How To Nurture Your Prospect Sources

In the financial services industry, it’s often important to have relationships where people that know and trust you send prospects to you for help. These prospect sources could be real estate agents, home builders, lawyers, accountants, or even local religious leaders. Typically, they are people within your community who know and are trusted by your target market.

One mistake we see many financial services professionals make is that after finding a prospect source, they don’t take the right steps to develop a long-lasting relationship. In our inspired action series, “Automatic Prospecting Sources” we cover in-depth the basics that financial services professionals should be taking to create and maintain these relationships, but here are a few tips that your business can implement right away:

• Be ready to thank them. You must be careful to maintain confidentiality for your new prospect, but it’s important to tell a prospect source “thank you” when they send a lead. It may be tempting to thank them once a prospect becomes a client, but remember your goal is to get more leads. The thank-you should be for simply sending a lead your way. While you can always send a material item. a simple email or text to say thank you is often very effective. It doesn’t have to be big, but it does have to be genuine.
   
• Have a plan to nurture the relationship. Many times, prospecting sources are taken for granted. The truth is no matter how much a prospecting source likes you and your business, they have their own issues, opportunities and day-day tasks that take their attention. If you want them to remember to send leads to you then it’s your job to nurture the relationship. We recommend having a strategic plan for maintaining your relationship with prospecting sources. This plan should outline the touches you should have with a source and track when you’ve completed those touches. And remember, ask questions about them and their business. Don’t make it just about getting leads.
  
• Schedule time. You may have the best intentions, but it’s easy to forget or get too busy to reach out to prospecting sources. Your prospecting sources are important, and you should be prepared to carve out and protect time to meet with them. Put time on your schedule to develop and nurture these relationships. Don’t leave it to chance.
   
• See the relationship as a two-way street. While it’s great to have a prospect source, the relationship can’t be just about you. You need to understand what they get out of the relationship. Sometimes it’s giving them prospects, but that’s not always achievable. Be ready to know enough about their business that you can send prospects to them, but also know there are other ways to create a meaningful relationship. Perhaps that relationship is built on trading business tips and techniques. Perhaps you can help them with finding a great candidate for a position they are hiring. Or maybe it’s a personal relationship where they simply appreciate a common interest, etc. Each relationship will be slightly different, but it’s worth taking a step back and making sure you understand what you can do for them.

These are just a few of the quick tips, but if your business needs a more in-depth look at prospecting sources, be sure to ask about “Automatic Prospecting Sources” and how our Optimal Outcome business coaches can help your team develop and maintain prospecting sources.