Advisors are deluged with calls, voice mails, and emails from Internal Wholesalers calling to “introduce themselves” and “tell them about their newest product.”

How are your Internals standing out from all that noise to allow for meaningful conversations with advisors to grow (their)commitment to wallet-share?

Can they clearly articulate your value proposition in terms of how it will benefit their advisors? Are they able to leave compelling voice mails that actually get advisors to call back? How well can they convince gatekeepers there is enough value and urgency in their calls to put their calls through? What value do they and your product bring to the advisor? How can they leverage your Wholesaler team to grow their business?

Whether you think your Internals are on the right track or are convinced they are lagging behind in these areas, now is the time to take action.

Involve your team in regular brainstorming sessions as to how they can approach their advisors differently. What do they bring to the table that other companies and wholesaler teams do not? What makes them and their product different? Why is your service better? What tools can you offer to help the advisors grow their business?

Have your Internals submit their voice mail and email approaches for the team to review. What works best? Who gets the most callbacks? How can they improve to generate more interest and have more conversations?

Record their calls to advisors, or at least their voice mails, to share with the team and identify best practices to get the creative juices flowing.l To help newer or struggling Internals get up to speed, review calls one-on-one, as well.

If you do not have an arsenal of tools and techniques to give your advisors to more effectively grow their books of business, I guarantee your Internals will be left in the dust. Work with Marketing to create tools your Internals can provide their advisors so they keep coming back for more.

You know how competitive it is out there. Be sure your Internals have the power to kick it into gear this year!

I was working in my home office overlooking the snowy, gray landscape with the junior-high kids dispersing from the bus stop, when my doorbell rang. “Who could that be in the middle of the day?” I wondered aloud. There wasn’t a UPS or FedEx truck in sight.

I welcomed the break so I shrugged and ventured downstairs to see who was there. It was a nice-looking 40-something gentleman with a briefcase. I figured he was with the census bureau or something so I opened the door and asked him to come in “so the cats wouldn’t go out”.

It turns out he was a Financial Advisor with a local investment firm and that he was “new in town” and looking to determine what people in our neighborhood were most concerned about when it came to their finances. A-hah! A sales guy.

I was smiling as I listened and relished the pure irony of the situation when I could no longer refrain from interjecting. “That’s funny,” I said. “You know what I do for a living?” “I teach financial services professionals to more effectively use the telephone to prospect, set appointments, and leverage referrals to build their businesses. There was a somewhat awkward pause. Then he said, “Oh, well…I do that sometimes but I find that people will sometimes open up and share if I come to their doorstep unannounced.

While I appreciate his trying something out of the ordinary as a sales approach to stand out from the masses and avoid the complexity of the “do not call” regulations, I wonder how long he will keep up this practice when in light of the current economy, more and more households are empty while everyone is at work or school. His knock-to-answer ratio has to be dismal and his knock-to-close even worse. When I asked him how many doorbells he had to ring to find someone home, and when he did, how often he closed some business, he said he didn’t really know.

I listened politely, took his information, and very genuinely wished him luck, promising to keep him in mind.

Whatever your sales approach: social media, email, telephone call, direct mail, or door-knocking, it is critical that you measure the effectiveness by documenting how many attempts, how many connects, and how many appointments and/or sales come from a particular approach.

Do you measure your “knock-to-win” activity? If not, how do you know how many “knocks” you will need to make every day, week, month or year to reach your sales goals?

Copyright Telemasters, Inc. 2010

Think about the hundreds of phone calls advisors get every week from wholesalers trying to sell them their products or platforms. Most of the calls start like this:

“Hi Larry, this is Bill from ABC Life, how ya doin today?”

To which the advisor most often says , “Fine, (thinks “another wholesaler” and rolls his eyes, but is polite anyway) then asks , “how are you?”

“I am fine thanks, say I was just callin’ to see if you do any annuities/401K/life/LTC business at all”

It goes downhill from there if he says “not really,” because he now knows this is just another call from just another wholesaler—that Bill wants him to write business with ABC Life. Advisors are no different from any other busy professionals. Their time is valuable and they need to spend it on things that will help them grow their books of business. So when you call them, be sure to respect their time; ask for it, and when it is granted, offer something of value.

What does your company do for advisors? How do you help them grow their business? What sales tools and assistance can you offer? What is different about working with you and what is in it for them?

If you can’t answer these questions, how do you expect your advisors to see the value in speaking with you?

So will you continue to compete as one of many? Or will you set yourself apart by making your message about the advisor and how you can help grow his or her practice; instead of about you and your offering?

His advice helped immensely. When I reached the top I was winded but I realized it wasn’t nearly as difficult as it had seemed when I first approached the hill.

As salespeople, our yearly goals loom large, and thinking about what it is going to take to get there can be overwhelming. It seems like we will never be able to pedal hard enough or fast enough to get there.

Focusing on what you are going to do today to help you get there is the key. What three daily activities are most important to your success? When you find yourself getting distracted with other things, ask yourself, “Is this activity getting me closer to where I want to be?” If not, find a way to eliminate, streamline, or delegate it. Set activity goals and track your progress every day.

Try these time-tested tips for staying focused:

1. Plan your next day before leaving the office; know who you are going to call and what you are going to accomplish.

2. Block out time for your top three activities and avoid interruption; forward your phone to voice mail and turn off your email chime for an hour while you focus on your priorities. After an hour, check both and return the urgent and important messages.

3. Keep track of your activity. If you don’t know how many dials it takes to get a connect, and how many connects it take to get an appointment or a sale, how will you know how many calls you need to make each day to be on track toward your monthly or annual target? Figure out what your activity goal needs to be and stick to it!

We certainly have to stay focused on, and drive toward, our final goal, but not having a daily plan may undermine our trip to the top.

You’ve had several conversations with a prospect, sent emails with additional information, and perhaps even submitted a proposal. The prospect has a need and seemed very enthusiastic about your solution. Then why, all of a sudden, does he or she simply stop responding to your voice mails?

A recent post on a Linkedin discussion board posed the question, “What do you do when your prospects ‘go silent’?”

As someone to whom this happens quite frequently, I have learned that no response does not automatically mean no interest.

It is easy to start thinking about all the possible reasons: a competitor got the business, I offended them with too much follow-up, they found a cheaper solution, or they lost their funding. You can make yourself crazy trying to figure out what happened.

What I have found is that nine times out of ten they simply have been distracted with other priorities. Is your solution still of interest? Most likely, but the urgency has simply been diminished by other matters at hand.

I have learned to never give up until I have a “no.” Not just a “no, not now,” but a “no, not ever.”

I continue to periodically and respectfully follow-up from time-to-time via a combination of voice mails and emails, reminding them of their proclaimed needs and interest as well as the benefits of their proceeding with the solutions discussed.

At some point, I will say, “If you no longer have an interest and would prefer not to continue to hear from me, please let me know.”

More often than not, when I send this message, I receive an apologetic response: “Thank you for the follow-up, but I’ve been so busy with hiring, or training, or a family emergence, please continue to contact me after such-and-such a date….”

So please do not give up on your true prospects. Continue to remind them of their expressed need and the value they will receive from your solution until they either sign-up or opt-out. Until then, keep setting off the alarm.

Whether you are brand new to sales or a seasoned veteran, it can be daunting to make that one phone call that could either make or break your month, quarter, or even year.

Any time the stakes are high, we tend to doubt ourselves and out abilities because the risk is there that we may lose.

The key to overcoming call reluctance is being prepared. Just as any athlete practices and prepares for the big game, we also need to be ready.

Do you have a powerful value proposition and call purpose, packed with benefits to your prospect?

Are you ready for the gatekeeper’s question, ”What is this call regarding?”

Do you know what questions you are going to ask to truly understand the prospect’s business, goals, and challenges?

English logician, mathematician and novelist Lewis Carroll said, “When you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there,” .

When you pick up the telephone, do you have your map? Do you know where you are going?

If you are like most sales reps, you started the year with an energetic blast of prospecting, full of energy and enthusiasm for a stellar year. But as the days grow longer, the trees start to bud, and the robins begin their nests are you still as diligent? Are you planting enough seeds to harvest a record crop?

It’s tough to stay motivated, doing the same thing every day of every week: picking up the phone, making dial-after-dial, only to get gatekeepers and voice mail. But it must be done to get where we need to be at the end of each day, week, and month.

Here are some tips for staying energized for ongoing prospecting efforts:

Spring Clean Your Scripts – Rewrite your value proposition and come up with a new call-to-action to create a sense of urgency. Record and listen to your voice mails. Do you sound confident and passionate?

Plan Your Work – Before you leave the office each night, have your calls set for tomorrow and your calling times blocked on your calendar. Then you can hit the ground running first thing in the morning when people are more likely to be at their desks.

Work Your Plan -Do you know how many dials you need to make every day to connect with enough people to reach your goals? Keep track of your activity so you are clear on your conversion rates and can be confident that your activity levels are where they need to be. Hold yourself accountable to making those dials!

Don’t let those great intentions of breaking new ground this year fall off as the snow melts. Recommit your efforts for keeping your prospecting in shape.

With the advent of yet another New Year, after indulging in food and drink of the holidays, many of us are renewing our vows to stay with a strict routine of diet and exercise.

The gym is always over-crowded in early January, with few parking spots and no place to put your floor mat. By the time March rolls around, only the die-hards remain at the gym—others have faded away like the raucous sounds of New Year’s Eve noisemakers.

How much commitment and effort does it take you to get to the gym or even downstairs to your treadmill? How hard is it to say “no” to the food and beverages that beckon us as we go through our high-pressure days and packed schedules? If you are like most, keeping your resolutions is a never-ending battle.

The only way to accomplish a goal is to determine what behaviors are needed to reach it, stay focused on the goal, and hold yourself accountable.

Just as your fitness routine is critical to your health, a solid prospecting routine is key to keeping your sales in shape. To get the desired results, your sales fitness routine requires specific goals, clear focus, discipline, and follow-through.

Determining how many dials we need to make—to reach enough people—to get enough appointments—and generate enough sales is the first step. Holding ourselves accountable to this prospecting workout is critical to our success.

We all know that there are days when making those calls is just as tough as resisting that doughnut or getting to the gym, but allowing distractions and putting off making those calls will prevent us from hitting our goal.

Is your prospecting routine fit or flabby? What do you do to be sure you stay on track with your prospecting efforts?

It is also a time we show people how much we care by giving gifts, hosting parties, sending cards, and preparing meals for our loved ones.

In church last Sunday, the minister asked the congregation if we knew what gratitude was, of course everyone murmured “yes” and nodded. Most people believe it is about being grateful and appreciating the people and things in your life that make it worth living.

The thing is, we can feel gratitude, and we can “give thanks”, but true gratitude is expressed and shown to those around us for which we are grateful. It goes beyond our families, friends, and the people we do business with. It is about being grateful for other humans. The people who help us every day with a smile, a gesture, the service they provide, even simply opening a door for us. When was the last time you just did something nice for someone, anyone, you encountered in the course of your day to show gratitude for your fellow humans?

Consider these ways to show someone that we really do need and appreciate each other as fellow human beings knowing we all have struggles, and pain, frustrations, and disappointment:

• Let someone else go ahead of you in the coffee or grocery line
• Offer to pay for someone’s groceries or lone diner’s meal in a restaurant
• Pick up some groceries for an elderly neighbor
• Take an overworked mom’s children for an afternoon
• Shovel someone’s driveway before they come home from a long day
• Invite someone to dinner who is alone on the holiday
• Tell the manager of an employee’s good service or attitude
• Leave an extra large tip for a server who is having a hard day

In addition to making someone’s day, doing something nice for someone else “just because” makes you feel good! Not just during the Holidays, but all year long.

What random act of gratitude have you committed lately?

When you call an advisor that you have never spoken with and say, “Hey, Mary, this is Bob from XYZ Financial, how ya doing today?”,  how long does it take them to recognize you as a wholesaler?

Think about it. How many calls do you think advisors receive every day from wholesalers who want them to sell their annuity products, their 401K plan, their life policies? Then, add on all the emails they get. How overwhelmed would you be, as an advisor,  and how would you choose who to even talk to and meet with, not to mention whose products to recommend to your clients?

So how do you set yourself apart? To start, you must sound different than everyone else and offer something of value. Easy, right? You may even think you already do.

Maybe, but maybe not. How do you know? You must first start by asking yourself how you sound and what you say on those first calls. After listening to thousands of  wholesaler phone calls to advisors and agents, in the past ten years, these are their top three mistakes:

Mistake #1: “Where did you say you were calling from?”

Most wholesalers say their names and company names so many times in a day, that they whiz through it so fast, the advisor can’t understand a word.

The Fix: Slow down.

Ennunciate your first and last name and company name cleary and slowly. You want them to be clear as to who you are and where you are calling from. Sound confident that they will want to talk to you.

Mistake #2: “’How ya doin’ today?”

How do you feel when someone you don’t know asks you how you are doing? Does a total stranger actually care how you are? Why do we ask this question? To determine how your call will be received? Starting out with an insincere question does not start the call on a positive note and makes you sound like a telemarketer.

The Fix: Ask for their time

Everyone considers their time to be valuable. Do you typically take things of value from people without asking? Do you knock on a stranger’s door and barge in, uninvited, when the door opens? Of course not. So why would we do that to people whose business we wish to earn? Always ask the advisor for their time. “I know you weren’t expecting my call today, do you have a few minutes to speak with me?” or simply “do you have a minute?” shows that you respect their time and sets you apart from those who just “barge in”.

Mistake #3: “I was just calling to introduce myself and tell you about a new product…”

First of all, when you say you are “just” calling, what does that say about the importance of your call?  Secondly, you have already introduced yourself when you stated who you were, why say it again? And last , but not least, how do you know they even want to hear about your new product? What’s in that for them?

The Fix: Always make it all about the Advisor.

After you get permission to proceed,  clearly state what your company does in terms of what you do for the advisors you work with; what your products can do for their clients and how you can help them grow their books of business. What is your value proposition? Permission to proceed often hinges on how you respond to the “What is this about?” question, either from the advisor or a gatekeeper so it better be good!

Once you have established some credibility and value, clearly state the purpose of the call. You know why you are calling–to get wallet-share, but that is about you, not them, and it’s not something you can typically accomplish in a first call to an advisor.

Isn’t the purpose of your call to understand their practice? To learn what types of clients and products they work with to determine whether you can help them build their books? Then say so! It sets the stage for a conversation to determine the opportunities that exist to partner.

In this highly competitive marketplace, it critical that you differentiate yourself, your company, and your products. So how will you set yourself apart from your competition?