The Cold Hard Truth with Gabriel Siegel
When cold calling, you must be able to follow two simple rules. (I discussed rule number one in last month's article.)
RULE 2: AVOID THE USE OF JARGON, BUSINESS LANGUAGE AND TRENDY PHRASES.
My neighbor owns a local hardware store. All his processes are automated. He was looking for a way to manage his retail operation from his home computer. He spoke to several “network integrators” and computer consultants. As he told me, all he got was a lot of technical BS. He finally met someone who spoke in simple, non-technical English. The consultant asked a few questions and offered a simple solution based on the client’s concerns. He left with a check and in one month the system was up and running.
Remember: IF YOU CAN’T DESCRIBE YOUR BUSINESS OR PURPOSE FOR CALLING SUCCINCTLY, DON’T EXPECT A PROSPECT TO DO IT FOR YOU!
CASE STUDY: A client, who is an accountant, has established himself as a financial planner selling a range of products from common stocks to annuities. His clientele includes long term investors as well as active traders. He has another group of clients who have trusted him to structure conservative investment programs geared to their retirement. For this group, he charges a fee and often works with the client’s attorney. His target market is the small business owner. He is on several social networking sites, but questions the value because he feels it “cheapens his service” and, as he points out, everyone is selling a similar service and more often than not, most people are looking for free advice. He’s an active member of several local Chambers of Commerce and conducts Financial Planning seminars several times a year from which he gets a few leads. His objective is to broaden his customer base using cold-call prospecting. He has used the local yellow pages, with moderate success. He bought leads, also moderate success. His goal is to increase the number of appointments through cold call efforts.
At this point, a reader may ask why not use his client base for referrals, or, try to upgrade current client’s investment programs. There are, I found through experience (sometimes painful), two good reasons for not relying on existing clients. First, given today’s difficult investment environment, fewer people are willing to recommend the services of an advisor. Second, there’s a decided limit on how often one can expect to “churn” an existing client, especially when a program has been designed to their specifications.
Please don’t assume that our financial planner doesn’t solicit referrals or upgrades. During annual reviews with clients, he always asks for referrals, and when appropriate, he does recommend portfolio upgrades and/or changes.
After a meeting with the client and several of his agents, we set up a “prospecting roundtable”. This is simply a group which gets together for the express purpose of helping to establish cold calling strategies, each tailored to his or her specific industry. Through role playing, each attendee gets to refine his opening, learns how to handle objections and make an appointment. This is an effective and powerful tool.
In this situation, our “roundtable” consisted of the client, his partner, and the three agents who work for him. We also included one of the secretaries because she is often the first person with whom clients and/or prospects have contact. We also conducted our session off-site to avoid any interference from office routines.
We enumerated three objectives for our sessions. Everyone had to come away with a method for:
- Introducing yourself to a prospect
- Overcoming objections
- Getting a firm appointment
To date we’ve had three sessions with a fourth planned for mid-June. In my next article, I will share with our readers several of the openings we developed, a mechanism for overcoming objections, and a strategy for setting firm appointments.
For anyone wishing to share thoughts or comments, the writer can be reached at guitarman1811@aol.com. I respond to E mails more quickly and thoughtfully than I do when contacted on social networking sites.
For more information, please visit Gabriel's TNNWC Bio.
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