Learn How to Connect

Essentials of Telephone Prospecting

Watch the videos below and take notes. This videos incorporate resources from the book Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount that will help you:

Apply a 5-step telephone prospecting framework

Know exactly what to say on telephone prospecting

Create an engaging Elevator Talk

Engage prospects in your Story

A Step-By-Step Repeatable Call Framework

A consistent call framework reduces stress and helps speed your call preparation – for both your natural market and new contacts that you have acquired through introductions, networking or social media.

Step 1: Grab Attention

Purpose: Grab the prospect’s attention by saying their name.
Example(s): "Hi Cynthia"
Tips: Don't ask, How are you doing? and don't pause. Say their name and keep moving.

Step 2: Identify Yourself

Purpose: Right up front, say your name and agency. Identify the person who referred them.
Example(s): "This is (name) from (agency)". "Our friend (name) suggested that I give you a call."
Tips: If the contact is someone you know well, it isn’t necessary to mention your agency.

Step 3: Reason for Call

- Purpose: Give the reason for your call.
- Example(s): "I'm calling to grab a few minutes of your time".
"I'm calling to do some mutual networking"
- Tips: Be open about the objective of your call. People value transparency.

Step 4: Because

Purpose: Give them a relevant reason to give up their time.
Example(s): "BECAUSE I help people like you get organized with their finances- reduce stress and make life feel more manageable."
Tips: Say the word because. Your because statement should be about the prospect, not about you.

Step 5: Ask

- Purpose: Ask confidently for what you want . . . and then shut up.
- Example(s): "How about we get together on Thursday?"
- Tips: Be confident, direct, and don't pause. Then be quiet and let the prospect respond.

Tips for Customizing Your Approach

When You’re Calling Someone, You Know Well

- Respect the relationship. Start with a friendly conversation. But, either at the start or at some point during the call, mention your call’s business purpose, such as:

"I'm calling for a business reason but first {insert personal question}....
"Let me put on my professional hat for a minute. I'm also calling to grab a few minutes of your time.

- Just say your name, it’s not always necessary to mention your agency.

- Add personal details to your because statement, such as:

"BECAUSE, with three talented kids, you've probably been thinking alot about college funding."
"BECAUSE, you and (spouse/partner) have talked about doing more traveling more once you retire."

When You’re New and Doing Joint Work

Don’t exaggerate your personal level of experience. Talk about the experience of your firm, team, partner.

Set up a follow-up call with your joint work partner to get to know the prospect, typically 2 days before the meeting.

To Expedite the Process

Once the prospect has agreed to the appointment, you may want to take a few minutes to do some “pre-discovery”.

"To help me prepare for our meeting would it be OK if I ask a couple questions?

Become a Contact

When calling people on their cell phones, it’s much more likely that they will pick up if you are a recognized contact. When meeting someone in person, have a professional contact card on your phone ready to exchange – via email or air drop.

Set Phone Dates

When you meet a new person, ask if it’s OK for you to send them an invitation for a follow up call (“phone date”). This will put the call on their calendar so that they are expecting to hear from you. Then be sure to send an email or text confirmation.

Use Voice Mail

No matter how proficient you become with the telephone prospecting framework, a majority of your calls are still going to go to voice mail. Use this repeatable voice mail framework to improve your callback rate:

Identify yourself and your agency. This makes you sound professional.
Say your phone number twice, slowly.
Tell them the reason for your call. Transparency is respectful and professional.
Give them a reason to call you back. Make them curious about how you can help them.
Repeat your name and say your phone number twice.

Mastering the Art of Listening

These 9 tips will help you develop effective listening skills which are just as important as developing your speaking skills. Great communication is a dynamic dance: a tango between effective listening and thoughtful speaking.

Manage your mindset

One of the first things we must all do in the virtual world is manage our mindset around how we are ‘showing up’. Before you jump on another virtual meeting or a phone call check in with yourself to determine how you are feeling. A positive mindset is critical for effective listening. If your head is not in the game then you will not be able to listen to someone else with your full attention.

Know the difference between ‘active’ and ‘passive’ listening

When you are actively listening you are engaged, leaning in and using every sense you have to listen. When you listen ‘passively’ you only hear the words with your ears and often they simply go in one ear and right out of the other. You are letting the sound of the words wash over you rather than going forward to greet them

Carefully listen to the tone of the voice

What feelings does the speaker’s voice evoke in you? Can you determine the speaker’s emotional state beyond the words you are hearing? Listen too for the rhythm, cadence, tone, and pitch of their voice for it will signal shifts or transitions. They might also let you know what is important and what is not.

Listen to the tone of the words

What is the choice of the speaker’s words saying to you beyond the words themselves? When we speak, most of us use differing vocabularies based on whom we are speaking to and what it is we are saying to our listeners.

Be attentive to the speaker’s body language

Especially their face and hands in the virtual world. Watch for the non-verbal cues they give off for they give suggestions as to how you should be interpreting what they are saying. Only 10-15% of communication is verbal (words). The remaining 85-90% is nonverbal (primarily body language).

Pay close attention to cues

That will often signal note-worthy information or summary statements. Cues could include statements like, “There are two important steps I want you to remember. The first is…” or “To sum things up…”

Resist the urge to react or respond

Let the words that are being spoken communicate with you freely. If you have shifted your attention away from the speaker to yourself because you are already deciding what you are going to say, they are not flowing freely. You block communication when you have a premature outburst either in your mind or aloud.

Eliminate outer and inner distractions

Turn off what you can around you and consciously block out the rest. Quiet the urge within you to think about anything other than what you are hearing. If you allow your mind to wander then you let yourself lapse into ‘passive’ rather than ‘active’ listening.

Practice playing back what ‘you think’ you heard

This does not mean parroting a person’s words back to them. If it is appropriate to check your understanding of what you have heard, then use your own words to paraphrase or summarize what was said to ask for confirmation or clarification.

Resources & Action Steps

📄 Telephone Prospecting Playbook

The phone is the most efficient prospecting tool because when you are organized, you can reach more prospects in a shorter period of time than through any other prospecting channel—even e-mail. Utilize this playbook to make the phone your weapon.

ACTION: 📄 Download and read.

📄 Working Remotely with Clients

As you embrace a new “normal” conducting business in a virtual environment, you’ll discover a significant number of ideas online for how to operate your day-to-day business from home during this time.

ACTION: 📄 Download and read.

📄 FR Guide: Elevator Talk

- Understand the purpose of an Elevator Talk.
- Create and deliver an effective Elevator Talk
- Take appropriate follow-up action at the conclusion of your Elevator Talk.

ACTION: 📄 Download and read.

📄 Respond to Questions & Objections

Practice using these scripts. Before you begin phoning for appointments, it’s important to know what you are going to do when a prospect says “no”.

ACTION: 📄 Download and read.

📄 Gail Goodman: Modern Appointment Setting Tips and Scripts

📄 Gail Goodman: Modern Appointment Setting Scripts for Your Natural Market

📄 Gail Goodman: Modern Appointment Setting Response Handling

📄 Professional Telephone Use

In this Workbook you will discover and learn:

How to prepare yourself for an effective c
What it takes to create a positive and vibrant impression on prospects
Why prospects see the telephone as an interruption and how to overcome that reaction.
How to work with gate-keepers.

ACTION: 📄 Download and complete.

📄 Create Your Telephone Script to Gain More Appointments

USE THIS PRESENTATION WORKSHEET AS A GUIDE TO:

Create your greeting. Write it out as you would say it.
List several questions to probe for rapport and to identify and position yourself. Be sure they are open-ended. Be sure they are assumptive.
Write out several advantages and benefits you deliver based on your vertical market and based on your product/service.
Create several alternative choice phrases. You should have one for AM/PM, days of week, specific times.

ACTION: 📄 Download and complete.

Marketing and Social Media Resources & Action Steps

Grow Your LinkedIn Network-25x4 Strategy

Step 3: First Message- You will receive an email notifying they’ve accepted the invitation. When sending a message via LinkedIn, it’s important to remember that you are sending a message to someone you’re already connected with.

CLICK HERE to Download a 25x4 Strategy Tracker.

Tips for writing messages that get responses

Search for NEW connections name and click message
Keep message short, simple, and personalized
Write like you speak and avoid corporate jargon and cliches
You’re not trying to make an immediate sale; you’re trying to start a conversation
Read their profile first & find a way to customize your message specifically to recipient, and wherever possible, show them you've done your homework
Have your message typed out on a word document so you can copy and paste
The highest response rates result from messages delivered mid-morning on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. The lowest response rates come from messages sent on Sundays.
Subject lines are the first impression and needs to be engaging
- Example – Hello from a fellow (university) alumni
Promote your company LI page –people who follow your company are 81% more likely to respond
Write two messages using slightly different wording. Send each to prospects and measure the results. After a few days, you’ll likely notice a higher response rate to one of your messages. Select that as your primary message going forward.

LinkedIn Message Best Practices

The GOAL of a message = Start a Conversation. For those who you choose to send a message to, consider the following best practices:

1. View their profile:

Look for commonalities or topics to make e-small talk about. Read their summary, view their recent activity (what posts they have liked or shared), look at their experiences and education, mutual connections, etc.

Hi, Sally! A quick note to say that I loved the article you shared about first time home buying tips. Let’s grab coffee soon to catch up! How does Tuesday morning work for you?

2. Be authentic:

Write your message as if you were leaving that person a voice message.

3. What’s your goal?

For someone you don’t know well, your goal in sending them a message could be to get 15 minutes on the phone with them to mutually decide if it makes sense to potentially work together. For someone you know well, your goal could be to grab coffee and catch up. You decide!

4. Be specific:

When you want to schedule time with someone, for a call or an in-person meeting, it’s a best practice to prompt your reader with a specific day/time. When you use vague phrases such as “at your earliest convenience,” or “whenever works best for you,” you’re giving them an easy way out of meeting with you.

Hey Joe, I see that you recently left Company A Williams and joined Company B– congrats!! I’d love to hear about the change and to catch up with you. Would you want to grab coffee soon? How does Thursday or Friday morning work for you? Looking forward to it, John

5. Provide them with valuable information:

Hi Kevin, I hope all is well. As a business owner, I thought you might find this article interesting. Let’s find 15 minutes at the end of the week to talk about how I could help improve your business planning. How does Friday at 3 work?

6. Follow-up:

It’s common for messages to get overlooked; we all do it. That’s why it’s crucial to follow-up. Suggested: One week after you sent the initial message, send a follow-up message.

“Hey Joe, I hope you had a great weekend. I just wanted to make sure you saw my previous message. Looking forward to talking soon, John”

Messaging Example #1

Context: sending a message to someone you know and are connected to, but haven’t talked to you in a while.

Text: Hey Joe, your name came up on LinkedIn so I figured I’d reach out! It’s been way too long since we’ve last talked. Looks like you’ve been doing well at XYZ Company; I’d love to hear about it over coffee. This week Thursday and Friday morning work well for me; otherwise we can look at next week. Let me know & looking forward to catching up,

John.
123-456-7890

Messaging Example #2

Context: sending a message to someone you’re connected to, but don’t know who they are.

Text: Hi Sally, I hope all is well with you. I came across your name on LinkedIn and could not recall how we got connected or where our paths crossed. As you’re currently a part of my network, I would like to get to know you better. Do you have time next week for a 15-minute call? How does Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon work for you?

Looking forward to it,
John.

Career Launch Marketing Resources

FFG is Committed to Creating Amazing Marketers. Once you enter the Career Launch stage, you'll get access to the Tools below courtesy of the firm.

Sharing Content on Social Media with Marketing Suite

Sharing content to your social media networks is one of the easiest ways to establish credibility, stay top of mind, and engage with potential prospects and clients. At FFG, we use an app called Seismic LiveSocial (formerly Grapevine6) to find relevant content and share it to our social media networks. Using Seismic LiveSocial to find and share content to your social media networks is an easy and effective way to stay top of mind. Some FRs recently reported that new business and clients resulted from sharing content on social media. Click below to read their stories:

Effective Target-Marketing

Zeke Zimmerman of Certified Financial Services shares content daily to his Facebook and LinkedIn networks. Specializing in the special needs planning market, Zeke leverages G6’s keyword customization and add-an-article feature to quickly find and share articles that are relevant to his market.

ACTION: 📄 Download and read

You Never Know When the Time is Right

Brian Sykes of Independence Planning Group recently placed a Whole Life policy with $10,000 in premium due to sharing content to his social media pages. Brian is an active content-sharer. Every Saturday morning, Brian schedules his social media posts for the upcoming week, posting at least one article per day to both his LinkedIn and Facebook Business Page. Brian makes sure that the content he’s sharing is relevant in his three target markets: business owners, retirement planning, and special needs planning.

ACTION: 📄 Download and read

Be Proactive

Vidal Peoples of Strategies for Wealth started conversations on social media that led to five term policies. For Vidal, it’s important to share content to ensure his name and value-add is at the top of his network’s newsfeeds and notifications. “Part of engagement and getting the most of LinkedIn is building up your identity as the person who is the experienced professional / has a voice in that space. What better way to do that than posting stuff that is germane to how you make a living?”

ACTION: 📄 Download and read