The Prospecting Professor

No Man Is an Island

In her new book, "Pull: Networking and Success Since Benjamin Franklin", business historian Pamela Walker Laird, looks at the archetypal American, entrepreneurial success stories...from Ben Franklin to Bill Gates...and explodes the self-made myth.

In looking at the biographies of self-made men, and women, she finds that that 100% of these success stories are a result of access to mentors and/or networks.

In her book, she identifies that real business is a social process...where learning the trade, getting leads, making connections, closing deals,  getting promotions...all require social interactions. It is not enough to "know" your trade. One cannot perform a trade in isolation. You can't make deals if you are unknown, and you can't be accepted as a person worth talking to...without the benefit of social capital. One's chances of closing a deal vastly improve if they can share a golf game, a beer, or a taxi with decision-makers.

In previous columns in The Prospecting Professor, I have written about the power of networking in the stories of Bill Gates, Ben Franklin, Bob Woodward, and others. It is fascinating to consider that ALL success stories are a result of mentors, networks and the access to social capital.

An Empire State Building Elevator Speech

Robert Craven, is a mentor, coach and consultant...based in the UK...and is one of Great Britain's leading marketing specialists. With regard to one's "elevator speech", he says:

"In a world of mediocrity, everything looks more or less the same, so why should they remember you? What makes you different? If there is were a choice between being different or better, then I would choose different every time. People remember different."

Yes! Thank you, Robert!!!

People DO remember different...and different is better, than "better."

I believe that the ultimate goal of a good "elevator speech" is absolutely NOT to tell a stranger everything about you, and your business, in 60 seconds or less. The ultimate goal is to spark a dialogue with this person.

A good "elevator speech" is the ability to describe your personality, achievements, skills, and work experience in 60 seconds or less (Much less, I think.) The tone should be commercial, the sentences short, and it should leave the listener wanting to know more.

If you don't have a good "elevator speech," here are the components to craft one, today:

• Brevity. Albert Einstein said, "Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler." These words are especially apt for "elevator speeches." It takes about 60 seconds to go from the ground floor lobby to the 86th Observatory Floor at the Empire State Building. You should be done with your statement...by the 43rd floor.
• Self-Promotion. Many of us shy away from self-promotion, and stop at telling people what we do...rather than how well we do it. If you can overcome this reticence, you have taken a big first step. I favor beginning an "elevator speech" by saying, "I specialize in..."  Everyone can become a specialist in something...and quickly too. To specialize simply means that you have determined an area of interest and focus on your part. You could become a specialist in something, within 60 minutes of reading these words. (Being a "specialist" is different that becoming an "expert", which will require some experience and study.)
• Crafting a First Draft. Your central message should convey that you are a highly capable individual, and should emphasize where you have added value to your organization or clients, how you've solved problems, and how you've helped others. Although the theme of your message should remain a constant, it should also have specific relevance to the listener. Use different examples. When you talk about your skills, describe HOW you use them, rather than WHAT they are.
• Avoid Boring Detail. Make it snappy and memorable. Remember DIFFERENT, not better.
• Don't Rush...to get your words in. Less is more. Pause when you need to. Don't just talk at your listener...use open questions, and actively listen to the response. Look them in the eye. Smile.
• Rehearse...your pitch. Practice until is sounds natural, and not like you are reading from a script. Solicit feedback from your friends, family, and trusted colleagues. Put it to the test by  "test-driving" it with someone who doesn't t know quite what you do. If they come back with a question, you'll know that you have a winner.

Happy Birthday, Steve Jobs!

Today is the birthday of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer, and iconic Silicon Valley billionaire.

Steve was born in 1955. His biological parents were unmarried, and one week after his birth, Steve was put up for adoption. He was raised by Paul and Clara Jobs in Mountain View California...during a time when the Santa Clara Valley was mostly known for the sweet smell of its apricot orchards. Jobs went to Homestead High School in Cupertino, CA...and attended after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Co. in Palo Alto. Soon, he was hired at HP as a summer employee, where he met and worked with Stephen Wozniak. After graduating from high school, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, OR...yet dropped out after a semester.

In 1974, Jobs returned to California, and began attending meetings of the "Homebrew Computer Club" with Steve Wozniak. He took a job as a technician at Atari, a manufacturer of "Pong" and other popular video games. During this time, it was discovered that a slightly modified toy whistle included in every box of Cap'n Crunch breakfast cereal was able to reproduce the supervision tone used by AT&T long distance telephone system. Jobs and Wozniak went into business briefly in 1974 building "blue boxes" which allowed free long distance calls.

In 1976, Jobs and Wozniak founded Apple Computer to manufacture a home computer Wozniak had originally developed for his own use. Over the next several decades, the fortunes of Jobs and Apple went from boom...to bust...to boom. With the development of the Macintosh computer, the iMac, and the iPod...Jobs fulfilled an early goal, "I want to make a dent in the universe."

In 1986, he formed the computer animation company, Pixar...which was recently acquired by the Walt Disney Company for $7.4 billion in stock, a deal expected to close this summer. The transaction makes Jobs Disney's largest individual shareholder and will give him a seat on the company's board of directors.

In a 2005 commencement address at Stanford, Jobs said:

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma...which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."

The Appointment Ointment

Yesterday, in the on-line publication, Horsesmouth, I published an article entitled, "Olympic-Style Prospecting: The 3-a-Day Appointment Regimen."

Olympic-Style Prospecting: The 3-a-Day Appointment Regimen
www.horsesmouth.com/linkpo/77672_18.htm
When you're following the "appointment imperative" system, you're sitting down with clients and prospects every day, every week, spreading the word, delivering value, and gathering assets. Once you make this business-building style your own, you'll be unstoppable. Now go for the gold.

The article is intended to be a salve, an antidote, for the abrasive and chafing sales-prospecting techniques that many financial advisors have been taught in past years, e.g. cold-calling on the phone, direct mail, group seminars, etc.

In my view, face-to-face appointments are the most important part of sales courtship. Sales activities that do not point to getting face-time with clients or prospects are mindless and irrelevant.

In "Olympic-Style Prospecting...," I espouse various techniques that enable the salesperson to get to a point where three face-to-face appointments is a possible and expected daily sales regimen.

I realize that, for many financial advisors, the prospect of three daily appointments, each and every day, seems daunting to the point of being impossible. Most advisors that I've known are lucky to have one appointment daily...let alone three.

It ain't easy...but it is possible.

Case in point. Some of you may be familiar with the Bernstein Private Client Group. In 1992, Bernstein had $5 billion in assets. Today, they have more than $75 billion in AUM, an annual compounded growth rate of 23+% during the past 14 years. Nationally, Bernstein has about 200 financial advisors. In 2005, the average for new assets among all Bernstein Financial Advisors was in excess of $65 million. 37 senior advisors brought in more than $100 million. The top producer raised close to $400 million in new money.

The primary vehicle for raising these unprecedented amounts of money is through face-to-face appointments...3-per-day is the expected threshold for the Bernstein Financial Advisor, starting out.

In Bernstein's case, many of their appointments are secured through CPAs and attorneys. They have built this network very aggressively.

In my view, CPAs and attorneys aren't the only Centers of Influence that financial advisors should tap into...in fact, for reasons that I've outlined in past articles, there are other professions filled with "super-connectors" who I would network with first...before CPAs and attorneys.

However, it is indubitable that a 3-a-day appointment schedule is a Sisyphean task...without the help of others. This "help" will come in the a variety of forms: a finely-tuned referral network, Centers of Influence, "Super-Connectors", domination of a niche...or all of the above.

Lastly, I am a big believer in setting goals that are attainable. If you are a salesperson, impossibly unattainable goals are meaningless and counter-productive. Therefore, if you are now at a level of three appointments per MONTH, you are not going to get to three appointments DAILY, overnight. My suggestion towards achieving impossible targets is to do what the best salespeople do...break your goals down to smaller, bite-size steps that are achievable, and build your confidence through small successes and "wins."

E-mail + Emotion ='s E-Risky

Have you ever sent an e-mail where the tone that you intended...was completely misread by the recipient?

You aren't alone...in fact, it happens all of the time.

In a recent study by psychologists Justin Kruger PhD, and his colleague Nicholas Epley PhD, they help explain why electronic misunderstandings occur so frequently "See article". When we send e-mails, we all overestimate both our ability to convey our intended tone...be it sarcastic, serious, or funny...as well as our ability to interpret the tone of messages that we receive.

Kruger and Epley found that people are much better at communicating and interpreting TONE in vocal messages than in text-based ones. In their experiment, they tested two groups of undergraduate students. The first group read statements into a tape recorder...taking either a sarcastic or serious tone...while the second group e-mailed identical statements. The participants then listened, or read, their partners' statements, and guessed the intended tone and indicated how confident they were in the answers.

The partners who read the statements over e-mail had only a 56% success rate at interpreting the correct tone...not much better than chance!

The reasons for the misinterpreted e-mails are that a great deal of communication depends not only on what is said, but how it is said. These "paralinguistic clues" such as gesture, inflection, pronunciation, vocal expression, fluency, and tone are each important clues to the speaker's meaning. Moreover, ego-centrism plays an important role in this communication disconnect. People have a difficult time detaching themselves from their own perspectives and understanding how other people will interpret them.

Here's what it boils down to...the ease and speed with which e-mail (or instant messaging) triggers exchanges makes it seem less like written communication, and more like a face-to-face transaction. Wrong! It's not.

There's a simple solution to limiting the possibility that your message gets heard as you intended it...use the phone. E-mail is fine if you just want to communicate content. However, if you are sending any emotional material...Caveat Emailori! (Let the e-mailer beware.)

"Honey...Great News! We're Moving to Bentonville."

If you were a hot-shot marketing executive, what would it take to get you to move to Bentonville, AK?

Bentonville is home to the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart. Over the next few years, Wal-Mart has plans to add as many as 60 high-level marketing executives to the headquarters' staff in Bentonville, AK.

20 years ago, Bentonville didn't have a working traffic light. In many dictionaries, when you looked up the word, "backwater," you found a picture of Bentonville (joke.)

Today, the circumstance is somewhat different. The number of employees in the Wal-Mart home office has grown from 450, to more than 6000. Less than five years ago, the nicest restaurant in town...in fact the only place to get a decent steak...was Fred's Hickory Inn. Two years ago, white-tablecloth fine dining arrived with the opening of Oscar's Prime Rib & Steak House...which features the "Oscar's Ultimate Bone-In Cut, the ultimate Prime Rib Experience," at $32.00.

Bentonville also boasts the Walton Arts Center (WAC), which this weekend hosts the New York City-based, Mark Morris Dance Group. The following weekend at the WAC, you will find the Bunk Bed Brothers, who are not New York City-based.

In 2004, Stephen Quinn was the chief marketing officer of Frito-Lay. However, he was looking for a different challenge and was willing to take a lifestyle change to be a part of that. He is now senior VP-marketing at Wal-Mart.  He says, "Bentonville is evolving so rapidly, you need to figure out what it will look like in three to five years...If you were single, it might not be your first choice, but it's a great place to raise kids."

Another interesting Wal-Mart phenomenon in Bentonville, is the presence of those companies who are suppliers to the retailing behemoth. Ten years ago, Wal-Mart's suppliers flew into town once a year for a round of meetings with the Wal-Mart buyers...and then flew home at the days end. Today, suppliers and buyers live on the same street, and attend the same churches.

Within the past few years, more than 2000 suppliers have set up shop in the Bentonville area...and that number is expected to double. Procter & Gamble began the trend in 1989...opening up a 10-person office. Today, P&G's Wal-Mart staff has mushroomed to 200. There are now 20 office parks dedicated to Wal-Mart vendors. Disney, shares a building with Vivendi-Universal. Inside these offices, the walls are covered with photos, and quotes, from Sam Walton...with signs on the door reading "Wal-Mart Support Unit", or "Team Wal-Mart."

When in Rome...

Whither Mr. Housing Bubble?

Is Mr. Housing Bubble losing his froth? There have been a number of recent articles that point to the End of Bubblicity.

In yesterday's L.A. Times, it is reported:

"Six months of gains in Southern California's median home price were wiped out in January while sales activity dropped sharply, further signs that the region's once-hot real estate market continues to lose steam."

In today's N.Y. Times, in an article entitled, "Farewell, Condo Cash-Outs", stories abound about the end of the Great Condo Gold Rush.

• In Donald Trump's luxury condos at 120 Riverside Boulevard in Manhattan, 20% of the building's 250 units are marketing their apartments.
• In San Diego, about 33% the units in the Alicante, which opened last fall, are on the market.
• Last week, Toll Brothers, the luxury home builder, said orders for new homes fell by nearly 30% in the three months ended Jan. 31st.

This is in marked contrast to the last few years, where speculators were beckoned to real estate by the allure of double-digit appreciation. In 2005, median condo prices increased by nearly 13%, to $218,000, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Boink!...in San Diego, one of the hottest markets in the country, the median home price rose at an annual rate of just 2.5% in January...compared to 20% one year ago.

Do you want to see if Mr. Housing Bubble has burst in your neighborhood? Check out this new site, "www.zillow", an online real estate service. Created by Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink (founders of Expedia), Zillow has data on more than 60,000,000 homes around the country. Type in your address, or the address of Mr. FancyPants across the street, to get a sense of where the market is.

Word of Mouth Works Both Ways

Since the 1940s, RoperASW has tracked and cataloged Influential Americans (IA's). IA's number about 21 million, and they can drive and shape public opinion all all types of consumer products and services.

IA's are inveterate communicators, and avid social networkers. They entertain friends at home, go out to clubs, write, telephone or email a family member...and are four times as likely to join a club or civic organization.

Others trust IA's to give advice...these folks are two, three, four times as likely to be sought out for their opinion on a particular product or service...than the average person. In fact, making a good impression on just one Influential American can create six brand-loyal customers!

Conversely, Influentials hold high standards for quality and performance, and will definitely take action if they are disappointed. They tend to complain more readily...and are even more likely to "bad-mouth" you, and your products, if they feel they have been wronged.

Who are the Influential Americans? Here are the eleven markers, and traits that let you know you are dealing with a person whose opinion carries inordinate influence. They:

1. Write or call politicians.
2. Attend political rallies, speeches, protests.
3. Go to school meetings.
4. Hold, or run, for office.
5. Work as a political volunteer.
6. Serve on a committee for a local organization.
7. Write a letter to the editor, or call in to radio talk shows.
8. Make speeches.
9. Write an article for a magazine or newspaper.
10. Been active in groups that attempt to influence public policies.
11. Serve as an officer for a club or organization.

If you have an existing client or prospect who engages in three or more of the above activities, you are working with an Influential American.

The lesson in all of this? If you have Influential Americans as clients who become your Raving Fans,  you could reap referrals well beyond their immediate buying power. Conversely, if you alienate the IA's with poor quality, or service...watch out!

Hell hath no fury as an Influential American scorned.

Henry David Thoreau on Referrals

"Cease to gnaw that crust! There's ripe fruit above your head."...Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau, (1817-1862) was a writer, philosopher, and naturalist...who believed in the primacy of personal insight and experience; and advocated simple, principled living.

In all likelihood, the quote above alludes to Thoreau's belief in the doctrine of Transcendentalism...rather than his espousal of the use of referrals in growing a professional practice. For what I know of Thoreau, he doesn't seem to be the type to provide business-development advice to sales professionals.

Nonetheless, referrals through personal introductions are the proverbial "low-lying fruit" with regard to how sales professionals can expand their business efficiently, and cost-effectively.

A great new resource for referral ideas has recently become available. "Automatic-Referrals" is a sales weblog that is devoted exclusively to the business of sharing ideas and best-practices in the realm of Referrals and Introductions. Assembled by the folks at "www.horsesmouth.com". Automatic-Referrals looks to be a valuable resource for all advisors, financial and otherwise, who seek to grow their practice the easy way.

As such, "Automatic-Referrals" bears The Prospecting Professor's seal of approval.

Write Your Own Epitaph

"For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been."...John Greenleaf Whittier

If you got hit by a bus today, and had the spooky prescience to write your own epitaph right now...what would you say?

Would your words be filled with regrets?

When you look back at 2005, what are the things that you most regret NOT doing? In the early months of 2006, are you on track to NOT DOING them again?

Sales trainer, Jim Meisenheimer says that the best way to transform regrets into opportunities is to set them up as personal goals. He suggests writing down five things that you regret not doing last year. With this in mind, he says to make a list of the five things that you'd like to accomplish in 2006, professionally and personally.

Thomas Jefferson wrote his own epitaph...with few regrets I presume. In the months prior to his death, Jefferson designed his own gravestone, and wrote, "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson Author of the Declaration of American Independence Of the Statute of Virginia for religious toleration & Father of the University of Virginia."

None of us will ever have the chance of comparable achievements to President Jefferson, of course. However, we can always take control over our next, immediate steps.

"What you are is what you have been, what you will be is what you do now."...Buddha