My guess is this isn’t a valid posting guys.  600 dials per
day?  That’s 50 per hour for 12 hours.  Sure that’s possible
but not if you are taking the time to talk with someone once you get
them on the phone.  The most I’ve ever seen anyone do is 40 per
hour with an automatic dialer at a collections agency.  For a
broker the most I’ve ever seen is about 35 over a long period of time.



My guess if it is real, it’s a scam.  The bigget brokers are just
letting him make the dials for them so that they can make the sale when
he’s given up in 3 months.

Beagle,

I have reached 100 dials in an hour when there aren't a lot of people home.  I frequently get 50 dials in a little over 1/2 an hour if I don't get too caught up with people on the other line.  More commonly though I probably average 70 an hour, dialing each # by hand.  I think this is possible in a 10 hour day. 

You're probably right about the senior brokers scamming him though.

You wrote:

"I frequently get 50 dials in a little over 1/2 an hour if I don't get too caught up with people on the other line."

Isn't part of the goal of cold calling to actually get caught up on the line with people?  If you can't spend a few minutes talking with them, how do you expect to ever get a relationship built?  I'd rather invest my time chatting it up with the secretary/receptionist or with the prospect than cramming in another 30 dials.  The next time I called I would much rather be remembered than start all over because I rushed through everything.

Beagle said:

Isn't part of the goal of cold calling to actually get caught up on the line with people?

Reply:

No.  The goal is to set an appointment, get some financial information to qualify the prospect and build a little rapport.  I don't want to assume, but it seems like you haven't done much cold calling or haven't had much success with it, because almost all of the people I end up getting caught up in conversation with never set an appointment, even after several calls.  This is common knowledge among cold callers

Beagle said:

I'd rather invest my time chatting it up with the secretary/receptionist or with the prospect than cramming in another 30 dials.

Reply:

Go, ahead.  You'll end up wasting your time.  I want to talk to decision makers long enough to ascertain whether it's worthwhile enough for us to meet, attempt to set an appointment, respond to any resitance, try to set an appointment again, if no sucess send a business card and move on.  The more sales attempts you have in a given day the better your success.  I'm not the greatest cold caller in the world but I am keeping very busy with appointments.  I also am taking the advice of guys who are very successfull and following their lead.  Bottom line is most people are going to hate you calling them anyway, find the gold in the dirt and move on, it's a numbers game period.

To each their own.  I’d rather invest my time getting through the
gatekeeper a little more than others and you might be surprised how
many prospects call me back when they have a few minutes.  Just my
style. 



Interesting though that you instantly took this to a personal level and
felt necessary to bash my business and be-little it.  Interesting
way of handling things.  You might consider exchanging ideas and
ways of handling things instead of making it personal?



Notice the initial poster fell away?  I still stand by that he/she wasn’t a real poster.

If you are cold calling, try a different angle. There’s an FA in our office who is in by 6:30am and is calling on executives and small business owners. Usually he is leaving messages for them to call him back. I am amazed how many people actually do ( a quick aside- by working for a top brokerage with great name recog. definately helps things out). He gets about 6 callbacks per week, sets meetings with about 4 of them, and is poised to close about 35MM in cash management business in Jan/Feb. Obviously, managing corporate cash doesnt pay big bucks. But gettting a shot at the 401K, pension plan, deferred comp, and personal money does make careers.

I used to do that, and if you pump out the numbers-which you can early in the morning with few distractions-and leave a clear, courteous message, it is suprising how many calls you get back.  It also helps if you can call a list with some affillitation in common, say from an alumni directory from your alma mater.  That way you work a mention of that in the directory, and it will increase your callback rate.

Being with a big name firm? It may help less than you think.  I was using this approach when I was with AGEdwards, and at a time when they were far smaller and less known.  But hey it can't hurt.

Yeah it's crazy. The guy gets CEO's of local companies to call him back. If anyhting, they are curious about what he's pitching.

JoeDaMan, I still beleive that it helps to have a well-identified, public recognition of your firm. Throwing out the constant bickering we all have about our firms and their pros/cons, I still feel that calling on prospects and saying you are from ML or Morgan Stanley, etc- will get you a little farther into the phone call. And thats not me being a label $lut or anything. Its just more powerful than "this is John FA, calling with local planning firm..."

beagle,

my tone was not intentioned as an insult.  Most people that I have talked to which have done a lot of cold calling have expressed the same approach I outlined as being what has worked.  Sorry if it came across that way.

As for name recognition, my opinion is that it hurts you more than
helps in the call back feature.  When calling someone outright it
might help but if hoping for a callback I think it really hurts. 
My firm is not known by ANYONE.  We’ve been around since the
1930’s but we are very small so very few actually recognize our
name.  My firm sounds like that of a law firm.  If I leave 30
messages in the morning or early evening, I’ll guarantee you 10 calls
backs any day except early Monday morning calls.  The vast
majority don’t have a clue for the reason of the call but if I said
Merrill Lynch, they would know what the call was all about and ignore
it (just my opinion).



I did a blanket hit of all of the divorce and family law attorney’s in
my area.  I was getting over a 50% call back ratio during those
calls and a large percentage agreed to meet me.  The vast majority
assumed I was with another law firm!  Imagine 50% of your calls
actually getting through to the person you were trying to get! 
The best thing was that I knew they had a few minutes to talk or they
wouldn’t have called.  

[quote=blarmston]

Yeah it's crazy. The guy gets CEO's of local companies to call him back. If anyhting, they are curious about what he's pitching.

JoeDaMan, I still beleive that it helps to have a well-identified, public recognition of your firm. Throwing out the constant bickering we all have about our firms and their pros/cons, I still feel that calling on prospects and saying you are from ML or Morgan Stanley, etc- will get you a little farther into the phone call. And thats not me being a label $lut or anything. Its just more powerful than "this is John FA, calling with local planning firm..."

[/quote]

yah but you don't say "I'm John FA with a tiny little local planning firm...."  See beagle's post.  It's all positioning baby! ;-)

[quote=Beagle]My guess is this isn't a valid posting guys.  600 dials per day?  That's 50 per hour for 12 hours.  Sure that's possible but not if you are taking the time to talk with someone once you get them on the phone.  The most I've ever seen anyone do is 40 per hour with an automatic dialer at a collections agency.  For a broker the most I've ever seen is about 35 over a long period of time.

My guess if it is real, it's a scam.  The bigget brokers are just letting him make the dials for them so that they can make the sale when he's given up in 3 months.
[/quote]

I haven't been here in months because I've been working myself silly. I have managed to open 3 accounts, should have another come in on the 23rd, and might upgrade two of my clients and get a new one in two weeks. This job isn't a scam, but obviously the senior brokers will inherit my clients if I leave. 

I focused on developing a solid work ethic, on eliminating my reluctance to keep dialing, and on accepting "no's" without obsessing about what I did wrong. All of these things have helped, but I'm not sure how close I am to being able to maintain a certain level of sales (I want to work up to reliably earning not less than 10K every month within the next 18 mos.)

As far as dialing goes...YES, I DO DIAL THAT MUCH!!!! One former broker at our firm left and was hired by another firm who were astonished that he had been doing so many cold calls daily and was comfortable doing it. I actually like cold calling, and would LOVE it if I was highly skillful at it. I have to admit, I love to sell, and I've found more motivation in that than in the being the most skillful at trading the markets. But I still love trading and would like to learn more about trading the markets at some point.

For now, I'm obsessed with becoming a stellar salesman.  I've learned a lot more from two of the senior brokers at this point, and the third senior broker is cool and does drop valuable advice to me fairly regularly now. As for my boss...I don't know. Maybe he knows exactly how to help me and I just don't see it, or maybe he just loves to pick at me. Who knows? Anyhow, one of my senior brokers spotted this thread and asked me if that was me...LOL! Well, Adler, I was referring to you...you've been very helpful, and one day I'll be able to pay your tab at the bar!

[quote=dude]

This is one of the most interesting posts I've seen.  Bank Rep, I echo your comment.  I do a lot of cold calling but I could learn from this guy.....man.

Huggy, this post is almost hard to believe.  It sounds like it's straight out of Boiler Room.  I commend your discipline, if you get canned or burn out because of $$$, you should be able to get a job with a reputable wirehouse with that work ethic and drive.  You also will be marketing a broader menu of more palatable and understandable investments.  In addition you'll probably make more $$$.  We have a guy at the firm I work for making the # of dials you are and in his 2nd year did over $400k gross = about $200k income to him.  He's going to be a million dollar producer by his 5th year if not earlier.  You should also be able to pass the series 7 fairly easily if you have your series 3 commodites license.  Peace

[/quote]

YES, it is really that way. I don't dial 600 calls EVERY day. I can't anymore, but back when I started, I really did dial 500 to 600 calls a day...people didn't stay on the phone long enough to make a difference Anyhow, I make between 300 to 400 calls nowadays, and I've decided to kick my calling up a notch. I work over 60hrs. most weeks. I really don't have choice. The office motto is "Smile and Dial". The leads are NOT warm. They aren't necessarily the most qualified either, so you have to weed through them. But think about it: if you can earn 6 figures doing this, you can earn much more if you get to speak to even more warm and/or qualified leads? Probably much more.

This all sounds like a suckers game.