Prospecting Archives - Don Connelly & Associates

In the Prospecting blog category you will find blog posts about prospecting. Don’s tips would include but may not limited to prospecting for new clients, leaning on your clients, researching for clients, how to ask for referrals, and more.

For Financial Advisors, the Road to Success Begins with Solid Prospecting Habits

February 6, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

For financial advisors, there’s nothing like the thrill of signing a new client. But it doesn’t take very long in the business to realize that, without prospecting, those thrills can be few and far between. While signing new clients is the opportunity all advisors relish, they must first create those opportunities, which can only be done through continuous prospecting.

Most advisors consider prospecting to be the most challenging aspect of their work. The challenge for many is doing it consistently and effectively enough to produce sufficient opportunities. For some advisors, prospecting is an afterthought, only becoming necessary when their pipeline dries up. But with the typical lead-to-prospect conversion process lasting as many as six months, that could mean weeks or months before signing a new client.

Successful advisors know that the key to sustainable growth is a constantly replenished pipeline through persistent prospecting. The only way that happens is by building solid prospecting habits.

Here are the essential success habits advisors must develop to become effective and consistent prospectors.

How to Get More Unsolicited Referrals from Clients

December 19, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

Ask any successful advisor what the key to their success is, and they’ll tell you—referrals. You can’t grow a profitable practice without a steady stream of referrals. When you ask for and receive a referral, it’s an indication that you impressed your client enough to act on your request. But what if you didn’t have to ask for referrals? What if your clients were so impressed with you that they took the time to share their experience with someone without you having to ask?

You know what that feels like if it’s happened to you. But, for many advisors, it happens so rarely that it’s a major shock when it does. So, how do you make it happen consistently enough to make it an expectation?

Presenting the Strategy Paper to Turn Prospects into Clients

November 28, 2022 / by Russell Collins / Connelly Corner, Prospecting / 0 comments

In my previous guest blog post, I explained how I dissected the confirmed file note by dividing it into four separate quadrants in order to create a strategy to take to my next meeting – the Strategy Paper Meeting (SPM), It should lead to a “yes”, the prospect agreeing to do business with me.

In summary, the primary purpose of the SPM is to highlight a problem; get their agreement to the problem; that they want to solve it; and then involve them in the decision-making process. That way the decision becomes theirs and all I had to do was the numbers based on their ability to pay. In relation to the latter, I found the best time to do that was after I had proceeded through the strategy paper up to the point of discussing the shortfall with them. More on that later. Now let’s focus on the strategy paper itself.

Agenda for the Strategy Paper Meeting (SPM): What Is It and How to Prepare It

October 3, 2022 / by Russell Collins / Connelly Corner, Prospecting / 0 comments

By now you should be familiar with the concept of the File Note and how it helped me increase my closing rate to 9 out of 10 in life insurance sales. I found that the reaction to my file notes was one of people looking forward to our next meeting and how I was planning to deal with their particular situation. I called that meeting my Strategy Paper Meeting (SPM.)

Within the file note that they had previously confirmed, were a number of answers to my questions that highlighted problems to which they were not even aware existed at that time. My dissection process was to draw attention to those questions and their answers in such a simple format that would allow for frank discussion.

So, generally, the format for the SPM would look like this:

Nail the First Meeting with a Prospective Client: Address What Your Prospects Want to Know

July 18, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship, Prospecting / 0 comments

It takes a lot of time, patience, and effort to move a prospect through the funnel to the point when they finally agree to meet with you. For every prospect that makes it that far probably six to nine fall by the wayside. That makes that first meeting ever so crucial. There’s a lot that must be accomplished. It has to go perfectly. There’s a minimal margin for error.

Every advisor has their own formula for constructing a perfect prospect meeting. It invariably includes a polished presentation and ample opportunities to present oneself as a likable, competent professional.

However, ensuring that first meeting is a success comes down to how you structure it to address all the prospect’s questions and concerns. They’re meeting with you to find out who you are and why they should work with you. They need the answers to very specific questions on their mind even though they may not ask them. So, why not structure the meeting around what your prospects really want to know?

Here are a few such questions they are asking themselves.

How to Tell When a Prospect Is Ready to Become a Client

May 30, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

In their interactions with prospects, financial advisors reach a critical juncture when they must determine when or if a prospect is ready to become a client. If they make the wrong determination, it will likely result in a missed opportunity. Trying to close prospects before they are ready can push them away, while waiting too long can cause them to lose interest.

Wouldn’t it be nice if, when they are ready to buy, prospects would just pipe up and say, “I’d like to get started?” Unfortunately, it rarely happens that way. Your prospects are just as apprehensive about making a buying decision as you are asking them to buy. Most people need to be held by the hand and reassured that they’re making the right decision. Some may need a stronger nudge. But in almost every instance, financial advisors must know when the time is right and take the appropriate action.

If you bring a prospect far enough along in the process, it means you’ve probably done a lot of things right—built rapport, discovered their pain, explained your process and how you bring value, etc. Then it becomes a dance. Like that girl or boy you’ve been staring at across the dance floor, they will provide clues or buying signals when they’re ready to be asked. Here are a few such signals or clues.

Mapping Out the Client Acquisition Timeline—How Long It Takes to Get a New Client

March 14, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship, Prospecting / 0 comments

New clients are the lifeblood of a financial advisory practice, without which it could go into cardiac arrest. For newer financial advisors, acquiring new clients can’t happen fast enough. However, if obtaining clients was easy, anyone could be a successful financial advisor. Starting out, it’s an uphill battle that only the most determined can eventually win.

It also helps to have a systematic process for capturing leads, nurturing them through the sales funnel, and converting them into prospects, out of which a certain percentage become clients. That’s all laid out on a timeline that can vary significantly depending on the type of lead, where it came from, and how effective your process is for cultivating the lead. It could take anywhere from one month to a year for a lead to complete the journey through the funnel to becoming a new client.

Nothing Happens without an Appointment

January 3, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

Would you like to have $50,000,000 in assets under management? How about a $100,000,000? How about $500,000,000? It’s simple. It’s not easy, but it is simple. Go get an appointment. It all starts with getting an appointment. Nothing happens without an appointment in this business. Go on the appointment, get your nose bloody, come back and get another appointment. Then get another one. Then get another one. Building a career is a series of many steps. Success is not part time. Get in the habit of getting appointments.

Watch this video or read the transcript to learn how to get in the habit of getting appointments.

Your Biggest Prospecting Mistake: Calling Prospects Before They’re Ready

December 13, 2021 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

If you’ve been in this business for any length of time—one day to ten years or more—you know one thing to be an absolute certainty, that prospecting is your lifeblood. You understand the critical importance of filling up your pipeline and keeping it full of qualified leads that can be continuously converted into qualified prospects. But to identify someone as a qualified prospect, you have to contact them. So, you make the phone call.

If you don’t reach them the first time, you call back in a few days. After a third and fourth try, you dare to leave a voice message. Nothing. So, you recycle them in your CRM for a call two or three months from now. Meanwhile, your potential prospect has blocked future calls. Your CRM is now full of candidates who have refused and will continue to refuse to take your call. Where does that leave you?

If you are still counting them as potential qualified prospects, you are probably deluding yourself and diluting your pipeline with people who have no desire to talk with you. But what was your big mistake?

Here’s a Four-Pronged Plan to Become a Highly Referable Advisor

October 25, 2021 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

Most financial advisors find it difficult to ask for referrals. That we know because less than 11 percent even bother to ask. Maybe that small cadre of advisors knows something the other 89 percent don’t—that nearly three-quarters of high-net-worth clients say they would refer friends or colleagues if their advisors asked. That’s quite a disconnect, so I’m wondering if there is something else going on that’s preventing advisors from tapping this precious and obvious source of new clients.

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