How can financial adviser representative achieve better result for cold calls ?
Prospecting is always a challenge for financial adviser representatives (FAR). Regardless you are a newbie, veteran or manager in the financial service industry, you will be prospecting but your objective maybe different.
One of the most used way for prospecting is cold calling. No one ever said cold calling is easy. But if your efforts aren’t producing results, have you ever considered it’s not the method, but how you’re executing it that’s not working?
In The Training Academy, our trainers are practitioners like yourself. We have more than a decade of industry experience and we would like to share 4 ideas that may improve your cold calling activities.
Research your list of prospects
Every so often, FAR purchased leads of random contact numbers. Due to PDPA, there may be a situation that the only information you have on the prospect is the contact number and you start dialing away without even knowing the name, age, gender etc of the person you are calling.
In today’s environment, we can find critical pieces of information on your prospects on that can be incorporated into your pre-approach before the call. Some of these information may include their age, background, career path, industry and interests. You can find the list of “qualified” prospects in Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media platforms. Isn’t it better if you can build a rapport with your prospect before you cold call them?
Use a script
Even if you are an experienced FAR, you are strongly encouraged to use a script for cold calling. A well-prepared script is not one that you can speak fluently when you make the cold call. It is one that allows you to practice with near perfection such that you can talk normally instead of sounding like a robot. However, because you are so well-prepared, you can concentrate on the call and not focusing on what to say next.
A well-prepared script also allows you to bring you back to the topic when your prospect starts to talk about everything else under the sun. You can practice this script with a colleague or your supervisor to make it to perfection!
Asking the right questions
A common cold call that we received goes like this – ” Hi, I’m John from ABC insurance company. We have just launch a new saving plans….”
The objective for a cold call is to secure a sales appointment but the primary objective is to get the prospect engaged with the call so you can build rapport. It makes no sense to continue in a conversation if you have no interest in the topic. And the prospect is not giving you more than a minute to capture his interest. Asking the wrong kind of question can either cause the prospect to zone out or make his way out.
As part of your list research and prepared script, you can have a series of questions that are of their interest. You can also prepare a list of probing questions that starts with the 5 “Ws” – Who, What, When, Where, Why.
Follow-up with the prospect
One of the earliest advice we get from our parents is ” Don’t talk to strangers”.
One of the worst mistakes made is calling a prospect once and expect them to say “yes” and their name goes down the abyss if they had said “no”. There are numerous studies showing that it takes between six and twelve contacts to turn a cold prospect into warm lead. However, that does not mean we have to contact the same cold prospect six times a week or a month.
Thus, a good CRM system or strategy is important to ensure a timely follow-up. And again, you can research your prospect list and organise them according to interest or demographics to touch base with them.
We will be sharing how we can incorporate these idea into a social media lead generation activity in the coming weeks. Following us on Facebook and LinkedIn to get details on the dates and for more business ideas!