6 Months to $4 Mil Challenge
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I was banned from posting on the other thread so I have had to recreate it. I've been registered for 5 months and have struggled to pull in $2.2 MM assets under management. What's worse is that 90% came from my warm network which is now thin and I need to look elsewhere if I'm going to survive. I need to cold prospect. I have a wife and three children under the age of 10. I am a student in the MBA program at Duke University and miss work every other Friday to attend classes. I don't have time in the evenings to cold call or work because I am spending those hours either studying, doing homework, or devoting some time to my family.
What hasn't worked so far: (1) LinkedIn. I've connected with 2300 people and made contact with them all. I've scheduled a few meetings but half canceled and none converted. (2) Call muni bonds to hospitals. There just aren't any good muni bonds in NC right now and with rates going up soon, no one wants to buy a 4% when they think they can get a 5-6% if they wait a year or two. (3) Cold calling in the evenings only. I only tried this for a short amount of time and wasn't very motivated so I stopped.
My goal: Add $4 MM by the end of 2015 using cold calling strategy. Create a system which provides consistent results that I can use for the next 3-6 years to build my business to $30-50 MM AUM.
Monday - Friday:
- 10:00 until complete: Make 40x contacts per day cold calling. I will be cold calling our risk management products, which are fee-based managed portfolio aimed at people with $100k+ (but can be purchased for as little as $25k).
- Follow up calls if time permits.
Friday - Saturday:
- Catch up on follow up calls and try to schedule appointments for the next week. Does anyone have any advice on this? Follow-ups is where I struggle.
Please wish me luck and keep up with me as I go. You are all invited to join me in this effort as well! Five months in, I'm at the point where I am realizing that if I don't play the numbers game, I won't make it. Fortunately, management is gracious and hasn't threatened to fire me. They want to see that I have goals set and a plan to accomplish them.
Week 1 Stats:
860 Dials / 130 Contacts / 33 Suspects Found
0 Follow Up Dials
0 Appointments booked
0 Appointments complete
Cold network pipeline: 33 suspects
New AUM: 0
Total AUM from Cold Calling: 0
Total AUM: $2.2M
Week 2 Stats:
1112 Dials / 108 Contacts / 29 Suspects Found
33 Follow Up Dials / 10 Contacts / 5 Suspects Eliminated
2 Appointments booked
0 Appointments complete
Cold network pipeline: 43 suspects
New AUM: 0
Total AUM from Cold Calling: 0
Total AUM: $2.24M
Week 3 Goals:
1600 Dials / 200 Contacts
2-4 Appts Booked
$100k New AUM
Week 3 Stats:
1138 Dials / 107 Contacts / 20 Suspects Found
24 Follow Up Dials / 8 Contacts / 3 Suspects Eliminated
0 Appointments booked
1 Appointments complete (~$500k)
Cold network pipeline: 62 suspects
New AUM: $0
Total AUM from Cold Calling: $0
Total AUM: $2.24M
Week 4 Goals:
1300 Dials / 130 Contacts
2 Meetings Booked
2 Meetings Conducted
Calling businesses or purchased residential list? Doing a great job on the dials!
I have a purchased residential list of about 5,000 names, ages 40-76 and with $250+ investable assets (supposedly). This list covers half of my city. When it runs out, I can buy another 5,100 names for the other half of the city.
Nice, the 4M$ you’re aiming for is in that list, keep us posted on progress and results. You should be booking 1-2 on these people per 50 contacts.
Hammer
I wasn’t able to make many calls this week. I was at school on Friday so I was only in the office four days. I lost another day when my wife’s car had a flat on the interstate (with our infant in the car) and I had to go rescue her.
I spent nearly an entire day preparing for and conducting a meeting that was scheduled the night before. I have since had a second meeting with this prospect. He has $1M in cash he wants me to build a portfolio for and if I succeed for him, eventually he will transfer the rest of his $5-8M portfolio he has been self-managing. He is 70 years old and has had open heart surgery and spine surgery and is worried about who will watch after the money when he passes away because his wife is very healthy and will outlive him. I feel good about this one. He seems to be fond of me so we’ll see what happens.
I have an appointment today with a classmate who has $500k in cash and wants to do something with it after watching it sit in a bank account doing nothing for 3 years.
Week 4 Stats:
217 Dials / 20 Contacts / 6 Suspects Found
24 Follow Up Dials / 8 Contacts / 5 Suspects Eliminated / 2 Suspects Converted to Prospects
1 Appointments booked
2 Appointments complete (~$1M and $20k)
Cold network pipeline: 61 Suspects / 2 Prospects (~1.6M)
New AUM: $0
Total AUM from Cold Calling: $0
Total AUM: $2.09M
Week 5 Goals:
1250 Dials / 100 Contacts
2 Meetings Booked
2 Meetings Conducted
Looks good bro. Keep at it and you’ll surpass your goal. Work on converting more of your conversations to meetings. Take the confidence from your pending deals to leverage more quality meetings. It’s only a matter of time and of not giving up.
Well done.
hammer
where did you meet the 70 year old prospect? Did you find him on the purchased list? Sounds like an amazing lead. best of luck.
I purchased a cold-call list thru a 3rd party recommended by my home office.
This profession can beat you up. I don’t let myself get down over the “we’re not interested” responses during cold calls. 80% say no thanks right off the bat and I expect that. I just spoke with a good prospect whom I’ve met with and been in constant communication with who decided to stick with what he’s got. He did “a lot of soul searching” and made his decision. This rejection hurt.
I’ve been stung by rejection by a few warm and cold prospects.
I need a victory… soon.
Man good job just keep it going! I’m a new FA myself and I do a ton of door knocking. I’ve done $3 million in 4 months off of strictly strangers so it can be done! Looking to cold call…what company is your list through and about how much is it?
I find so many people are on the DNC list. Plz pm me and let me know!
Good luck
I went through a tough stretch. I lost motivation. However, I did keep following up. The indian gentleman had surgery last week for his spine again. I spoke with his wife but obviously, medical issues puts everything else on hold. I am sending a get well card and will follow up in a week or two. Pretty sure I’ll be opening a $630k account this week off a meeting I had last week. The guy had $1M in annuities making him 2-3% a year. Half a million are past their surrender date so we can put them to work in better investments. He’s got another $250k in a 401(k) that he can roll over too.
Back at it this week. Goal is 1000 dials to get me back on pace.
Week 5 Stats:
235 Dials / 20 Contacts
New AUM: 0
Total AUM from Cold Calling: 0
Total AUM: $2.2M
Week 6 Stats:
613 Dials / 74 Contacts
New AUM: 0
Total AUM from Cold Calling: 0
Total AUM: $2.10M
Week 7:
0 Dials / 0 Contacts
New AUM: 0
Total AUM from Cold Calling: 0
Total AUM: $2.10M
Week 8:
0 Dials / 0 Contacts
2 Meetings conducted ($15k and $630k)
New AUM: $15k
Total AUM from Cold Calling: $15k
Total AUM: $2.15M
Good job, you cracked open an account from the cold calls. Now you’re off to a start, just keep at it a bit longer and remember to follow up with all those prospects that should be adding up.
Hammer
Have you stopped?
Can you walk us through the basics of your approach?
What are saying on the initial and follow up calls?
What are saying/doing that is leading to people bringing you money?