Jerry, a financial advisor, was building a clientele of up-and-coming professionals.  He was always diligent about asking for referrals.  One day, one of his clients — an architect — offered to arrange a luncheon meeting to introduce Jerry to a prominent local attorney from one of the community’s oldest and wealthiest families.

Jerry’s initial surge of excitement and gratitude soon dissipated, replaced by a deep-seated feeling of dread.  Jerry had grown up on the “wrong” side of the tracks, and even though he’d been to college and become financially successful in his own right, he felt completely intimidated by old money and social standing.  Jerry has alluded to these feelings a few times in the past, but his manager always responded with the same pep talk:  “High-net-worth people put their pants on one leg at a time just like you and me.”

Paralyzed by imagined inferiority

Intellectually, Jerry knew what his manager said was true, but it didn’t help at all, because he was entrenched in something that we call “social self-consciousness.”  It’s one of the 12 types of Sales Call Reluctance that cause financial advisors to avoid prospects with wealth, prestige, power, education, or social status.

Financial advisors know that in order to succeed, they need to be prospecting and getting appointments with people who are the ultimate decision maker.  Often, though, financial advisors who come from blue-collar roots or have been indoctrinated into a psychological caste system have a tendency to elevate upscale individuals to exaggerated heights of superiority and influence.

Financial advisors with social self-consciousness excessively admire influential or very wealthy people and feel inferior to them, and when they are in the presence of such people, they regress into debilitating behaviors.  They swing between feeling admiration and feeling intimidated, conflicted, and even awestruck.  They may clam up or begin to fawn on the person, unable to find a healthy middle ground where they can prospect successfully.

Diagnosing the problem

What do you do if you fit this description?  All the intellectualizing in the world will not resolve this fear.  It needs to be addressed emotionally and behaviorally.

First, you must take responsibility for what you are experiencing.  This is not the most popular advice.  However, it is really the only way in order to overcome social self-consciousness.

Observe your behavior with service personnel or other people you may feel are inferior to you in some way.  Some people who experience social self-consciousness habitually intimidate those they perceive as below them on the social ladder.  They treat these people just as poorly and in just the same way as they believe their own social “betters” have treated them.

If you find that you are rude or even somewhat rude toward people that you rate lower in social standing than yourself, immediately start going out of your way to notice how they contribute to society.  Notice their value.  Everyone, even the homeless person on the street, contributes to society in some way.  (For instance, seeing a homeless person may trigger others to be more grateful or more compassionate.  This is a valuable contribution.)  Begin to treat everyone, regardless of their perceived social standing, with courtesy and respect.  Extend pleasantries to everyone you encounter.  You will be amazed at the result.

‘Zap’ to interrupt habitual thought

Now it’s time to work on the day-to-day thoughts and behaviors that are standing in the way of your success.

Step 1:  Document your negative thoughts. When you think about prospecting someone you view as upscale and find yourself feeling intimidated, write down the thought that is triggering the intimidation.  Perhaps it’s something like these:

• “People like her get prospected day in and day out by salespeople.”
• “He must already be working with a financial advisor he really likes.”
• “These people are well networked; calling on them is futile.  They only work with their friends.”

Notice the story you are making up that is keeping you from prospecting.  This awareness is vital.  It is not prospecting upscale clientele that is intimidating you.  It is your thoughts about prospecting upscale clientele that are intimidating you.

As simple as this may sound, it is very profound.  Once you recognize that making up stories is what is making you miserable and casting you into intimidation and self-doubt, you take back the power to stop feeling that way.  Your freedom from social self-consciousness begins with your willingness to write down these pessimistic thoughts, or what we call “negative intruders.”

Step 2:  Observe your emotions. Once you have identified a negative intruder, notice your emotional reaction.  Are you stammering?  Does your brain freeze?  Is your speech monotone or overly fawning or apologetic?  Become a scientist of your emotions and behavior.

Be careful:  Many financial advisors get angry at themselves at this point.  They brutally criticize and chastise themselves for having these feelings.  This is a trap of self-sabotage.  You must break the habit of self-criticism.  It is always destructive, never productive.  When you judge yourself, you lose the entire effect of the exercise.  So just notice, without judgment.

Step 3:  Zap your negative thoughts. Get a wide rubber band and put it on your wrist.  Every time you spot a negative intruder, zap yourself with a gentle snap of the rubber band.  This will interrupt the habitual thought that is holding you back.  Zap every single time you have thoughts of being inferior to or intimidated by someone of higher wealth or social standing than you.

The thought-zapper rubber band is not to be used for punishment. It does not need to hurt, just sting slightly.  The purpose is to add a physical component to changing your habits of mind, your thinking habits.

Make no mistakes:  Feeling intimidated by important people is a habit.  No one is born socially self-conscious.  It is entirely learned.  The zapper will actually work on rewiring the neural networks in your brain that have been hard-wired to make you believe that upscale prospects are intimidating and that you are not worthy of their business.  A habit’s worse enemy is interruption.

If you are the type that would use the thought zapper as painful punishment, you are advised to not employ this technique.  It would be counterproductive and actually cause more self-sabotage.  (Go back to Step 2 and try to work on being nonjudgmental with yourself and others.  This will help you move on.)

Step 4:  Neutralizing the negative. Now that you have zapped, replace the negative intruder with a neutral thought, such as:

• “He probably gets lots of calls.  That means timing is everything.  I will be the first to call him today.”
• “Even if she is working with someone else, she may be looking for a second opinion on that new tax law, and I can provide potentially valuable information prior to her filing income tax returns.”
• “As well-networked as some people are, they can be open to meeting new people who have something interesting to present.”

The more you zap the habitual thoughts that trigger negative feelings about prospecting influential or wealthy people, the more you’ll break the hard-wiring in your brain and replace it with new neural networks.

Step 5:  Change your behavior. When you do eventually make the call, remember that many high-net-worth people employ assistants, or gate openers.  Notice my choice of terms:  gate openers.  Many salespeople think of these assistants as “gatekeepers” and get into defense mode prior to making th  eir prospecting calls.

Instead, think of them as gate openersand treat them just as you would treat the high-net-worth client.  Tell them exactly who you are and the purpose of your call, using an engaging statement that piques their interest.  Don’t go off on an internal campaign about receptionists and administrative assistants and how rude they are to salespeople.  This is a great time to practice treating everyone with respect and noticing their value.

When you attend events of any kind, seek out the people in the spotlight, introduce yourself, and initiate a conversation.  You do not need to think of yourself as prospecting at this point.  You are simply conditioning yourself to meet the people who used to intimidate you.  And you just may find out that they are pretty cool people who are more open — and more human — than you thought!

Be patient

There is no overnight fix for social self-consciousness.  After all, it didn’t develop overnight.  It has been with you a long time.  But the sooner you start with these types and techniques — all of which have been proven to break the logjam of call reluctance — the more quickly you will start to feel comfortable with all types of people, regardless of their wealth or social standing.

As Rudyard Kipling reminds us in his famous poem “if”:

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none to much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And which is more you’ll be a Man, my son!

It’s build on an Aesop fable that goes something like this.

A farmer’s son, is daydreaming as he walks to town with a pail of milk balanced on his head. His thoughts: “The milk in this pail will provide me with cream, which I will make into butter, which I will sell in the market, and buy a dozen eggs, which will hatch into chickens, which will lay more eggs, and soon I shall have a large poultry yard. I’ll sell some of the fowls and buy myself a handsome new suit and go to the fair, and when the young ladies become amorous, I’ll puff my chest and toss my head as I pass them by.” At that moment, he tossed his head and lost the pail full of milk. His father admonished, “Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.”

As children and young adults we take countless uncalculated risks.  As we mature and grow wiser, we learn from our mistakes, and the mistakes of others, and we become increasingly risk averse.   Since the beginning of time — well at least since Aesop in 600 B.C. — the wise and mature sentiments have been “look before you leap”, “once burned, twice shy” and, “don’t count your chicken before they are hatched”.

If you think about that, it becomes easy to understand why those of us who are prepared to take risks — calculated risks — are the ones who are most likely to reap fortunes.

The financial fiasco of 2008 and 2009 are quite literally behind us.  Some of us will choose to batten down the hatches and never put ourselves in a position to have to deal with that again.  Others will look into the future at the opportunities that are presented while so many are shaking in their boots.

The time may never be better invest in your future.  If we go back to Aesop’s fable; the chickens are hatching and it’s time to do something with them.

Here’s a generic example first and we’ll apply it to financial services a bit later on. Think about toothpaste. Its basic function is to clean teeth. Pretty boring stuff right? NOT! Through our ever increasing need for choices, toothpaste’s purpose has expanded over the years to: prevent cavities, freshen breath, whiten teeth, desensitize to heat and cold, brighten smiles and even heighten sexual prowess.

You can walk into most department stores and be faced with an entire mind-numbing isle of selection on shapes, sizes, flavors from this list: Aim, Aquafresh, Arm & Hammer, Colgate, Crest, Darlie, Doramad, Elmex, Euthymol, Gleem, Ipana, Kolynos, Lion, Mentadent, Oral-B, Pepsodent, Sensodyne, Signal, Sozodont, Stomatol, Therabreath, Tom’s of Maine, Ultra Brite, Zendium.

That’s just toothpaste. Imaging being sent to the store for toothpaste, salad dressing and cereal. Essentially, you would be faced with more than 2,000 choices. And, the choices are getting bigger every day.

The common misconception is that choices make things better, they free us up and we are more satisfied as a result. In truth, the exact opposite happens.
Here is what selection and choice does: (Start thinking of these in terms of your practice.)

1. Too many choices can create paralysis to the point of no decision being made at all. Or, more specifically, the decision to make no choice and simply put the decision off. It has been shown repeatedly that when the anxiety and risk of making the wrong decision exceeds possible benefit, then the go-forward decision is simply postponed to tomorrow, then tomorrow, then tomorrow and eventually the decision never happens.
2. When faced with a variety of choices, after a decision is made, people are more easily dissatisfied with their choice. This is because it is easy to imagine the benefits and rewards we might have achieved had we picked something else. Buyer’s remorse or regret are more prevalent when there are a multitude of choices and the most minor malfunction, or lack of performance is quickly compared to the utopia that would have been provided through a different decision.
3. Given hundreds or even thousands of choices for a product or service, our expectations increase significantly when it comes to the rewards of our decision. We believe that surely, with so many choices and options, the decision we make will meet our exact need. In reality, that is rarely the case. Our expectations increase in proportion to the number of choices we have and as a result, the product or service rarely meets our excessively high expectations.
4. We blame ourselves for bad decisions. Surely, with all the choices out there, there is a product or service that is perfect for us. As suppliers push decisions onto consumers, the consumers take ownership for “betting on the wrong horse.” As a result we are even less satisfied with our decisions and even more reluctant to make a decision the next time.
   

   So what does all mean to people in the financial services industry — an industry where clients have access to an almost infinite array of choices?

   You need to balance your client’s need to be informed and be part of the decision with their need to feel comfortable with the decision to the point of not even thinking about it again after the decision is made.

   There is really only one way to do that. With full disclosure in mind, inform them in the simplest terms possible and help them make the decision. Take ownership for the decision whenever possible and keep them informed as to the results. The more work you do in assisting the decision, the less work they will be compelled to do and the happier they will be in both the short and long term.

   Reducing choice to increase satisfaction, retention and even referrals seems counter intuitive. Speaking of choices; simplifying decisions for your clients is a choice only you can make.

In October of 2009, the Association of British Insurers called on the European Commission to deliver a framework for removing remuneration bias as well as other changes in the way retail investment products are sold. How long will it be before this is a reality in Europe and North America? Or better yet, how prepared will you be to change the way you’ve always done business?

The ABI urged the EC to:

- put the needs of consumers first when thinking about any new regulatory framework for PRIPs at a European level;

- recognise the importance of increasing consumers’ savings and encouraging a competitive environment between different product types and manufacturers;

- focus on the economic purpose of a product, rather than its legal form – equivalent products should have equivalent regulatory treatment;

- recognise that consumers want, need and deserve a regulatory framework for selling practices that focuses on their needs, treats them fairly, enables them to understand the sales process and ensures that financial advice is not biased by remuneration arrangements with product providers.

Read full articles – Article 1 | Article 2.

Download the Packaged Retail Investment Products (PRIPs): New Ways of Thinking

In Leading Change, Kotter outlines eight necessary steps to effective change. This article deals with the first of these. We’ve all heard some rendition of the saying, if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got. Kotter points out that the very first step to making any significant change is the recognition that change is necessary. He highlights the point by stating unequivocally that change will fail, or not even be attempted, if there is an absence of a visible crisis.

There’s the rub. Recognizing the crisis is not pleasant or easy. It can actually be painful. We plug along, we do what we’ve always done and things just happen. We tweak things, we try this, we try that, we learn along the way and we somehow get a little better and a little stronger.

Real change, the type of change that catapults us to significant success requires a sense of urgency, a sense of crisis. As humans we are pre-wired to look for comfort and to avoid conflict and crisis. By our very nature, we don’t notice subtle changes that happen over time – even though those very changes, if they happened all at once, would accumulate to alert our natural instincts that a crisis had developed.

Here’s an example. Watch this short 12 second video. Be advised up front that there is a change happening. Press the play button now and watch for the change.



Did you spot it? Not likely. Now try it again – this time, Drag the timeline arrow on the bottom of the video to speed it forward and backward quickly and the change will become obvious. If you still can’t see it, try pressing the double arrows to jump to the beginning and the end.

Now play the video one more time at regular speed and look for the change. Wonder how you missed it the first time?

Just like this video, changes are happening around us all the time. They are subtle but they are there. To “create” a crisis, take a look back at how things were just two or three years ago. The unique economic situation aside, what has changed? How has your business reacted to the cumulative changes that have taken place to: client expectations, compliance regulations, subtle product changes, technology, staffing, your personal life.. etc.

In aggregate, had all these changes happened overnight, they would have created a crisis. Because they were gradual, we pretty much rolled with the punches, tweaked and adapted.

What does all this mean? It means that if we want to achieve unsurpassed success, we need to “see the writing on the wall” now! Create your crisis. It’s there, you just need to see it.

Why not break the cycle by having someone else make all of your appointments? Wouldn’t it be great to walk out of the office every Friday afternoon knowing your calendar was full for Monday and the rest of the week?

It can happen by hiring a marketing coordinator or assigning the job to someone already on your staff. I know what you’re thinking. Nobody could ever be as effective as you. But that’s not necessarily true! I worked with an advisor for 17 years and made all of his calls. I began with existing clients, reschedules and prospects, and after 6 months, I called the referrals. The result — a consistent appointment stream with a mixture of new and existing clients. Because I made all the calls, my boss had time to see 5 more people a week. The increase in appointments not only improved revenues, it increased referrals, too.

Now as part of my business, I train marketing coordinators to make calls and fill advisors’ calendars efficiently. A few of my tips:

• make calls every day at 9 a.m.
• sell the appointment, not a product or service
• call every 3 days, leaving a simple message to get people to call back
• use specific language to overcome objections successfully

If you want a balanced and consistent appointment stream, trust someone else to make your calls. After all, when you first began making calls, you probably stumbled a bit before you figured out how to fill the calendar. But you learned quickly and got results. An energetic and persistent marketing coordinator can do the same. Happy scheduling.

If you need advice or training, we can help! Our teleconference series, The Revenue Resource, and my book The Appointment Scheduler, have all kinds of strategies to improve your appointment stream. Check them out at www.pellegriniteam.com.

Jon has been in sales for nearly 12 years.  He has great customers, but he wants more!  He knows what he needs to do:  commit to prospect consistently, build better strategic alliances, and buckle down and close more sales.

So what’s the problem?  By analyzing his prospecting activity, Jon has come to the conclusion that he’s spending an inordinate amount of time volunteering and building relationships.  But the activities haven’t added enough new clients to justify his time and financial expenditures.

Jon isn’t the only salesperson who has difficulty transitioning from relationship-building to solid business-building.  He isn’t aware of it, but he exhibits a form of Sales Call Reluctance, and it’s interfering with his closing new business.

This type of call reluctance has been identified as “yielder” call reluctance.  It is common among financial advisors, who rarely recognize it.  You see, financial advisors with yielder call reluctance are people pleasers.  They are approval seekers who lack assertiveness, often much to their own detriment.

People pleasers don’t move forward unless someone gives them a crystal clear signal to proceed.  They don’t control the process of moving a prospect along the pipeline to becoming a client.  They let the prospect maintain control, and hence they just can’t seem to close a deal. 

Perhaps these financial advisors:

• Feel that the prospect would be offended by sales efforts
• Leave appointments without getting a firm commitment from the prospect for the next step
• Have many unanswered questions they are afraid to ask
• String out closing the sale

Does this sound familiar?  Do you lack assertiveness?  (When you think about it, prospecting is contact initiation – and that’s an assertive act.)  Pause for a moment and think about the relationship that you want to take one step closer to a bona fide customer.  If you aren’t turning networking opportunities and qualified prospects into new clients, perhaps it’s time to look a little deeper.

A word about relationships

In the book Hard Truth about Soft Selling, author George Dudley says:  “You can’t depend on relationship-building skills alone to make the sale for you.  Hone those skills and make them work for you, but don’t confuse making friends with making sales.  When is the last time your firm sent you a check for a friendship bonus?”

You know value-added customer service can be the deciding factor when a prospect chooses you over a competitor.  But financial advisors get their wires crossed when they believe that the buyer-seller relationship is more important than the sale.  There must be a balance.  In the end, relationships and friendships do not pay the bills.  Selling products and services pay the bills.

Don’t get me wrong, relationships are important.  But buyers primarily want you to fulfill their needs and provide solutions.  They want you to know your product.  They want you to care about them.  You can do this by taking action and keeping them moving forward.  Trying to gain their approval is a misspent effort.  Keep working on yourself, developing your skills, and doing the activity that puts you in front of people.  Your confidence will escalate.  Here are a few thought-provoking questions to ask yourself:

• Can you close a sale without developing rapport?
• Can you develop a relationship without closing a sale?
• Can you strike a balance between these two concepts?

A successful salesperson finds the middle ground.  He’s clear on goals and understands that it is okay to sell his services to meet his production goals.

It should be noted that yielder call reluctance is the most common and the most costly.  It has become more prevalent as sales training programs within organizations that promote soft selling approaches.  In fact, in some companies and some industries there are toxic levels of call reluctance throughout their sales force.

That’s great news for some financial advisors – at least for the non-yielders – because it gives them a huge advantage.  Every once in a while you may meet a salesperson who isn’t any more knowledgeable than you, yet they have a better business.  They aren’t really all that experienced or even as competent as you are, but they seem to always get new business.  Why?  They win the business because they’re assertive and consistent in their prospecting and self-promotion, and they close the business.

Understanding yielder call reluctance

The first step in overcoming yielder call reluctance is to understand what it is and how it could be affecting you.  The following questions will help you determine if you have this costly form of call reluctance:

• Are you not prospecting consistently because you have difficulty asserting yourself?
• Are you afraid to incite conflict by asking qualifier questions?
• Are you afraid you will appear pushy or intrusive?
• Are you afraid to bother the busy, disturb the indisposed, or interrupt the otherwise engaged?
• Are you sociable but not necessarily outgoing?
• Are you building a number of relationships but not meeting your production goals?
• Are you paying for lunches, dinners, and golf games but not breaking even?

If you answered “Yes” to three or more of the above questions, you may be suffering from yielder sales call reluctance.  Here are five steps to get you moving forward:

Step 1:  Awareness

Be acutely aware of the behavior.  When you find yourself yielding, simply observe your actions without getting angry with yourself.  Your recognition of the problem is a positive step.  If you judge and berate your actions, you are doing more harm than good.  If this happens, you must stop the exercise because it will take you backward instead of forward.  You must learn to become a scientist of your behavior.  Self-reflection is the capacity to exercise introspection and the willingness to learn more about you.  It is one of the best ways to self-correct.  It’s particularly helpful to reflect on your actions through writing.  After a meeting, prospecting session, networking event or similar effort, ask yourself the following four questions.  Don’t just do it mentally, write your answers down in a notebook.

• What did I do well?  Whatever you did right, embellish it. You might write:  I showed up. I had plenty of business cards.  I had a great elevator speech when someone asked me what I do for a living.  I asked qualifying questions.  You get the picture, right?
• What would I do differently next time?  Think about different choices you could have made.  Your reflection could say:  I would ask for an appointment.  I would create a sense of urgency about getting together. I would ask for their contact information.
• What would I never do again?  Dig deep.  Is there anything you would never do again?  You might promise yourself:  I will never pay for another thing, unless I get concrete commitment for action.  I will never walk away without asking for referrals.  I will never again not have an answer to, “Let me think it over.”
• What did I learn about myself as a salesperson from this event?  This is a key question.  Don’t give it short shrift.  You could reflect:  I learned that there is a real need for my services.  I learned that I am pretty good at answering tough objections.  I learned that my confidence spirals downward when I walk away without asking for the sale.  Allow yourself to be honest and candid both about what’s improving in your approach and what’s not working.

Step 2:  Assessment

Pinpoint the extent of the problem.  Here’s a great tip:  Record your prospecting calls – there’s no better way to self-correct.  Athletes watch the video of their games to improve their plays.  If athletes are so interested in the subtleties and intricacies of performance improvement, couldn’t the same type of scrutiny help you?

For $112 you can purchase a telephone recorder that you plug into the wall and into the phone line.  Or talk with Ryan Pitts at  www.newcallsolutions.com.  He can set you up with a temporary or permanent account to record your calls for training purposes.   If you use it only for instructional purposes and nothing else, nondisclosure should be OK legally.  However, it’s a good idea to speak with your compliance department or an attorney before you begin recording. Depends on what state you are in also.

First of all, listen to the general impression your voice is making on the phone.  When you make the calls, 73% of the communication is your tonality.  How do you sound?  Would you talk to you?  Second, listen for the opportunities you missed.  Third, you can pinpoint what you said and how you said it on the call that landed you the appointment.

Step3:  Admission

The hardest part of changing behavior is admitting that the behavior is costing you big bucks, not to mention your self-esteem and confidence.  Here’s an exercise to help you see how different personality types handle sales situations.

• Look up the following words in a dictionary: “aggressive,” “assertive,” and “passive.”  Then, with real scenarios in your day-to-day business, write out how an aggressive salesperson would handle the situation.  Next, write down how an assertive salesperson would handle it, and then a passive salesperson.  Sometimes yielders believe that assertive behavior is actually aggressive.  A major key to success is to distinguish the difference between these behaviors.
• Look up the words “like” and “respect” in a dictionary.  What’s the difference?  Would you rather be respected or liked?  Have you ever done business with a professional whom you respected but really didn’t like?  Also notice that when you do not follow your process and you let prospects control the process, and when you walk away without getting firm commitments, you do not like yourself.

Step 4:  Application

Now you can begin to use proven techniques and overcome the behavior.  For example, notice when you don’t ask a question or don’t say something because you become afraid.  Top financial advisors ask the tough questions when they are in front of their prospects.  Mediocre financial advisors ask the tough questions as they are driving away in their cars.

Step 5:  Analysis

Continue to examine and analyze your behavior so that you don’t relapse.  One way to do this is to always make a note of what makes you speechless.  Then you can take steps to get the response you need.  Here are some suggestions:

• Look to the experts.  Consult your manager, review training material, and dig deep to find the proper responses to situation that stymie you.  The answers are out there.  If you are a financial advisor, highly recommend www.horsesmouth.com.  When you find the right ideas, new behaviors will come easier to you and old habits will be easier to break.
• Role-play.  Find a motivated, goal-oriented person who will role-play key scenarios with you.  It’s fun if you find someone who will courageously throw you curve balls.  You can record your role-plays and analyze them just as you would a phone call.

Some final tips

Decide that you will control the process early on with clients.  Think about other professionals, such as lawyers, doctors, or accountants – they all control their process and wouldn’t allow a patient/client to change their methods.  Like you, they are experts and they know what works and what doesn’t.

Give people freedom to think about you how they want to think about you.  Be confident, be honest, have a high regard for people, and create a sense of entitlement when you are prospecting and meeting with clients.  Some of you have put in years of study and work to understand your business.  Stop projecting your fears onto your prospects.  You are the qualified professional to help them develop achieve their goals.

Remember, this will take some real work.  The desire to be liked above all else has probably been with you for a long time.  With some effort, you can gently become more assertive and take charge of your sales.  People will still like you.  The most important thing is that you’ll learn to like yourself.  And when you self-manage these issues, you will finally be earning what you are worth.

One way to reduce the unpredictability of appointment scheduling is to use our scripts, at least in the beginning.  Whether your marketing assistant is an absolute beginner or a seasoned pro, telephoning techniques are always helpful.  The key to successful appointment scheduling is learning to control the outcome of the call.  In other words, marketing assistants can manage the call by getting to the point, remaining persistent, and assuming they will get the appointments.

The approach.  The marketing assistant should be friendly, but not phony, and firm but not pushy, remembering that the marketing assistant sells the appointment, while the producer sells the product or service.  Yes, marketing assistants should know the general nature of the appointment and the producer’s specialty, but their job is to fill the calendar.

Keep it simple.  Some producers want marketing assistants to use flashy words or go into detail about tax savings benefits, etc.  I believe the best approach is to keep it simple and just ask for the appointment.  Why?  If someone asks questions about specific products or services, the marketing assistant might not have the answers.  The phone call could become awkward.

I also recommend brevity.  If the marketing assistant rambles on, the message is lost.  Get to the point, and people will respond.

With our scripts, marketing assistants avoid long-winded spiels that sound unnatural.  Of course,
other approaches are acceptable, but this language works because it is simple and to the point.  Once they are experienced, marketing assistants can jump through any hoops without the scripts.

A friendly voice makes a difference.  When making phone calls, there’s one variable that marketing assistants can control at all times: their voice.  People respond to a friendly voice, which means tone and inflection really do make a difference.  When a caller is upbeat, people tend to listen.

Introductions.  For any type of call, the introduction is key.  It is what captures the attention of the person on the other end of the line.  If marketing assistants are enthusiastic and concise, they will get better results; excess verbiage can lead to a phone hang up.  Marketing assistants also need to inject some life into the conversation, and not sound robotic.  Their goal is to generate interest without sounding like they’re reading.

Verbal ping-pong.  Asking for an appointment is similar to playing a game of ping-pong — polite, verbal ping-pong.  The marketing assistant begins with an introduction, and then asks for the appointment.  After the request for an appointment, the ball is in the other person’s court.  When the person hits the ball back with an objection, the rally begins.  When the marketing assistant asks for the appointment again, the ball goes back to the other court.  The objective is to keep asking for the appointment.

Listening skills required.  A successful phone call also requires listening skills.  Marketing assistants need to hear the person on the other end of the line.  When an objection is made, they should counter it appropriately.  If a person says, “I’m not interested,” the response would be, “We didn’t assume you would be at this time.”  Or, if the person says, “I’m busy,” the reply would be, “I can appreciate that,” or “I understand,” or “When would be a better time for you?”

Persistence pays off.  It is important to be personable and persistent.  Being persistent means asking for the appointment repeatedly in a pleasant way.  Every time the person objects, the marketing assistant should overcome the objection, then ask for the appointment again by repeating, “How does your schedule look?” or “How does next week look?” or “When would be a good time for you?”

There is also a huge difference between asking for an appointment and asking permission for an appointment.  Asking for the appointment: “How does next week look for you?”  Asking permission: “Is it okay to schedule an appointment for next week?”

I remember a situation with a referral I’ll call “Bill.”  I called Bill repeatedly, left numerous messages, but never managed to connect with him.  One day I finally reached him.  I was very enthusiastic because I actually had him on the line.  Bill did not feel the same way!

After my introduction, he shut me down quickly, saying he wasn’t interested.  When I asked, “What aren’t you interested in?” he replied, “Whatever you’re selling.”

I told Bill I wasn’t selling anything, but was trying to set up a time for Tom to meet him.  Again, he said he wasn’t interested.  I didn’t give up because despite his emphatic no, Bill was talkative.  After four objections (polite, verbal ping pong), I felt I might have pushed Bill too far.  I heard him pound his fist on his desk and say, “When does he want to see me?”  I paused for a nanosecond — I didn’t want to lose him — and replied, “How’s next Wednesday for you?”

The appointment was scheduled but I thought Bill would cancel.  To my surprise, he didn’t.  When Tom walked into Bill’s office, Bill said, “I don’t know how much you’re paying your assistant, but it better be good.  The only reason you’re here is because she wouldn’t let me off the phone without making an appointment.”  Tom just smiled and began the meeting.

Every time I called Bill, he was a tough customer, but he appreciated my approach because it convinced him to do what was right for his family and him.  I’m not saying you should be overly aggressive on the phone, but a little persistence goes a long way.

Remember, marketing assistants need to be in control of the phone call.  My advice to them:  take charge, be confident, and stick to it to get results.  Because marketing assistants rarely know what to expect from the person on the other end of the line, our scripts help them overcome resistance and develop the confidence to ask repeatedly for the appointment.  It does not matter what type of call is made — marketing assistants need to be ready for whatever comes their way.

Do you manage your practice — or are you a control freak, always trying to arrange, contain and maneuver people and events? Do you trust your employees or are you guilty of second-guessing and overriding their efforts?

If you’re afraid to let go of some responsibility (and details), you’re a micromanager, and your approach stems from emotion, not business sense. The fear of letting go can sabotage your progress, and instead of moving forward, you’ll remain stuck in the status quo. Isn’t it smarter to overcome your fear? Why not let go and grow?

I’ve asked financial advisors why they can’t let go, and their rationales are revealing:

• “Employees might make mistakes”
• “I can do everything better myself”
• “Employees will never take the initiative”
• “I just don’t think about delegating more often”
• “Employees will embarrass me or tarnish my company’s reputation”
• “How will I know if work is actually done?”
• “Employees can’t read my mind, and it takes too long to explain things”
• “Our systems aren’t defined; no one is accountable”
• “My staff can’t keep up”

That kind of thinking is extremely shortsighted. A good staff, whether it’s one person or fifty, is a blessing, not a hindrance. Capable employees can build and enhance your business — you just need to let them.

How can you change?

Relax your grip! Yes, you should know what’s going on in your business, but don’t insist on unnecessary involvement. If you handle every little detail or transaction, you’ll never have time to explore new (and profitable) opportunities. You won’t do what you really enjoy or focus primarily on moneymaking activities.
Like most advisors, you have high professional standards and probably believe no one else can do the job as well. That may be true to an extent, but once you train your employees, they can handle the daily workflow and details. Remember, your employees are not you — and that’s a good thing. You need a balanced team to strengthen your business. Surround yourself with bright people who bring different talents and experience to the table.

Train your staff thoroughly. Training is often overlooked, but it is absolutely essential. Spell out your employees’ duties and teach them everything they need to know about the job. People deserve to know how they fit into the business and why their role is important. Remember, you had to learn the ropes and no doubt made a few mistakes along the way; be patient and arm your staff with complete information and directions.

Delegate early and often. Don’t wait until the last minute to assign a task. Delegate in advance so employees can do a good job. Also, get in the habit of delegating to the right person consistently. If you need someone to schedule your appointments, select a team member for the job and delegate to him or her only. Also, during the delegation process, establish priorities and deadlines. Sometimes employees don’t know what to do first. If they’re spending too much time on customer service, for example, let them know why appointment-scheduling is their first priority. In dealing with employees, follow Pellegrini’s Golden Rule of Business: “If you give them what they need, they’ll give you more of what you want.”

Trust your employees. Don’t give lip service to trust – act on it. Once employees are trained properly, step back and let them do their job. If you want an update on a project, say so, but otherwise, just assume the work will be done in a timely fashion.

Finally, be a leader. Not long ago I convinced a client to let go and grow. A former control freak, he is making a concerted (and successful) effort to lead, not micromanage. His assistant now describes her role this way: “I’m involved in the vision, he delegates freely and leaves me alone to get things done. Everything goes through me so I can get rid of things that don’t need his time and prioritize the rest.”

Are you ready to be that boss and let go?

“Today, I’ll prospect.”

Mark drives to the office, feeling confident and ready to hit the phones.  The moment he arrives, his sales assistant accosts him – she’s having trouble with an important client’s account and is in urgent need of Mark’s assistance.  He spends 25 minutes hashing out a strategy.

Now it’s time for his morning coffee.  He walks into the lounge, noticing the empty coffeepot.  As he waits for his coffee to brew, he glances at the headlines of the New York Times.  He’s got to read this one story, because it is relevant to his business.

Coffee in hand, he proceeds to his office, where he sits down to check his e-mail – he has 27 new messages.  By the time he’s ready to prospect, it is 10:30 a.m. and he’s got to prepare for his luncheon meeting across town with a client.  Despite Mark’s best intentions, still another morning has passed without a single prospecting call.

What’s Mark’s story?  He is a veteran salesperson.  He knows how important prospecting is to his career.  Is this poor time management?  Lack of motivation?  Burnout?  Or could he be experiencing call reluctance?

Call reluctance destroys careers

Hesitation to make contact with prospective new clients causes more failures for salespeople than any other single factor.  Why?  Because if you don’t approach enough people, it makes little difference how thorough your expertise is.  Without a steady flow of prospects, your magnetic personality, credentials, product knowledge, and perfect presentations won’t make much impact.  Inactivity on the prospecting front nullifies your ability to engage these other strengths

Successful selling usually involves five steps:

• Identifying prospective clients (includes identifying referral sources)
• Initiating contact with prospective clients and referral sources
• Introducing yourself, your products, and your services
• Informing prospective clients of how you can help (giving your sales presentation)
• Influencing the prospect’s decision to retain you as a salesperson

Many advisors are uncomfortable with steps 2 and 3, initiating and introducing – but without them, informing and influencing can’t happen!  Ultra-professional presentation skills, dazzling rapport-building, detailed product knowledge and clever closes cannot and will not return a penny of profit if you don’t have enough prospects.  The math is simple:  Successful salespeople consistently initiate contact with more prospects than their less-than-successful counterparts.

Fear of initiating contact can become so great that it limits one’s ability to connect with potential new clients.  Many advisors find making that first contact so emotionally uncomfortable that they avoid it, delay it, or fake it with ineffective strategies like sending out colorful mailers, email blasts, deflecting the identify (”I’m not selling anything”) or calling on only limited, emotionally safe segments of the market.

All this hesitation falls under the category of call reluctance.  It’s common, but it’s potentially catastrophic to any career with a sales component.  Call reluctance can be present at the onset of a sales career, or it can strike suddenly in highly productive sales veterans.  Its origins are multiple and complex, and there is no single source to root out and destroy.

What causes call reluctance?

What causes the discrete pattern of escape and avoidance associated with establishing first contact?  Why do so many experienced salespeople with otherwise superlative skills and abilities develop escape routes to avoid prospecting?

For one thing, there is a fear of the unknown when you prospect.  You do not know how you are going to be received.  This uncertainty alone can be a powerful saboteur.  And of course, there is the fear that you will not be received well that you will get…gasp…rejected!

But there’s more than even a flat-out fear of rejection underlying the avoidance of prospecting.

Call reluctance springs from a combination of three sources:  personality predispositions, hereditary influences, and exposure to others with call reluctance.  In fact, in a surprising number of cases, highly contagious forms of call reluctance are often spread inadvertently by the sales training process itself.  It can also be spread by a sales manager/trainer who suffers from call reluctance.  A sales manager/trainer can actually contaminate the very people he/she intends to inspire.  Courageous managers do not hide behind the management veil.  They take on their call reluctance.  Those are the managers who truly can annihilate call reluctance from their sales force.

Several years ago at a prominent insurance company, I was brought in to facilitate the Fear-Free Prospecting and Self-Promotion workshop and to coach each agent for four weeks following the workshop.  One out of five of the sales managers actually participated in the one-day workshop and also went through the coaching.  The other four were too busy and preoccupied with being managers.  The manager who humbly went through the workshop – his team did far better in their prospecting following the workshop than the teams with “absent” managers.  Today, the manager who went through the workshop is a general manager at a thriving office and the four other managers are still – managers.

There are actually 12 distinct types of fear that can cause salespeople to avoid the prospecting.  It is vital to know which of the 12 types of call reluctance is holding your sales career hostage.  Do any of these sound familiar?

• Doomsayers will not take risks.  This type of call reluctance can be lethal to a sales career.
• Over preparers tend to overanalyze and avoid action.  They’re busy, busy, busy people busy with current clients, admin work, organizing files, studying the latest trends- which keeps them from meeting qualified prospects.
• Hyper-pro salespeople are obsessed with image, but when it comes to their presentation skills, they’re not better than the next salesperson.  They look good, but they confuse packaging with prospecting.
• Stage fright causes many salespeople to default on prospecting that would lead to opportunities to present before groups.
• Role rejection plagues those who are secretly ashamed of any kind of selling.  These are the salespeople who deflect any association with being a salesperson.  They tend to believe that society dislikes salespeople, and they themselves get irritated and annoyed when salespeople solicit them.
• Yielders fear intruding on others. They have a strong need to be liked and are habitually waiting for “just the right time” to make contact.  Of course, that time rarely arrives.
• Socially self-conscious salespeople are intimidated by up-market clients.  They feel inferior in terms of wealth, education, status, or prestige.
• Separationists are afraid to mix business and friends.
• Emotionally unemanciapted salespeople are afraid to mix business and family.
• Referral aversion affects those salespeople who selectively forget to ask for referrals out of fear of disturbing existing relationships.
• Telephobic salespeople are uncomfortable using the telephone for prospecting.
• The oppositional reflex characterizes salespeople who tend to criticize or blame others for what goes wrong with their careers.  Even though they are usually gifted, talented, and intelligent people, they don’t take responsibility for themselves and often don’t get ahead.

A solution for call reluctance

If you recognize yourself in any of these styles, you need not feel embarrassed or ashamed.  But at the same time, you don’t have to go on living with it.  Call reluctance is learned which means it can be unlearned.  Most cases can be arrested or even eliminated.  All can be improved.

The first, but often the most difficult, step in overcoming call reluctance is admitting that you are not prospecting consistently.  Once you’ve admitted that to yourself, you can look at changing your attitudes.  Call reluctance is simply a manifestation of a person’s negative beliefs about prospecting for new business – so overcoming it is all about learning to change your beliefs.

Thought realignment is a very effective tool for changing your thinking.  Look at it this way:  A belief is merely a thought you think over and over and over again.  What you think determines how you feel, which, in turn, determines what you do (or don’t do).  What you do everyday becomes your seemingly intractable habit.

To get past the habits that bind, then, we need to go back to their source – our thoughts.  The human brain is a meaning-making machine.  Before we’ve even reached for the phone to make a prospecting call, we can make up a story about why that person on the other end of the line will not take our call or why they’re not interested.  The key is to stop making up stories that only spiral you into self-doubt.

A very effective way to get started is to capture your self-critical inner voice on paper, in your own handwriting.  Do you recognize this voice, this internal saboteur that must be defused?  It says things like, “I don’t want to intrude,” or “they will just say no,” or “they are already using another salesperson.”

Once you capture these negative statements on paper, write realistic responses to your inner critic’s claims.  Engage the internal voice in written dialogue.

For instance, you might counter with, “The service I provide is valuable.  It is great to be able to assist people who need my expertise.”  “I have clients who believe in me.”  These prospects may not be happy with their current vendor.”  “This prospect may turn into a great referral source.”  Recognize the goal-obstructing statements and counter them with goal-supporting statements.

In the end, your success or failure as a salesperson depends on your willingness to meet enough new prospects to achieve your revenue goals.  If you want to succeed, you must commit to prospecting, and do so with a willingness to overcome any fear surrounding it.  If you want to alter what you do, modify what you feel by changing the way you think.  Create new neuronets around prospecting!  Retrain your brain, and watch your business grow.