Get into Proactive Prospecting Mode

Seven Steps to Overcome Sales Call Reluctance and Get into Proactive Prospecting Mode

Last week, I had a conversation with Les, a 25-year veteran CFP. He admitted that he’d struggled with Sales Call Reluctance for the first few years of his career. Because he kept taking action and doing his best to serve his clients well, Les slowly developed notoriety in his market and enjoyed a reputation as a trusted advisor.

In reviewing his goals for the next three to five years, Les finally allowed himself to admit that his clients were aging, their children had moved away, and he needed to get back into aggressive, proactive business-building mode in order to sustain and grow his business. He asked about the steps involved in getting into proactive prospecting mode because he was once again experiencing Sales Call Reluctance.

Before reviewing the individual steps, a couple points must be highlighted. First, the key to overcoming the fear of prospecting is to fully accept the fact that it is NOT prospecting that causes your anxiety – it is your thoughts about prospecting that cause your anxiety. Breathe and let that settle in.

Secondly, a shift in mindset is required to overcome Sales Call Reluctance and make consistent prospecting part of your daily success plan. This shift occurs through awareness, choice and trust.

Step 1. Awareness begins with answering some questions: What do you want? What are your performance goals? I’m sure everyone reading this article is acutely aware of their 2011 performance goals and has written them down. If you have not written your goals down and are not reading them every day, commit to making this part of your daily routine. You will thank me later!

Step 2. Now that you have written down your goals, it’s time to examine the “why” behind what you want to accomplish. If you truly want to achieve your goals this year, set aside some time this week for this next step. I recommend that you isolate yourself in a quiet, safe, warm place with a blank notebook. At the top of the first page, write “Why?” Then begin recording all the reasons you want to achieve your goals. What is important about each of them? Keep in mind that your first answer is rarely the real answer. Continue writing, and do not stop until you are in tears. Yes, I mean literal tears. That is what I recommend: write until you have evoked deep emotional response regarding what is important to you. This is one of the most powerful exercises you can perform.

Listen to all the excuses you that come up for you, e.g., “I’m not an emotional type,” or “I have taught myself to be emotionally disconnected from my production.” I hear different variations on these from time to time. However, distancing yourself from your emotions is merely a coping mechanism that disconnects you from what is most important to you. Top producers are deeply rooted in their “why.” Every day, FAs are subject to potentially discouraging events and relationship challenges. When you are emotionally rooted in your “why,” you will quickly bounce back, experiencing greater resilience. The only way you are going to shift out of Sales Call Reluctance mode is to get deeply committed and emotionally connected to your “why.”

When most people sit down to start this exercise, they are tempted to answer the wrong question. Rather than “Why?” they tend to focus on “How?” Resist the temptation to get caught up in the “how.” Put the “how” aside. The “how” is the easy part. Horsesmouth archives and current articles are full of the best answers to “how” that you can find anywhere. Ignore the “how,” for now.

Stay on track with identifying your “why” and be as specific as you can be. Whatever comes up for you is the right answer, as long as it’s emotionally honest. It’s perfectly fine to want to be recognized by your company, your broker and/or your peers as a top producer, to have your dream home, or to enjoy luxurious vacations. I recommend that you type up your “whys” and read them every day, along with your goals. From your list, make a book or poster of images that represent your goals. It is important that the pictures resonate with you and depict exactly what you want. If you are tempted to dismiss this as a silly exercise, you do not understand how your brain works. What you think about, you bring about; what you focus on, you create. A top producing FA revealed that he has a private book with pictures of everything he wants in it. He reviews it daily. He has a dream business that grows more and more profitable every year.

Timothy Gallwey, author of The Inner Game of Work, defines awareness as getting the clearest possible picture of current reality. FAs have empirical knowledge of this, because you cannot move forward with a prospect until they have fully disclosed their current financial situation. Now it’s time to admit your current reality. Where are you right now with respect to your mega-priority performance goal? Wherever you are is fine. Breathe and be ruthlessly honest.

Step 3. Write down all the good things you have in place, e.g., your current AUM, and be deeply grateful for clients who believe in you. What about your assistant? Write down all the reasons you appreciate your assistant. What about your manager? Your firm? Your office? Acknowledge your referral sources who generously introduce you to prospects. Write only the positive aspects and allow yourself to recognize the good. As Barbara Fredrickson states in her book, Positivity, “It is the sparkle of good things that awakens your motivation to change.”

Step 4. Write down your strengths. Why are you good at what you do? Are you an excellent communicator? How does your education benefit you? Your certifications? Do clients highly respect you and listen to your advice? Are you smart? Enjoy finance? Do you love the process of walking people through their financial goals and helping them design their financial futures?  Your confidence breeds confidence in your prospects and clients.

Step 5. What is your unique value proposition? Knowing it is not enough; you must write it down. This is absolutely vital. If you do not know how you are unique, stop everything else you are doing and immediately get busy on this. Excuses are unacceptable. Work at it until you arrive at the thing that makes you unique. If any other FA can say the same thing, you have more work to do. Your laser-sharp value proposition is as unique as your fingerprint. Get together with your manager, a friend, mentor, mastermind partner, a coach – someone who will assist you with this important exercise. You need to confidently believe this statement with every fiber of your body. Once again, your confidence will breed confidence in your prospects. Most pitches I hear from struggling FAs are nonspecific, vague, ambiguous – they aren’t landing clients because they do not know why their prospects should retain them.

Step 6. Get into action. The baseball game does not begin until the pitcher throws the first ball.  You must start pitching in order to get the hits.  You may pitch a few foul balls and strike out from time to time, but you will not be in the game unless you are consistently pitching.  The more you pitch the more chances of a home run.  Do not kid yourself on this step. The “how” will come to you. You have resources galore. Get moving and put your daily strategy into place. Does your past experience prove that seminar selling works? How many strategic alliances do you have in place? How many prospects do you have on your top 20 list? This article is not about the “how” of prospecting because you already know how. If you don’t think you do, go back to steps 2 through 5 and your “how” will come to you.

Step 7. Now it’s time for you to proactively prospect and self-promote. The fear of self-promotion is the fear that underlies Sales Call Reluctance. What is your relationship with self promotion? What immediately comes up when you read the words “self-promote?” What perspective do you hold about self-promoters? Is it positive or negative? If it is negative, how might you shift it? What are alternative ways to interpret self-promotion? There are 12 fears FAs experience when they start self-promoting. For example, some think that prospects do not like to be called on the telephone. They make excuses like, “The telephone doesn’t work. All I get is voicemail, and no one ever returns my call.” Others convince themselves that high net worth prospects are already dealing with another FA. Some believe that prospects are tired of being prospected. Just know that you are projecting your fears, prejudices and self-doubt onto your prospecting calls and the fear, prejudice and self-doubt is reflecting back on you.  It is important that you allow yourself to identify your perspective on self-promotion and your negative intruders so that you can stop the negative and develop new neuronets in your brain around self-promotion.

Are you willing to shift your perspective? Remember: It’s not prospecting that causes your anxiety, it’s your thoughts about it.

Let’s reexamine the perspective of “All I get is voicemail and no one ever returns my call.” Is that statement really true? Has anyone ever returned your voicemail? Oh, yes admittedly some people do. I wonder if you need some work on your voicemail messaging? What resources are available on voicemail messaging? When was the last time you listened to one of the messages you left? Would you return your call?  Remember 73% of a voice message is your tonality.  Maybe if you left a more compelling message that proves you have done your homework, along with a request that they call you back at their earliest convenience, it might work.

Eavesdrop on yourself and observe any contradictions. You are crystal clear on your “why,” you have a reason to prospect, you know you have a compelling solution for your prospects; however, your thoughts (negative intruders) are sandbagging your efforts. Identify your negative intruders and write them down.

Now it’s time to discuss choice. Can anyone choose a thought for you? On any given day, you have anywhere from 30,000 to 60,000 thoughts. When you are in prospecting mode, your habitual thoughts are like knee-jerk reactions – they come up automatically. The good news is that because habits are learned, you can unlearn them by becoming aware of them. Identify them, allow them to come forward, write them down. Now, what alternative perspective might you choose?

For example, a five-year CFP said to me today, “Nobody wants to talk to a financial planner. They don’t respect financial planners.” His negative perspective is costing him his career. He suffers from toxic role rejection Call Reluctance, meaning he is vastly uncomfortable in the role of a salesperson. He has some shifting to do, which might be difficult but is entirely possible for him as long as he’s willing to consider choosing alternative perspectives.

When you move through awareness, know you always have a choice, the most fantastic thing happens, you begin to trust the process and most important trusting yourself.  Self-trust is the foundation of any successful career.

The two CFPs referred to above are really no different from you. Each of you can have fantastic results if you work the steps, know your “why,” and deliberately challenge your negative interpretations/perspectives and choose alternative supportive thoughts that enable you to develop a positive perspective. The only shame in Sales Call Reluctance is living with it unnecessarily.

Connie Kadansky, MA, PCC is a coach, speaker and trainer specializing in Overcoming Sales Call Reluctance®.  She offers effective tools and training to diagnose call reluctance and assists salespeople in highly profitable prospecting.  Connie facilitates the Fear-Free Prospecting and Self-Promotion Workshop® globally.  For additional information, contact Connie at 602-997-1101 or visit her website at www.exceptionalsales.com.



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