Dudes, I’ve been remiss in posting - it’s been a monster few weeks and some whales by the tale. To quote the actor formerly known as Charlie Sheen - “Winning” - and that’s not being facetious. Lots of good stuff and great traction. I’m ramping up a line of corporate plan calls for the next few weeks. Will keep y’all posted. Kicking A and Taking names

Takingnames,

Are you calling just residential or both businesses and residential? I started cold calling this month and can’t seem to ever get past the secretary. And this time of year, a lot of retirees are back up North, so businesses become even more important to reach.

[quote=Comeback Kid]Takingnames,

Are you calling just residential or both businesses and residential? I started cold calling this month and can’t seem to ever get past the secretary. And this time of year, a lot of retirees are back up North, so businesses become even more important to reach.[/quote]
Comeback - Sorry - have been flat out this summer. I make friends with the secretary. Sometimes on the first call, I’m happy just to get their name and don’t even ask for the target. I make notes about the secretary and will call at different times to see if I can get past her. Also, I’ll tap around different extenstions if it’ a main number xxx - 0000 - so I’ll try xxx 0001 and see if I an get someone in a different department by “accident”.
Kicking A

Hey gang,

Have been busier than a centipede in a toe counting contest. Life is good and winning some great business. Made about 400 dials residentially over the past 2 weeks and not getting much traction, but have picked up a few great first step prospects with permission to move forward in the future. Opened the door to a whale, and like any good whale hunt - it will take while. Overall, no complaints - now that we are in the fiercest part of summer I will double down on calling efforts to load up the fall. Expect to see calling days with 400 - 1000 dials in the next few weeks.

Kicking and Taking

Any updates on this thread from you folks? Its been over a month.

New parent. Out straight in my off time. Dialed about 2200 last month - hit about 20 reasonable prospects. Kicking and taking. Keep at it, guys.

Bumping this up. Calling businesses only in my hometown, central NJ. I am at ML in SNJ, 90 miles down the GSP. Today, 150 dials/50 calls hr. 4 info leads, 1 green cherry in there that recognized my last name as a customer of his shop. I don’t blindly mail, I qualify for interest, current firm, successful investments in the past prior to mailing. The deliverable is usually my card, FA fact sheet or brochure and basic monthly investment research-not customized. Again, its all in the follow up.
I typically ask to pencil in a time for a follow up call.
I am looking into corporate dirs also.

Typically I call 8a-10a, sometimes 12-1 and 330-5-530 or so.

My pitch is as follows; it’s an open-ended call and I am able to take it a few different ways:

“This is xxx from xx in xxx. I work with private and family owned businesses”. “Would you be interested in a complimentary report, our best ideas for investment in 2014?”

From there, I drill down–particular areas of interest is usually my first question-could be stock, bonds, dividend payers, etc. I use the Bill Good process of ‘thankyouverymuch’ to anyone not interested or qualified, as well as his scripts verbatim on the folow up calls and subsequent. Will close for an appointment if am able; otherwise, I try to get an idea where they’re currently, what is working/not, pain points, etc.

200 dials today, about 510 for the week. A few appointments, callbacks mixed in reduced the number. Contact ratio sucked today; calling Burlington County, NJ today; nobody’s in or I am getting screened heavily. Likely many people taking off for an early weekend. Back at it Monday AM at 730.

Taking,
At the end of your seminars, do you use a feedback sheet with boxes of areas of interest for following up? Also, at the end, do you before the attendees exit, ask them to schedule a meeting? I’m asking as I have one scheduled later in October. Thank you for taking the time to respond.
Stillview

Stillview… you do want to have areas on your feedback sheets where people can indicate interest. You also want a section where they can indicate if they want to meet with you. I personally have never scheduled appointments at the seminar but know of advisors that do.

.

Hello Takingnames,
This was such a good thread. Just seems like it’s
gone soooo quiet out there in cold calling land. I’m calling business owners for on site meetings, getting 2 to commit a day is a huge success and I focus most of my energy on morning calls. Some say yes, right way (not always the best leads), and most required a few call backs, but overall it’s all worth it.

It’s really too bad that this forum has kind of lost it’s energy and hasn’t been focusing on sharing best practices on a regular basis. Maybe there aren’t many callers out there or they just got a bit tired of some of the senseless back and forth.
Never Quit.

Let’s get another thread like this going!

I really enjoyed reading this. I am going to do this with my associates.