Have you ever said to yourself, "I would make so much more money if I could only get a steady flood of high quality leads"? If you have, you're not alone.
When I started in this business 15 years ago, I struggled through torturous cold calling and the humiliation of begging for referrals. At the time, that was the only way I knew how to drum up business. I found out the hard way that cold prospecting and wrangling for referrals was a long road to nowhere. No matter how hard I tried, or how many hours I wasted, I still ended up with miserable results and empty pockets. It got so bad that I had to borrow money from my future wife, just to pay my rent. Talk about embarrassing. It is a wonder she even married me. This was no way to live.
I realized that if I kept doing what I was doing, I would never get enough leads to provide the kind of life I wanted for myself and my future family. So one day, I sat down at the kitchen table with a pen and notepad and began to analyze my selling and prospecting methods. I needed to figure out what I was doing wrong, and more importantly, what I could do to make things work. What I discovered that day has been the foundation of my success ever since.
To grow my commissions to the level I wanted, I knew I needed to get in front of enough qualified prospects who were interested in what I had to offer. This is not a unique problem. In fact, this is the number one complaint that most financial advisors have, and the number one reason why more than 90% of all new salespeople entering our industry fail within the first five years.
Why Does This Happen?
Quite simply, most of the prospecting, marketing, and selling methods we have been taught to use are invasive or interruptive. You know what it's like when a telemarketer calls you while you are trying to have a nice family dinner, or when a stranger approaches you in front of the grocery store pushing pamphlets on you. You know firsthand how annoying it can be to have your life interrupted, especially when they are trying to sell you something you have absolutely no interest in.
Yet, most agents continue to impose on people by cold calling, begging for referrals, knocking on doors, and shaking hands at the country club. No matter how ineffective and unacceptable these prospecting methods are, many agents persist in using them.
We do this because we are taught from the beginning that anyone and everyone is our prospect. The only requirement that a prospect must meet is that he or she must be breathing. But the reality is most of them simply are not interested.Trying to convince uninterested people to suddenly become interested is doomed to fail from the start.How does it work when you tell your wife or kids, "You should be interested in what I want you to be interested in"? Or, "You should do what I want you to do"? It doesn't work with your family and it definitely doesn't work with your prospects. If anything, it works as a repellent, pushing your prospects further away from you.
Capturing Prospects' Attention
The opposite of invasive or interruptive marketing is inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is a system you set up in which everyone you talk to has called you, and only you, first. They are already interested, motivated, qualified, and predisposed to do business with you before they call, because of the message you are delivering in your marketing.
Don't you think it would be easier to close more sales when you have interested prospects calling you? If you are at a car dealer's lot and the salesperson walks up to you and asks you if you need help, don't you have a natural, defensive tendency to tell him or her, "I'm just looking"? But in contrast, when you capture your prospects' attention with an emotionally-charged message that is tightly targeted to their personal self-interest, they will lower their guard. And if you are addressing a problem that they are facing and you offer the solutions they have been looking for, they will look to you as a knowledgeable consultant instead of a product-pushing salesperson. Combine that with a way for them to get information from you in a non-threatening way, and you will be amazed at how well they respond and how much personal information they are willing to share with you.
When I finally figured this out, my attitude toward the financial services industry changed and my commissions increased exponentially. I began testing different direct response methods. I spent countless hours at the library studying all of the greatest marketers from the past century. Almost overnight, I went from being in debt, scraping by on $37,000 a year, to making $447,300 in first-year commissions. The techniques that I had discovered, developed, and mastered were now producing a flood of prospects that were calling me, practically begging me for appointments.
This may sound crazy, but any agent can do it. First, identify a market you wish to target. Make a list of the criteria you want your ideal prospects to meet. For instance, list their age group, income, assets, etc. The more you know about your prospects, the easier you can relate to them. Once you know your targets, you can identify and appeal to their self-interest. By using irresistible passive direct marketing tools, interested prospects are compelled to respond to you to find solutions to their problems.The final step is setting up a system through which they can respond to you without feeling intimidated or threatened. If they feel comfortable, they will not only give you their personal information, but also their business. When you have accomplished this, you will be on your way to creating a stream of interested leads who all call you, and a stress-free, high-commission lifestyle.
Dean Cipriano is president and CEO of Insurance Selling Systems, LLC. He pioneered inbound direct response marketing techniques that helped him attain "Top of the Table" status in the Million Dollar Round Table in 1999. Mr. Cipriano compiled his techniques into a comprehensive turnkey marketing program for licensed agents and financial advisors, and has trained more than 6,800 agents throughout the U.S. and Canada.
