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.

Prospect Objections Are Often a Cry for Help. Your Job Is to Help Them.

May 31, 2021 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

As a financial advisor, you are valued for your expert knowledge, but you are only as effective as your ability to get your prospects and clients to act on your recommendations. If you can’t, their situations won’t improve, and neither will yours. Many financial advisors in that situation might chalk it up to them being “bad” prospects and move on, but aren’t they abdicating their role as an advisor?

Certainly, advisors shouldn’t use strongarm tactics to turn their prospects around, but shouldn’t they at least understand the reason behind the objection? Could they learn some valuable insights that would help resolve the issue, if not for the prospect in front of them, but for similar situations they encounter in the future?

In the financial advisory business, objections come with the territory. They’re often just knee-jerk reactions from clients hesitant to make a change. Prospects often don’t understand the real reason behind their objection—they’re just not comfortable moving forward. As an advisor, your job is to help them acknowledge the real reason so they can place it in the context of what you have offered them.

To Get to “Yes” Financial Advisors Must First Get to “Why” and Stir Up Emotions

May 24, 2021 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

What if, in every initial client meeting, your prospects would just come right out and tell you what’s important to them and what it would mean to them if you could help them? Indeed, it would make your job much easier, but then anyone could do it. The challenge is most people don’t think that way, and it’s your job as a financial advisor to help them uncover their most important issues.

But even that doesn’t go far enough because all you’ve done is uncover the “what.” People don’t act on the “what.” They act on the “why.” When fully revealed, the “why” becomes the key motivating factor. It contains the emotions that drive people to act. Your value as a financial advisor is to get people to take the actions you know will help them. If you can’t trigger the emotions behind what’s important to them, they are not likely to take action.

First Meeting Conversations You Need to Have with Prospective Clients

May 10, 2021 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

Let’s be honest. Many financial advisors view the first client meeting frettingly as an obstacle to overcome on their way to, hopefully, establishing a new client relationship. After all, the way you start a first client meeting sets the tone for how your relationship will develop—if it develops at all. Prospective clients don’t make it any easier, often approaching their first advisor meeting with an air of skepticism or apprehension. This creates an unnatural tension that crowds out trust-building. That tension must be broken at the outset, and the ball is in the advisor’s court.

The 5 Essential Qualities Financial Advisors Need to Improve Cold Call Results

May 3, 2021 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices, Prospecting / 0 comments

No one ever said cold calling was easy, but some people have an easier time of it than others. Skills have a lot to do with that. But sometimes, learning skills is not enough.

The most successful cold callers share certain qualities and traits that give them an edge over and above the skills they acquire. We’ve discussed some of these traits in past articles, including positivity, perseverance, tenacity, and resilience. These traits are critical because they can keep you in the game in the face of constant rejection. However, successful cold callers possess other essential qualities and attributes that help them up their game.

Let’s have a look at five such essential qualities and traits.

3 Types of Prospects Financial Advisors Should Pursue and How to Connect with Them

March 15, 2021 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

3 Types of Prospects Every Financial Advisor Should Pursue and How to Connect with Them

All financial advisors know that prospecting is the lifeblood of their business. Filling the funnel with a constant flow of qualified leads has long been the biggest challenge facing advisors, regardless of how long they’ve been in the business. Scores of books and articles have been written on “the best” prospecting tips and techniques. Yet, many advisors continue to suffer from the “spinning your wheels” syndrome, feeling as if their efforts keep dredging up the same results—poor-quality prospects or prospects who have neither the incentive nor financial capacity to take action.

Sure, prospecting is and always has been driven by the “law of numbers,” but who says you can’t tilt the numbers in your favor. You’d be foolish not to try. Even if you’ve identified a target market based on an ideal client profile, it’s still a numbers game. However, if you truly understand the type of prospect you’re looking for, you may be able to drastically reduce the number of rocks you need to turnover.

How to Fill Your Pipeline Despite the Coronavirus Pandemic

June 29, 2020 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

Back in 1998, physician and author Spencer Johnson wrote a best-selling book called “Who Moved My Cheese?”

It’s the story of four mice who live in a maze and who have grown accustomed to cheese being deposited in the same spot every day… until one day it didn’t happen. The rest of the book explores their strategies for coping with change – both successful and unsuccessful.

The moral of the story is this: “Change happens.” It’s inevitable. Not everyone can roll with the punches, but you’ve got to adapt, improvise and overcome. You’ve got to move with the cheese.

Well, friends, the cheese just got moved!

Now, don’t get me wrong: The cheese hasn’t gone away. It’s still out there! People still want and need help managing their money. In fact, they want and need it now more than they have in years. But the way to get to the cheese is now radically different.

Deal with Objections Before They Become Mindsets

February 24, 2020 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

Most salespeople in any industry quickly become proficient at handling objections after the client or prospect brings them up. And that’s a good skill to have. But if you’re constantly dealing with the same objections at the end of your initial presentation, you’re already at a disadvantage – and very likely you’ve lost the chance to win the client.

If you’ve gone for the close and asked for the order, and the prospective client is still raising objections, the battle is on. It’s a signal that the prospect’s mental shields are up. In fact, you may not even be seriously in the fight anymore. This is the case when the objection the person is giving you is not the real objection.

The Importance of Why when Soliciting Referrals

January 27, 2020 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

When you ask clients for referrals, and hopefully clients are going to solicit referrals for you, you really have to get them to focus on why they do business with you. I think it’s important to tell people what you do and how you do it, but why they’re doing business with you is the most important part of any referral.

Listen to this audio episode or read the transcript to learn the importance of why when it comes to growing your business as a Financial Advisor.

5 Reasons Why Clients Might Not Want to Refer You

July 8, 2019 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship, Prospecting / 0 comments

The best way to gather new clients is via referral, especially since many wealthier investors find their financial advisors this way. If you are failing to acquire referrals, you need to address this issue as a matter of importance. Lack of success invariably boils down to a number of reasons – in particular an inability to get along with people.

Here are 5 reasons that could explain why clients aren’t lining up to refer you.

5 Creative Ways to Follow-up with a Prospect

May 27, 2019 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

In an ideal world every prospect would sign up with you at the first meeting, immediately recognizing they are in need of what you are offering. In the real world however, prospects may not yet realize your value or understand that they can trust you.

Don’t leave things to chance on the basis they may get back to you. Always follow up. Make sure to call prospects and speak to them directly. You don’t have to feel that you’re trying to push products onto people who are not in the market for your services. Remember, they have indicated that they’re actively looking for a financial advisor.

People tend to get distracted easily however, so here are some additional ways to remind prospects of your worth.

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