The diagram below shows the evolving steps of a cold call to a prospect plan decision maker from the initial contact to setting up the Discovery Meeting. No matter if your activity is cold calling, dropping-by or social networking there is the moment when you start the conversation with your prospect plan decision maker about their company 401(k). I call them the "why you" words.
Why should they take your call and if they do, why should they listen to you? Why are you different than every other Advisor that calls and why are you different than their current Advisor? Your prospect plan decision maker must have an initial level of trust before they can respect you and begin a quality conversation. Your opener is a sentence or two of meaningful words that can cause a trust-based relationship to begin with your prospect plan decision maker. I suggest you build your opener from your value statement.
Your value statement should contain those one or two sentences that can cause the prospect plan decision maker to want to hear more about what you do. "My name is from . My team works with companies like yours that believe their 401(k) is too important for they and their employees to manage on their own. I am hoping to have a conversation with you about how we work to assist you in accomplishing the goals you have for the company 401(k) plan. Is it possible that we can have that conversation?"
With your opener delivered, the pump is primed. To keep the conversation flowing you ask them one opening question. What's your favorite? Mine is, "What goals do you want to accomplish with your company 401(k) plan?" It's my favorite because when you are chosen to serve you will be part of their answer to the question.
Your next step is to ask the initial profiling questions to verify what you found out about the plan through research, plus any other information that allows you to determine if you want to take your time to go out and conduct the discovery meeting with the prospect plan decision maker. The next article in the series will review the initial profiling questions you pose to prospect plan decision makers and managing their objections.
Christopher Barlow
Managing Director
KnowHow 401(k), LLC
Chris is the founder of our 401(k) Sales Champion program. Click here if you would like to learn more about this FREE sales development program that we offer to advisors interested in launching, growing, and improving their 401(k) business.
This blog post is reproduced with permission from Chris Barlow.