Anyone?  Mcfly? 

I just did a quick round of cold calling this morning.  Nothing special ... it was just a quick introduction and premission to stop by their business and introduce myself. 

Calls: 45

Contacts: 4

Appointments: 2

If I were calling on a product it would be MUCH different stats and I would have had to pound the phones much harder. If I were new into this business I would shoot for 250 dials a day .. done by noon.  Lunch, meetings, thank you notes, appointments, and drop bys done in the afternoon.  

[quote=ECD]Dials - Be honest people...I track my every dial, and honestly with everything that you have to do 150-200 seems like a lot.  Maybe not.[/quote]

What do you mean everything that you have to do? If you mean on the call, 90%+ are nothing more than a 1-2 line script to the gatekeeper and 2-3 line script to the contact. Most dials not even that far.

If you mean outside of dialing, I'm not sure what else needs to be done, especially on a daily basis.

Anyways to give a ballpark for a first year guy/girl.

500 dials, 100 contacts, 10 prospects, 1 account (if prospects are being asked/moved forward);

50 dials/hour, 4 hrs day, 2 clients/week once up to speed.

Well I am a trainee at a wire, and there are a lot of mandatory things I have to do/attend that take away from calling.  Anyway, calling is the priority. 

500 calls...100 contacts.  What is that?  Daily?  Weekly?  You didn't quite qualify that.  Sounds weekly, with a 20% contact rate, which sounds about right. 

Using 50 dials an hour for 4 hours, it comes out to 200 dials.  Yet you say 500 for a 5 day week for 100 dials.  Can you clarify? 

What has been your historic contact rate?  From those contacts how many presentations do you make?  From those presentations how many become leads (i.e. interested, has the $$, wants info, etc)?  Then from those leads how many become clients that buy. 

Thanks for the insight.  :) 

ECD .. I imagine he meant daily but won't answer for King.  Expect to bang out 10-12hr days to begin with.  Call business during the day.  Old ladies at night. 

Historic rates will differ based on lists, geograpy, demographics called, time called, and most of all ... YOU.  You'll have your own rates soon enough.  Fact is if you talk to 25 people a day good things will happen.  It's just damn hard to do.

Set a daily call or contact goal... leave when you hit it.

[quote=ECD]500 calls...100 contacts.  What is that?  Daily?  Weekly?  You didn't quite qualify that.  Sounds weekly, with a 20% contact rate, which sounds about right. 

Using 50 dials an hour for 4 hours, it comes out to 200 dials.  Yet you say 500 for a 5 day week for 100 dials.  Can you clarify? 

What has been your historic contact rate?  From those contacts how many presentations do you make?  From those presentations how many become leads (i.e. interested, has the $$, wants info, etc)?  Then from those leads how many become clients that buy. 

Thanks for the insight.  :) 

[/quote]

"500 dials, 100 contacts, 10 prospects, 1 account (if prospects are being asked/moved forward);

50 dials/hour, 4 hrs day, 2 clients/week once up to speed."

Whether it's daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, yearly depends on your goal.

And actually, I did give a specific recommendation if your read it again.

50 dials per hour for 4 hrs/day equals how many dials per day? 200

200 dials per day equals how many dials per week? 1000

1000 dials per week equals how many contacts per week at 100/500 ratio? 200

200 contacts per week equals how many prospects per week at a 10/100 ratio? 20

20 prospects per week equals how many accounts per week at 1/10? 2

So, my ballpark recommendation of "500 dials, 100 contacts, 10 prospects, 1 account (if prospects are being asked/moved forward); 50 dials/hour, 4 hrs day, 2 clients/week once up to speed." specifically comes out to 200 dials/day and 2 accounts per week. Not getting that, simple, adjust whats wrong or call more. 2 most common problems imo is quantity and consistency of dials, and closing prospects.   (some peoples #'s blow these away but this is a great goal for a rook). Also read 500 day war he lays out far more info on the call/mail/call process, and bondguy has examples good for rooks.

[quote=KingBobby]

[quote=ECD]Dials - Be honest people...I track my every dial, and honestly with everything that you have to do 150-200 seems like a lot.  Maybe not.[/quote]

What do you mean everything that you have to do? If you mean on the call, 90%+ are nothing more than a 1-2 line script to the gatekeeper and 2-3 line script to the contact. Most dials not even that far.

If you mean outside of dialing, I'm not sure what else needs to be done, especially on a daily basis.

Anyways to give a ballpark for a first year guy/girl.

500 dials, 100 contacts, 10 prospects, 1 account (if prospects are being asked/moved forward);

50 dials/hour, 4 hrs day, 2 clients/week once up to speed.

[/quote]

That is absurd.  Those numbers are beyond reasonable.  If you opened 1 account a day at a wire that was even UNDER qualified at, say, 100K, you would be at 25 million by the end of year 1 which wold make you top of your class.  Stop spitting BS at rookies for the sake of spitting BS.  And to act as if nothing needs to be done outside of dialing at a wire indicates that you are not at a wire.  The amount of BS you are required to attend on a weekly basis plus the reporting adds up to 5-8 hours a week (yes, I have quantified it).  If you have no assistant then its more like 15- 20 hours.  100 contacts?  LOL.  Please, someone post a day they did 100 contacts.  I actually cold call, and have done so for 8 hours in a day and have never exceeded 60.  Best day ever I did 60 contacts.  You can do 1.5 million a MONTH doing 40-45 contacts.     

To answer the OP, contact ratio is all that matters.  CONTACTS is what gets results.  Set a number of contacts and dial accordingly.  25-40 contacts a day will get you to success.  

Also, take some of the BS here with a grain of salt.  I got caught up on the "contact" and "meeting" numbers on here until I realized that what I consider a meeting and what others consider a meeting are 2 differrent things.  

I am relatively new and I would say I schedule 2-5 meetings a week.  I wil also say that 80% of the people I meet with open an account within 3 months of a "meeting" - that means that I don't corner every person that talks to me and people that actually meet with me are REAL prospects - not plate lickers, poor people or some other undesireable lot.  I don't set meetings with people that have 50K.  They can invest with me via phone if they want.  I think the worst model you can pull is the "if you talk to me, lets meet for coffee" - what a bunch of garbage.  

I have 3 conversations with people before I ever agree to meet with them.  I would say 75% of the time I have their statements from other accounts before I meet with them.  Its called efficiency.  The idiots that spend time meeting with every tom,dick and harry that fogs a mirror end up 65 years old with a 300K book talking about the "good old days".  The $1 million guys in my office won't talk to you outside their office unless you have $5 milly. 

Work hard an crap will fall.  Make your first dial by 8 am and things will fall.  Don't waste your time with the "don't let them hang up" crowd and things will fall.   

My average real cold calling day is more like this (becaue I dont call bullshit lists):

150 dials

35-40 contacts

5 green cherries ( call me back in 3 months - here is my email address)

1-2 small prospect

1 real prospect

GET EMAIL ADDRESSES and drip, drip, DRIP.  "Oh, so you are not in the market right now, well I am going to pencil you in for 12 months from now for a call back - is that fair? (yes, of course).  Great, in the meantime, I am going to send you my contact information via email in case something changes prior to me getting back with you - what email address do you check most often?"  

You can get 150 addresses a month.  1% of those will turn into clients.  I shoot for 25-40% of contacts to give me an address.  

Anyway.  Don't be discouraged by the dials here.  It pisses me off to see that thrown out there.  Contacts are the important part.  The reason people stress dials is because it usually begets contacts.  However, if you actually take time to build a list, you can bump your contact ratio to 20-30%.

All the Way does a good job on this.  Read his stuff.  

Bobby I just read your second post.  I think you addressed some of what I said so I apologize for the harshness.  

I just hate to see people discouraged so I wanted to offer support.  This industry is hard enough as it is, so my apologies for jumping on you.

mea culpa.  

Dial.  Talk to people.  Win.  

I’ve done this exact method to become top 1% at the #1 brokerage.
100 contacts per day (contact = speaking with the person with the money to invest), work until you get 100 contacts each day, 500 per week. start calling business owners before gate keeper arrives (start at 6am). introduce yourself and your firm, then say "we’ve found that 95% of investors are earning less than 5% returns per year and are worried about retirement. I do financial planning and asset allocation. I’d like to meet with you for 20 minutes to show you what we can do for you and you’re family. I’ll be in your area/neighborhood this Thursday. can you meet with me at 4pm?
you MUST set a minimum amount you will accept as an account so you don’t waste time. you must qualify once they accept an appointment with you. this does work. getting 100 contacts a day Wii be a huge challenge so I recommend getting college interns to help call for you.

Cold calls… LOL

I so do NOT miss those days. Its the hardest thing to do, but oh so important when you first start out.

Here is the key… dont take it personally. They’re not rejecting YOU. They’re rejecting help. Thats makes them the loser! Hang up on them and dial the next one on the list. It’s NOT your fault!

Good luck.

Amber

Could we clarify exactly what people count as a “contact”? There’s the contact who instructs you to insert your telephone into a specific bodily orifice (some of them even suggest “sideways”, which is probably asking too much), the contact who allows you to send them information, and the contact who agrees to a meeting.

What do you call a “contact”? I see one definition above as “someone you speak with who has money to invest”, is that the general definition? If so, is that a person who agrees also to speak with you in the future?

.

[quote=MacCO]Could we clarify exactly what people count as a “contact”? There’s the contact who instructs you to insert your telephone into a specific bodily orifice (some of them even suggest “sideways”, which is probably asking too much),
the contact who allows you to send them information,
and the contact who agrees to a meeting.[/quote]

First one’s a contact, second example is a prospect, third’s an appointment.

How many contacts do you guys shoot for in a day? My firm wants 25 but I’m not getting the level of meetings they want me to get from just 25. I’m thinking about when I get back from vacation next week to shoot for 50 contacts. On 25, somedays I don’t get any prospects or meetings (but other days I get more so I guess it avgs out).

I’m at $1.5 million in fee based assets (at 1%) and I have done $3 million in bonds sales this year. I’m good on my targets for the next 4 months(which I just checked today) but I really want to end the year with $10 million in bond sales and $3 milllion in fee based assets. I don’t know if this is completely unrealistic or not.

Cold calling isn’t hard for me anymore. It was the first couple months, I was afraid of someone picking up the phone. But now, if someone says they aren’t interested or anything I just say “what’s your greatest financial concern” to see if I get a bite, or ask “when’s the last time you refied your mortgage” and move on. I have more dials to make.

FADavo and KingBobby…thanks as always. Can you give me any insight into the lists you call? Do you buy them? If so, who do you use, etc? Thanks!

I’ve always counted a contact as reaching the person I dialed. Even if they tell me to crawl in a cave and die, it’s a contact. I call’em again in three months and hope they are in a better mood.

Someone answering the phone other than the person i’m trying to reach is not a contact.

Prospect: I think Bill Good said it best. Someone with money and interest now. A fall back is a person he calls the green cherry. Someone with interest but money due at a later date.

The numbers posted by KB look to be totally doable these days, so trying to figure out why the other poster got his short and curlies in a knot.

The keys to cold calling are list developement and organization. The better the list, the better the result. Organization comes in during the calls. The only reason you should put the phone down is to go pee. Past that, more dials equals more dollars.

Bondguy, nice to see you on here again. If you read above, FADavo didn’t read Kingbobby’s second post. He apologized in a later post above. Anyway…I am interested in the list development. How do you get your lists? What lead vendors do you use? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

The key to success cold calling it to cold call. The list doesn’t matter; the time of day doesn’t matter and usually, the script doesn’t matter. What matters is you connect with someone.

If you have to have stats to stay focused, it’s reasonable to expect one prospect per 100 dials is about average. One client out of 400 dials then is reasonable if you have a 25% closing ratio. Now - the closing time frame could be immediate - or take a year.
The trick is to have enough in the pipeline to feed the immediate hurdles and to have an ongoing funnel of people to convert. Immediate opportunities are much less common to uncover.

Over time, you can elect who to focus on and weed your list down. First few years, don’t do that. Keep hitting anyone who will take your calls. Practice on them. Practice on the small opportunities to build the skills for the bigger ones, so you don’t blow up a big deal. Blow up lots of little ones, LOL. Once you have a reasonable book built don’t stop prospecting. Clients in spend down, who hit sudden needs, panic over something in the market, etc. will pull out and you could find yourself with no pipeline to replace them.

I call 5-10 existing clients a day, 10 pipeline, 5 new… that’s it. The rest is walk in traffic at the bank.