The Prospecting Professor

How Physicians Interview

Studies have shown that the quality of the initial "medical interview"...the conversation between physician and patient...can determine the level of satisfaction experienced by patients. Last week in Chicago, medical experts gathered to hear a conference sponsored by the American Academy of Physicians and Patients...to discuss this very topic.

The interview model that has gotten the most attention in the medical community was created by Kaiser Permanente. It is known as the "Four Habits" model, and is intended to set the interview techniques that doctors can use, and also provides a road-map for patients alike.

On average, a physician conducts 120,000-160,000 interviews over the course of their career. Even modest improvements in their interviewing skills can have a significant impact upon treatment, outcomes, and the cost of care. If physicians get it wrong from the outset, there is likely to be premature testing and the submergence of the hidden concerns of the patient.

Here is a summary of the "Four Habits" Kaiser Permanente model:

1. Invest in the Beginning. Create rapport quickly. Elicit the patient's concerns. Let the patient know what to expect.
2. Get the Patient's Perspective. Ask for patient's ideas. Determine patient's specific request of goal. Explore the impact on the patient's life.
3. Demonstrate Empathy. Be open to the patient's emotions. Make empathetic statements. Convey empathy non-verbally.
4. Invest in the End. Deliver diagnosis in terms of original concern. Explain rationale for tests and treatments. Summarize visit and review next steps.

Here's a bonus thought. For financial advisors who have physicians as prospects or clients, during your next meeting ask them if they mind if YOU follow the Kaiser Permanente Four Habits interview model.

See what reaction you get.

Home Run Questions

Jack Hubbard is the chairman of St.Meyer & Hubbard, a sales education firm based in Elgin, IL...that focuses on the banking industry. In the July/August issue of Commercial Lending Review, he discusses the sales prospecting process that he teaches to bankers as they interact with their prospects, primarily business owners.

His training closely follows the words of Dale Carnegie, "You can make more friends in two weeks by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."

In brief, here's a summary of what Hubbard teaches.

• Thought Starters. A thought starter is a precall email or fax that includes three to five high-payoff questions. Thought starters, sent immediately after the appointment is booked, begin the call several days before the banker leaves the office. The purpose is to create curiosity in the mind of the prospect.
• Never take sales literature on the first call.
• Take two pens that work...and a notepad. Consider writing the Home Run Questions along the margins...or at the top of the page.
• Bring plenty of business cards. At the end of the call, stop by the gatekeeper's desk and leave a card with them...thanking them for their assistance in booking the appointment.
• Bring a "leave behind"...not something about your firm. This could be an article about the business's industry, or a new sales book that can help the business owner grow revenues.
• Types of Questions. Been, Now, Headed (BNH). Mr. Hubbard thinks it imperative that the banker determines where the business has been, where it is now, and where it is headed. These questions uncover overt and latent needs. Issues and Implications...e.g. What are some of the issues that the business owner is facing? If the owner does, or doesn't, do something about these issues, what will be the consequences?
• Final Question. Towards the end of the call, Hubbard suggests inserting the following, "Before we talk about next steps, I'd like to ask the following. What, if anything, haven't we discussed about your personal or business situation that we should talk about now?" In most cases, the prospect will say something like, "I can't think of anything now." Yet, when they do respond to this one, it is most likely a key issue.

Hubbard sums up his sales prospecting process with the following aphorism, "The buyer has the answers, the seller has the questions." Good advice that would benefit us all!

CORE Conversation

Lou Cassara is a Top of the Table producer with Northwestern Mutual. His sales philosophy has four principal tenets:

• Be clear that you make the difference in every life.
• Be confident that your process of relating to another person is your real "product."
• Be capable of honoring your agreements.
• Stop asking yourself what someone else needs and start asking yourself what makes you come alive and stay committed.

He believes that all relationships are simply a reflection of the one that you have yourself. He espouses that sales professionals have an "authentic mindset", i.e. they are clear about who they are and confident about what they will and will not do. They align their intentions and actions to produce results that have an impact upon other person's lives.

Lou Cassara begins his sales relationships with a "CORE Conversation." His first question is deceptively simple, "What can I help you accomplish in the next 12 months that would make you feel happy with your progress?"

Consider why this question works. It assumes that a partnership between the salesperson and the client will occur. It focuses on the next 12 months, a time period that we all can grasp. It focuses on the client's goals...and the client's happiness.

If the client shares this answer with him, here are the follow-ups:

• What are the biggest challenges that you face?
• What opportunities in life would you like to capture?
• What are the most important relationships in your life?
• In your experience, what has, and has not, worked for you?

Lou Cassara believes that successful advisors help clients convert onerous tasks to powerful intentions. An intention is the direction of your life, the purpose and the fuel that propels you. A goal is something that would make you feel happy if it was achieved. A task is something that makes you feel relieved when it is done. A task is undertaken grudgingly, often through goals that are imposed upon someone from an outside influence. In contrast, intentions are internally generated, and are much more likely to be sustained.

"The starting point of all achievement is desire."...Napoleon Hill

Questions Reveal (cont.) (cont.)

The sales process is actually an extended conversation. Conversations are dialogues...not monologues. In a sales conversation, one of the best techniques to turn a monologue into a dialogue...is the use of  questions.

Communications expert Dorothy Leeds talks about the 7 hidden powers of questions in how we communicate with others:

1. Questions demand answers.
2. Questions stimulate thinking.
3. Questions provide valuable information.
4. Questions put you in control.
5. Questions get people to open up.
6. Questions lead to quality listening.
7. Questions get people to persuade themselves.

Bill Nicklin, the ultra-successful advisor who co-founded Horsesmouth, is a master of the question that stimulates thinking, and provides valuable information. He terms his questions, "knowledgeable considered opinions or KCOs). He uses KCOs to get the attention of high-net-worth investors. Recently he used KCOs to garner his largest account ever.

Here's are some examples of a Nicklin KCO.

• He might ask an officer or director of a company, "How are you being affected by Sarbanes-Oxley Rule 404?"
• He might ask a medical professional, "How will you be affected by prospective government legislation?"
• He might ask someone in a commodity-related business, "What would happen if China stumbles, causing foreign direct investment to decline?"
• He might ask someone in the ag-business, "What will happen if the federal government eliminates subsidies?"

KCOs are very open-ended questions, that the questioner gives some thought to, and are rather specific to the industry/profession of the person being questioned. As importantly, KCOs demand that the questioner LISTEN to the response...to allow follow-up with even more specific questions. For more insights on how Bill Nicklin uses KCOs, go to www.horsesmouth.com, and enter the keyword KCO. (By the way, if you are a financial advisor and are not a member of Horsesmouth...shame on you! It's the second-most, cost-effective, business-building resource in the business. All humility aside, The Prospecting Professor is the first...since we are FREE.)

Mike Schultz and John Doerr run a consultancy for providers of professional services. Here are some open-ended questions that they have developed to query the business-owner and/or entrepreneur.

• What's going on in your business these days?
• How has your company/industry changed in the last few years?
• What keeps you up at night?
• In the best of all possible worlds, what do you think you could do with your business?
• What's holding you back from reaching your financial goals?
• If your afflictions don't get solved, what will happen? Will they get worse? How will they affect you, your company's bottom line, or your family and children?

The point is...good questions are a magic elixir. Brew some up on your own...and take a long deep drink. You'll feel better.

Lance Armstrong Update: For all of you Tour junkies, (like me) yesterday was a good day. Lance Armstrong re-took the Yellow Jersey in a 112 mile charge up the Alps. He literally blew away  all of his most-vaunted competitors. The Tour is far from over...anything can happen  in this race.

Yet...here's the deal with Lance this year in the tour. He's already won six Tours, more than anyone else. He doesn't have to prove anything. This is his last Tour. You know that all of his competitors who he has smoked over the years have only one more shot to beat him.

Yesterday he showed us that he is capable of digging so deep mentally that he can win when all others would crack under the pressure. He has demonstrated that human potential is only limited by the size of our dreams. What steps are you taking to fulfill your wildest dreams? Are you taking them? If not, what's holding you back?

Lance Armstrong is not a saint. His hyper-competitive nature prevents him from being a person of "sweetness and light." At the same time, he is the living embodiment of what we all can achieve.

Allez, allez Lance!

Questions Reveal cont.)

Today, I wanted to continue the discussion about using questions in the sales process...and how good questions can be used effectively by financial advisors. However, I'd like to ask your indulgence. My day has completely got away from me, and I have been unable to spend the time on this topic that it deserves. I would like to put the discussion on PAUSE...and come  back to it tomorrow. Thank you.

In the meantime, please enjoy the following thoughts on questions:

• No one ever listened himself out of a job...Calvin Coolidge

A prudent question is one half of wisdom...Sir Francis Bacon

It is better to ask some of the questions, than to know all of the answers...James Thurber

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning...Albert Einstein

Chatter Conceals, Questions Reveal

"A sudden, bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open."...Sir Francis Bacon

Although there were 661,783 financial representatives who were registered with the NASD as of 6/30/05...they are not your biggest competition. The #1 competitor with regard to acquiring new accounts is...the status quo of the prospective investor. They don't have to buy from you. They don't have to do anything. Doing nothing is fine by them. Most likely, they have an advisor anyway...and switching their allegiance to you involves effort. Therefore, the discussion with a prospective investor must revolve around...how working with you...will help THEM. The quickest way to get to this discussion is by truly understanding what prospective investors want to accomplish.

Question are the shortcut to the conversations that win over prospective investors.

This may seem obvious to you. If so, that's good. However, this is not obvious to all salespersons. In fact, the common societal stereotype regarding salespersons is that they are good at talking, and bad at questions...and listening. Consider these words, from a sales manual written 120 years ago...written for book agents who sold books door-to-door.

"People admire those agents who thoroughly understand their (i.e. the agent's) business. They expect to hear your talk, and you must not disappoint them. If you keep pouring hot shot at them, striking blow after blow, and raining down argument after argument, you will have very few objections to overcome, for you will give people no opportunity to raise them."

So there it is. In order to avoid objections, the salesperson must inhale all of the oxygen around the prospect's head such that they become so dizzy and disoriented that they buy from you. It's a good thing that sales techniques have advanced so significantly from the sales patter of the hucksters and peddlers of the late 1800's. Or have they?

More on this tomorrow. Stay tuned for "sudden, bold and unexpected" questions that financial advisors can use to "surprise a man and lay him open."