Closing
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The purpose of this thread is to get us to the next level of production. I'm at 15k/month but shooting for 30k. I seem to have hit a wall, maybe it's my approach, maybe it's my time management, maybe it's my organization...
On the phone I always go for the appointment as I want them to come to the office, so I never close over the phone (unless it's a gimme, and at that point I ask them to come in to sign docs). Once I get an appointment, I follow up with them a day before to confirm and to tell them "I look forward" to meeting with them (or call in the morning for late afternoon appointments).
During the appointment, I use open ended questions and always discuss family, occupation, recreation, and money in that order. We want to let them know we care about other things besides the sale. I then ask household questions and get comfortable with their risk tolerance. I lead with our 'world class' financial software, then our access to top money managers, then make a recommendation. Along the way I'm doing trial closes (asking them if they understand, if they see the benefit of my reco, if what I say makes sense). I trial close to get them used to nodding their head in agreement. Lastly I tell them what their options are: do nothing and keep on the path of least wealth creation, go with c-share to reduce entry fee, go with a-share to reduce long term costs, go with managed money for maximum value. If they say they want to just keep things the way they are, I then try to close by asking them to just test the strategy (I always say strategy instead of mutual fund or managed account) by carving out a small piece into c-shares just to see how it performs (this is my last attempt to get their business).
Thoughts and ideas welcome.
How many households do you have? How long in this business? Roughly, how many new accounts do you open a month? What is the average size of your new account.
If you can answer that, I'll (and others here) be able to share some of my thoughts/material with you.
about 250 households, 6 years in the business, 6 new accounts per month, average size is 40k with lots of variance. About 20 million AUM.
Of the 250 HH, how many are "garbage"? How many are less than 50k? How many are inherited?
You are what I coined the Phase One RR, on the verge of going to Phase Two.
A Phase One broker, eventually realizes that cold calling, new accounts are like treading water. Phase Two is about hard core profiling and relationship building with your existing book, and continuing to work your hard core prospects. But, the cold calling, intense marketing needs to end to a substantial degree.
Your book, is a gold mine, but you have to go mine it now...
Your best mentors, are going to be people that have been doing what I just described, but have NOW graduated to level 3, which is relationship managing/asset management.
When I started the conversion from One to Two, I created my own profiling and goal worksheets. I focused quite a bit on account consolidations to me, with good simple estate planning. The assets just poured in, and we went from about 50mm in assets, to 120mm in about 3 yrs.
At 250 HH, you might be light on HH, but I can't tell w/o more info. If I simply used 125k as an average HH, you could easily grow to 31mm in assets. BTW, your current average must be 80k per HH at 250 / 20mm.
thank you for taking the time to share BFP.
I've spent lots of time on the phone and not enough time on the existing book...you are right. Where I see opportunity is profiling to a new level and asking them about their relationships outside of what we have going on. I can discuss the products and services that are available at higher asset levels. What I have been meaning to do is ridding myself of small accounts, even if they are c-shares and pay a couple grand in trails per month. These small accounts seem to need the most attention in the way of service issues (changing bene's, small withdrawals, inquiries on performance, bs chatting, etc). I can accomplish them by either slowing down my response time to them (calling back, getting their request processed, being short on the phone or in person), asking them for 50k or reminding them of the high fees they pay, and other strategies.
I shall start with my top clients and make sure I have their entire relationship and work my way down the list. I'm starting today!! thanks again, brother.
I have not tried this as I am still in "Phase One" as BFP calls it but when I get to "Phase Two" I would cross reference my book using three criteria:
1. AUM 2. GDC 3. My personal opinion about the HHLook at the average in each criteria and work the above average accounts heavily to deepen the relationship as much as possibly and ask yourself if the below average accounts have potential to be above average. If not transition them to home office or hire a junior advisor to come in a service them and cut his/her teeth.
(this is what I guess BFP means about mining the book)
Ok, so when I transitioned from phase one, to phase two....
I was doing 85% gross from new households. I'd called another rep in my area, she's quite successful, and she was doing 85% from her existing book...
Bureau, I'd be willing to bet, you are 85% from new assets. That is tough as nails, hard core work, as you surely know. 85% from your existing book is like walking through the park.
How many good prospects are currently in your pipeline? How many of your clients have a TON of money, you don't manage, but are aware of?
B, you also are just upon year 7. That is the year they begin to refer to you. After year 3, they think you're serious, and will give you more money.
B, congrats for making it in this biz, the last 7 yrs have been tough, especially for a new rep.
Screening your book. Virtually nobody is serious, if they ever gave you less than 50k to start. I did a study of my records years ago, found that only 3% of my good households had ever started the relationship with less than 50k. Those stats were very well collected, over many numbers, years.