Takingnames,
You can count me in, I was also on the phone during the holidays, went wild and got more than I expected. Let’s hope a few more can move up to the bat and join in.
All The Way

I think we can make this a fun competition to keep us motivated while dialing…Ill be more then happy to share weekly stats on my campaigns. count me in.

Cool. What do you say to tracking:
Dials
Contacts
Prospects
Follow up calls
Follow up contacts
…or something like that?
Kicking and Taking…

Thats sounds good. When I track I have these criteria…Ill fill in yesterdays totals

$ found - 2.9 Million
Cold call Contacts- 39
Follow up contacts- 16
Appointments set- 1
Dials- 200
NNM/Clients opened- 0

residential…I also try to hit the 50 contact a day mark. I dont think Dials are a huge deal only an indicator of the quality of your list to make sure your not wasteing too much time dialing vacant homes/bad numbers

Takingnames, I just joined this forum and read your post - great advice. I am in a position where I need to increase my AUM and I have run out of “contacts/referrals.” Social networking or other networking has become a dead end for me. I am faced with no other alternative but cold calling. I have cold called in the past with some success; however, it has been awhile. Since I need to suck it up and cold call, your post and advice is very helpful.

With Residential Dials (which is what I did exclusively this week)
my lists are well scrubbed so I track dials because I know I can dial 50 - 60 residential an hour and it keeps me focused.
I take an approach of Leads/Dials/Suspect/Prospect and then do follow up call/mail/call to qualify over time to thin the ranks and qualify
Dials =800
Contacts=64
Suspects=12 - 4 gave email contact information; 8 will get a written note (I prepare note cards in advance - Thank you for taking my call, blah, blah, blah. All that has to be done is add name and date.
Prospects, undertermined
Followup calls on prior cold calls = 40
Follow up Contacts = 21
Appointments set = 4
Known and qualified asset total for appointments = 4 million

650 dials
180 contacts
1 appointment set
8 million qualified and found on phone.
13 seminar rsvps.

I really hit the pipeline hard for a couple seminar events this month (that was why it was a high contact ratio) but I also mixed in cold calls to add some new cherrys to the pipeline bc I got rid of a lot of dead wood. also qualified people to attend the seminar as suitable for 250K and above. did a mail/call/mail to pipeline and call/mail/call to cold call contacts

Had a bad cold call day today so will have to pick up the slack to get the contacts up for the rest of the week.

All the way were you at?

Howdy - Let’s build some momentum!
Business calling this week (I’m alternating business and residential).
758 dials
63 conversations/contacts
6 suspects (will move next step, gave email contact - call in 6 months, etc.

Dial back calls/emails from old calls netted a 6 million appointment and an 800k appointment.

Had two days blown up for calling. Had a client’s son show up with announcement one of the clients his parent died - always a great way to spend time…had an unexpected meeting with the highest net worth prospect I have - he wanted to get together for lunch…hmmmmmmmm I wondered to myself - lunch with UHNW prospect or make dials…

Reminder - MLK day is a great day to make calls - market closed, no trades, no ops staff in, most advisors aren’t working - but lots of businesses are open and lots of people who are not working are home. Pick up the phone, dial, repeat.

had a rough week keeping track of dials due to seminars and other team responsibilitys with meetings from new clients that brought in some more money. I’ve got to be more organized in keeping track of dials/ time doing it and results then just picking up the phone. I wont have any seminar distractions this week or appointments scheduled so It should be a good week for dialing ill post results end of day fri. Good luck

1126 dials
75 conversations
12 suspects
2 prospects - one of them is a whale…an elephant…a monster. Couldn’t even believe I hit him.
Booked one clean appointment from first call and booked another on a call back.
Two presentations next week to people that I initially cold called. One was about 6 mopnths ago and one was more than 2 years ago. Finally in a closing meeting.

It works - keep at it. stay focused.

430 dials
73 contacts
1 appointment (insurance review)
Not good on the dials as far as generating cherrys ran into a lot of trash and DQ them so I wouldnt clog the pipe. My goal was a min. 100 dials a day for the cold calls. Im going to continue to ramp up the calling so i can get back to 50 contacts a day. I know in previous campaign/blitzs that I have done in the past real results come from a steady 50 contact a day days to see real results. I will now focus my efforts for 1/2 seminar campaign and 1/2 muni bond fund campaign. So I can spread my efforts around.

260 dials
73 contacts
1 appointment
1 seminar 17 people…looks like might have been 2-3 real prospects rest just like a free meal.
(might move the seminars into the office to get rid of the pikers shed some cost and just focus on the real people who want help. idk
Need to get my calls up, meetings and seminars are sapping a lot of my time. However having success in bringing more assets in from current clients (from previous CC) brought in a good chunk this week. but the well will run dry if i cant keep replenishing the pipeline. Hope all is well looking forward to hear about other results.

Hey Teeks; You are rockng and rolling.
455 calls
Forgot to note all contacts
6 suspects.
Also did a presentation (informal one to a Chamber group) - and picked up three prospects.
Booked one appointment from an old cold call from a while back.

670 dials 159 contacts 3 solid leads 6 for later, booked 2 appointments one from a cold call for a seminar and 3 months later got an appointment. the other was from a website lead…that got direccted from one of my mailers. then i got a really HNW prospect that would like to have an appointment in 2 weeks, so im pretty jacked bout that one 6MM doctor that so happened to have an off day that day and caught em at home). i ve been doing all muni bond calls this week and i think its a lot easier to gage who is for real and who is a piker that wants a free meal. however i believe it is essential to have both going because a lot of my muni leads usually end up being seminar attendees and then in for the appointment. My closing ratio is much much higher if the lead was generated from a muni call bc i know there is cash available and theyre for real. Im lucky to have the resources to be able to pull off both and will continue this strategy through seminar season. i know im rambling on but i would like to use this site as a mind dump at the end of the week and for others to see so they can offer advice, critique or talk about there experience.

For the week:
1300 dials
165 contacts
2 same day closes, both munis, a fifty & a hundy.
1 prospect (opened their account paperwork without money or commitment, calling back Mon to see if they actually WANT the bond and how much, if it’s zero or under 25k, that’s ok too, they’ll be dropped.)
Btw, people that claim they’re interested but not committed, let them know this is a great time to get the paperwork out of the way and give them a couple days, these work nice for many reasons.

You guys should be in real estate. WIth all the effort you put into making calls and prospecting you would be killer real estate agents. My mother is a realtor made 100k last year and works probably 30 hours a week. She lives in a small town 20 mins outside of a decent size city. Work half the hours you do now and make as much if not more??

Curious for some input from all of you who have been calling with some success. ATM: Read your other thread and it’s inspired me to get back to dialing after a year of avoiding it like the plague.

I work for a very reputable mid-size BD in a branch of an OSJ group. I’m only in my 3rd year of the business but have used most of that time to learn. I assist an FA managing roughly $45MM and have built a book of approximately $3.25MM since the fall of 2011 through a few referrals and building relationships with old house accounts that were neglected. I finally feel 100% comfortable in my ability to foster and manage prospect/client relationships effectively (and ethically), so I am ready to really hit the pavement in 2013.

I know most of you pitch munis/muni-funds, and I have a few that I prefer, but I wanted to focus on my firm’s strength to gather a small portion of assets via cold calling, then continue to drip with superior research/service to gain the rest of their portfolio. My company participates in multiple initial offerings of preferred-shares (as well as access to fund and equity IPOs). We generally have at least 1-2 come across every week. Due to the interest rate environment, risk of rates rising for bond holders, and lower correlation to treasuries in a rising rate environment, I think preferred shares are attractive.

Here is the script I intend to start with… any criticism would be great:

Good morning/evening, this is belovedkid with IBD. We help investors in city/town prepare their investments for the rising interest rate environment on the horizon. How have you positioned your portfolio to be better protected when rates start to rise? …

That’s great. We currently have a preferred stock offering from XYZ Corp that pays X% every quarter for Xyears before converting/maturing. This stock can be redeemed at any time and offers many of the same qualities of bonds and dividend-paying stocks. The minimum investment is $X (normally 10k) and we must provide indications of interest to our desk by m/d/y. Would you be interested in making an investment in this offering?

If yes: great, due to the timing of this investment, I’ll email you account paperwork to make sure we can get these preferreds for you. You can email these right back to me, or I can stop by tomorrow when you’re available to formally introduce myself and help you complete the forms.

If no: That’s okay. We get offers like this every week. What’s your email address so I can let you know when another solid offer comes up?

/end

Let me know what you think. Also, I noticed ATM builds his own lists… what services are you other callers using to buying/building a list? I have a few lists that were provided with mailers we used with CIS Marketing in the past that I have gone through and color coded for perceived wealth (google maps works wonders for qualifying potential wealth). I tend to start with those, but I need a much larger list if I really want to do this correctly.

My plan is to make 50 calls an hour from 10am-2pm Tuesday-Thursday. After calling through the list twice (3-4 rings and hang up without leaving a message), those that I have not contacted, I will then continue the 10-2 calling, but also use Tuesday and Thursday nights from 6-8 to try calling as well to gear when they are available. After 3-4 calls, depending on the area, I’ll leave a message and move on.

My time is somewhat limited due to my role as an assistant to a much larger book, but I feel pretty confident that at 600 calls a week, I can make 60-80 contacts a week and qualify 6-8 prospects, and get 1-2 meetings. I have a very good closing rate when I actually get to meet the client, and a great track record of generating referrals from existing accounts (and helping my mentor to gain referrals as well).

My goal would be to add $2.5-5MM in new assets this year from calling alone. I’m still young (25), but I’d like to hopefully make a breakout in the next 18-24 months to get me past $10-12MM so I can really focus on leveraging my relationships for organic growth.

Belovedkid, your approach and script seems extremely solid. Leverage the firm’s expertise, your obvious intelligence, and the fact that while you may be 25 you have hundreds of years of expertise backing you up.

My only concern is whether the person you assist will respond well to this much business building on your own. Unfortunately. if you start kicking it to the tune of $5MM added a year, be prepared for objections by those who aren’t prospecting with vigor. Just something I’ve learned in my 45 years of life. You might adjust your schedule to call on Saturdays instead of so much time during the highly visible mid-week time period. Good luck.

Scholar - good advise there to Beloved. I’ll chime by saying that week night and weekend calling will is the right approach.