/ 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?
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Your Biggest Prospecting Mistake: Calling Prospects Before They’re Ready
/ 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?
Read more
When to Call Clients to Keep Your Relationship Strong
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
It can be tricky determining how often to contact your clients. While regular communication is key to maintaining a healthy relationship, calling clients every week or month probably isn’t feasible.
At the outset, aim to understand each client’s preferences and their expectations communication-wise and make sure it fits your business plan. Some clients will be more interested in the investment process per se and will want to hear your thoughts and recommendations on a more regular basis. You may also find that as time goes on and your clients learn to trust you, they will be more relaxed and require fewer calls.
However, there are certain times when calling your clients is the right thing to do regardless of any prior agreement. Here are some key occasions when you should pick up the phone and speak to clients.
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Weekly Focus: Goal Setting
/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 1 comment
The beginning of a given year is the time to rewrite our goals, our mission statement and our business plan. For some of us that will involve a major overhaul and for some of us it will involve a tweak. For all of us, it will be a thought-provoking experience. Goal setting comes first. Decide what you want to accomplish and write it down. Set a date by which you will accomplish each goal. If you were charged with running a twelve-minute mile and nobody posted a finish line, you would have no way of knowing if you succeeded. It’s no different with business goals.
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