There are numerous reasons why brokers and advisors are not seeing positive results from their annuity prospecting efforts. The good news is that once you understand where the problems lie, it's relatively easy to fix them.
In a ThinkAdvisor article, Bill Good, chairman of Bill Good Marketing, identifies four basic mistakes advisors make in their prospecting efforts:
- Sticking to a bad strategy that has never worked. Advisors might find their prospecting approach isn't working, but continue with it anyway.
- Altering a good strategy so that it no longer works. Some advisors find an approach that works, but then either stop using it or try to improve it, with bad results.
- Failing to be consistent and persistent. Finding a good idea, but not doing it enough can hinder prospecting success.
- Doing nothing at all. The only way to ensure failure is to do no prospecting at all.
Good recommends that brokers have benchmarks for each phase of the prospecting process. "These benchmarks enable you to make changes early in what will otherwise be a failing process," he explained.
Here are seven ideas to help you retool your prospecting process and get back on the right track:
Understand that prospecting is a continuous effort. It's not something you do when you run out of active prospects. You should reach out and market on a regular basis, even when you are busy.
Prospect often, but not too much. Try marketing once a month. If you market more than twice in a month, you run the risk of turning off potential buyers.
