracting everyone who takes our phone call doesn’t make much sense if you think about it. Would you do business with everyone who responds to your prospecting efforts? Many of the prospects you meet, and many of the prospective agents and advisors we meet, would be a complete waste of resources. This realization lead us to develop and implement a process for determining who we want to work with, and why we want to work with them. You should be approaching your prospects the same way we approach agents and advisors we're looking to work with.
The Magic Prospecting Question
One of the questions that provides the most insight for me as Chief Business Development Officer is, "Mrs. Advisor, how would you answer this phrase. I could write more business if only I..." another way to phrase that might be, "Mrs. Advisor, what do you think is standing in your way of achieving business goals."
I hang on every word of what that adviser says next. More often than not what I hear is, “I need to see more prospects,” or “I can grow my business if only I could see more prospects,” or “What is standing in my way of success is the ability to get in front of more qualified prospects.” It's always the same permutation of the “Not have enough people to see” defense.
Never Stop Prospecting
When you only have a slow trickle of suspects coming into your prospect funnel you're pressured to try to do business with everyone. After all, you don’t have many people to see. People who otherwise would not be a good fit for your organization get more time and attention from you than they deserve. In other words if you only have a few prospects a month to meet with, and you need to pay the bills, you’ll feel pressured to do business with people whom otherwise you might not want to do business with.
On the other hand, if you have a flood of suspects entering your funnel on a monthly basis, you’ll feel less pressure to do business with everybody. You will be more selective about who makes it to the prospect stage. You see, prospects deserve a little bit more of your time, while suspects deserve very little. You can be much more selective and choosy on who you actually share your valuable time with. Imagine being in the position to turn down a prospect with hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement assets who's philosophy is just not in line with yours. Imagine being able to be OK with it because you have a line of potential right fit prospects waiting at your door to meet with you. This is reality for cream of the crop producers in our industry.
Watch this on-demand webinar to learn about a break-away prospecting opportunity that gives you more qualified people to see. We've thoroughly vetted this program and we know from first-hand experience that it generates results.
