Prospecting/Cold Calling out of state
I’ve always prospected locally and when I had a qualified lead I was always able to go and see the prospect and found that when i was in front of someone my chances of closing were pretty good. Recently i have been calling in non local areas and have a few qualified leads. But having a harder time to close. For example i had a guy about 6 hours away by car who i cold called on munis. He has a few hundred K sitting in a money market at Schwab. He, like everybody else thinks rates are going up and doesn’t want to tie up money for low yields. I told him I could create a 10 year 100K bond ladder by going out every 2 years with 20K and that his blended return would be mid 3% tax free. I told him he would still have oodles of cash around with his other money plus every 2 years he would have 20K. I could tell i made some sense to him, he then asks where i was located and i told him and he was clearly bothered by how far i was. I told him i would get him info on the bond ladder after thanksgiving and we’ll take from there. For those of you who prospect all over the place how do you overcome the objection of location.
Why is it important to him that you can meet, if he can call you at any time? I would stress that… Or some analogy like “McDonalds is probably real close to you but I bet you have to drive a little farther for you favorite restaraunt”
Or if the account generates enough $$$ visit him once a quarter..Work smarter. Set a limit on how far you are willing to go, and how long it will take you to get there. That is your outer radius. Find more qualified prospects in that radius and spend less energy on long time and gas eating drives for deadbeats.
years ago prospecting in SE Florida from philly I got a million dollar GNMA prospect. I IDed myself as being from philly about a half dozen times over the three months i courted this female prospect. She informed me that her broker was way out west and she really didn’t want to deal with him anymore.
So the day of the big close comes, i call her, show her exactly what she wants, she says she'll take one million please. i make a fast call to my trader to hold the bonds firm, I take the new account info and am wrapping up the call when she asks ' Where did you say your office is?" I reply it's in Philly. "Philly, where's that?" Philadelphia Pennsyvania, about a mile from the Liberty Bell. "Oh no, that won't do!" comes her reply. And it didn't do. I couldn't get her to move. I mentioned "You said your broker was way out west and that he was too far away, where out west, Arizona, California?" "No, he's west of I-95 here in Boca." Ah! $25,000 commish vanishes into thin air. Bottom line, some people aren't comfortable dealing long distance. get that out of the way early. If it's an issue they are not a prospect. My biggest new account this year lives almost 2000 miles away. They are out there. You need to present yourself as the expert, giving them something they aren't going to get locally.