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."
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