Yes, You Can Effectively Prospect in 15 Minutes!

In the financial services world, there’s a focus on sales numbers. You probably know what numbers you want to hit and most likely have a good understanding of what revenue should be generated by which product line. Most of you probably know the breakdown of those goals by month and possibly by the week. You can probably even pull a quick report that tells you if you are on track to hitting those goals.

From a business standpoint this is a great start, but there’s an important next step that is often missing causing many financial service professionals not to meet these goals. The missing part is time. How much time needs to be dedicated to prospecting in order for you to meet your sales goals?

The problem is that sales goals are focused on results and not activity. You often hear that sales is a numbers game. And in many ways, it is, but it’s a game you can choose to control.

You control your sales results by controlling your activity. While every business should know their sales goals, the focus needs to be on activity. We challenge you to stop and open your calendar right now. Take a look at, and assess, how much time on your schedule is dedicated to prospecting. How much of that time will be kept and not pushed to the side to deal with other business activities?

Prospecting is a vital part of any business, but it’s one of the easiest activities to avoid. When the focus is on results and not activity it’s easy to feel like you can’t control your results. It’s easy to fall into blaming many excuses of sales such as it’s not the right time or our prices are too high. Sure, those excuses may be true. Your quote may not be the most competitive or your prospect may not be ready to say “yes” right now. It happens and will always happen. That is a part of sales. But the results are within your control, because you always control your activity.

Now, we also recognize it’s easier to write this insight than it is to reach your goals by simply scheduling prospecting time. We’ve designed a special course called Prospecting in 15 that helps agencies design their business for prospecting success.

Here are a few simple-to-implement tips from that course:

• Prospect in small bursts of time - It’s harder to carve 2 hours out of your calendar than it is to carve 15 minutes. Business activities that seem like “fires” may be harder to push back by 2 hours, but can wait 15 minutes for your attention.
• Have a hot list - Small bursts of time to prospect only works if you’re ready to make contact with your prospects. If you have to stop and think about who to call, what to say, or even where to find their phone number or email, 15 minutes won’t go far. However, if you have yourself organized, you can make multiple calls in 15 minutes.
• Challenge your mindset - The number one thing that halts prospecting in any business is the way your business thinks about prospecting. Spend time this week looking at how your business either makes prospecting a priority or doesn’t. It’s not until you start to see prospecting as an activity that is as important as a client meeting that you’ll really see change. Start by challenging yourself to adapt the belief that prospecting time should be dedicated and protected.

If you’re ready to make prospecting activity a priority, we have the tools and step-by-step method to help your business succeed.