The key to successfully selling financial products is overcoming scarcity. Not product scarcity, that’s virtually unlimited. Not product knowledge scarcity, that’s available to those who genuinely want it. I’m talking about qualified prospect scarcity.
A good qualified prospect is one who:
- Has a need for your product or service;
- Has the funds to acquire it;
- Is insurable (if insurance is involved);
- Will see you on a favorable basis.
It’s interesting that most of the significant financial institutions (insurance companies, banks, broker-dealers) have rarely figured out how to provide consistent access to qualified leads to such prospects. That is why so many (me included) have had to rely on cold prospecting to get started. Those who are good at it succeed; the others fail.
When I was first in the business -- fresh out of Williams College with a liberal arts degree that had no particular application for selling anything -- a fellow producer, a wise old soul, told me:
Every producer has a finite number of “speak to” cold phone calls to make, after which no more are required. Let’s say the number is 1,200. If done in, say, one year, hard times will only last for a year. If you’re any good at selling, and work at developing referred leads from those you sell, there will be a customer base to build on through more referrals. If you have a thin skin, and your rejection reaction is so high that it takes way longer than a year -- if ever -- to make those calls, you’ll fail. And if you’re no good at selling, you will also fail no matter how many potential customers you can meet on a favorable basis. But at the end of a year, you will likely know if it’s time to press on or find another career.
That’s still valid information.
