What was your previous job as a supervisory role in the firm?

gave up my practice to go into management

Sooooo…you got fired from management and your only option is to go back into production? Gotcha. Whatever you did before to succeed…do that again. Good luck.

doesn’t make sense…production to management and give up book…then back to production with no book??? Something isn’t right…at any rate you have some good ideas to get started over. 500 calls a week is not realistic unless you are going through a telephone book and dialing cold on the phone.

[quote=blue34]

I’ll soon be going back to work as a rep after some
time spent in a supervisory role in my firm…I’m real excited to get
back to it, but lack a natural market to help me get started…My idea
for client acquisition is as follows:

1. Make 500 cold calls per week.

2. Start a lunch seminar program centered around a few restaurants that I like.  Will be calling and hitting the pavement to area businesses and residents to get attendees.  The goal is one lunch per week.

3. Will focus on getting a few COI's and make it a point to attend local networking events.

Anything else anyone would do?  I'm entering back in with a good amount of skill and experience but no client base.  Do you think I'm going about this correctly?  Any advice would be appreciated. 

[quote=blue34]

I'll soon be going back to work as a rep after some time spent in a supervisory role in my firm...I'm real excited to get back to it, but lack a natural market to help me get started...My idea for client acquisition is as follows:

1. Make 500 cold calls per week.

2. Start a lunch seminar program centered around a few restaurants that I like.  Will be calling and hitting the pavement to area businesses and residents to get attendees.  The goal is one lunch per week.

3. Will focus on getting a few COI's and make it a point to attend local networking events.

Anything else anyone would do?  I'm entering back in with a good amount of skill and experience but no client base.  Do you think I'm going about this correctly?  Any advice would be appreciated. 

[/quote]

You probably have the skills and the VP title, but little else, so here's the deal.

You are going to have to live like a rookie - accept that NOW. If you can't - go work at a bank. Just because you are management doesn't mean anything.

Immediately obtain coaching advice from a professional source. You've been out of it for too long and you are probably too cocky to realize it. Guess what - management is almost always wrong about how to build a business.

As far as I can tell, most managers don't seem to make it out in production. I think that part of it is that the current management essentially hates you if you don't immediately succeed --because it makes them look bad. Too much stress...

I would primarily incorporate charitable activities into your business plan. You're older, and you do have some stature as a management type. Your goal should be to only associate with charities where there are ONLY rich people. Expect to pay up to do this. (Get your ass to Church - if that's where rich people hang out.) If your wife is good at socializing, bring her out as much as possible - she'll do half the selling.

You should be out EVERY single night at events that would put you in touch with potential clients. EVERY SINGLE NIGHT until you reach $15 million in assets MINIMUM.

Do syndicate. Ask for special treatment. Don't tell anyone this..

Do not cold call in the immediate circle from which you want to do business. If you are known as that "cold calling broker from XXXX". Cold call in places where you WON'T meet the people later on.

Oh, yeah - just one more thing - EVERY broker in your office secretly wants you to fail to show management how hard it is. Sorry.

Blue, you've got a solid plan to get going. You've got the most important trait for success, a work ethic. I know of two brokers who gave up books, went to management and then back to being brokers without books. Both did this in the early nineties. Today, one is a two million dollar producer and the other is a solid meat and potatoes $400K producer. Both just hit it hard when they moved back into production, much the same as you have planned. Worse case, you'll find out what doesn't work. Then you'll modify your plan over and then over yet again until you find the right combination.

As for summer seminars I too believed they wouldn't work until I became friends with a broker who was filling a room 12 months a year with once or twice monthly seminars. He didn't know that your not suppose to do seminars in the summer or around the Christmas holidays. Apparently he didn't get the memo. He taught us old dogs that we truely are, well, old. Go for it and welcome back to the trenches.