Volume. Influence. Timing. = Success.

Volume, Marketing and Prospecting
What kind of lifestyle do you want to have? What's important about actually having that lifestyle instead of just wanting it? Can you achieve this lifestyle in your industry? How much money will it take to finance this lifestyle? How much above and beyond financing this lifestyle do you have to save so you can ultimately finance this lifestyle without working? How much do you have to sell in order to generate the money you need? How many clients will it take to generate these sales? Where are you going to find them? How many people do you have to be in continuous contact with to create the right number of client relationships? Do you already have a great lifestyle but would like to work far fewer hours to maintain it? Is an even more balanced lifestyle appealing to you?

These answers tell you what you have to do and help identify the personal reasons to do it. You have answered the volume question. Volume is the number of people who must be in your universe in order to accomplish what you want. In other words, if you need 100 clients who give you $10,000 of premium per year in order to achieve your goal, you better have more than 150 people in your universe. Don't confuse universe with pipeline. You draw from your universe to fill your pipeline.

Marketing is the knowledge that helps you identify who you should approach and how they should be approached. Most people think of marketing as the active process of getting in touch with people. 'That's only half. The first half is doing the research on who to approach and how to approach them. The second half is making passive contact with them.

Prospecting is the active process of making verbal contact with the people in your universe to help them into the pipeline, if they're qualified. Prospecting fills your pipeline. Marketing fills your universe. Marketing enhances your image and creates familiarity with the people in your universe so prospecting is easier and thus shortens the time it takes to convert a prospect into a client. It's a one - two punch.

Once in motion, virtually 100% of universe and pipeline replenishment should come from a steady flow of referrals. Lack of referrals is a sign of poor influence skills. (More specifically, poor trust-building skill, which we discuss next.)

Volume is quality quantity. The right quantity of the right people so there is a high pay-off from your relationship building activities. You probably have told your clients that people don't plan to fail, they fail to plan. Are you walking your talk?

Influence
Being a person of influence means being highly skilled in 5 areas:

1. Trust building.
2. Thorough interviewing or fact-finding.
3. Accurate presentation skills.
4. The confidence to tell people what to do.
5. The confidence to ask for referrals.

Why is this the most important part of the process? Solid relationship building skills are the crux of your entire career because every new person who gets into your universe and pipeline should be from a referral. The key to referrals is not some slick way to ask for them. The key to referrals is having a relationship of trust. If the majority of this week's appointments are not from referrals you are doing something wrong! How much trust training have you had? That's why 95% of my speaking and consulting practice is centered around specific strategies for building lifetime client relationships of trust. All of your marketing, prospecting, and referral efforts depend on your ability to create trust.

Timing
How you manage your phone, mail, and fax contacts with your prospects and clients. The key to a successful timing strategy is VALUE, not promotion.

Try this for a timing strategy. Select 12 VALUE-ADDED articles of interest to your target clientele. No more than three can be bragging about you personally, your company, or your products / services. Where do you find these articles? Clip articles from the popular industry publications about smart business strategies or pitfalls to avoid. Cut and paste them, always acknowledging your source, on 8 1/2 by 11 paper (front and back or multiple pages are okay) and take them to a high speed copy place and print them. (Note: You may need to get permission to reprint.) Many copy places will actually handle the cut and paste for you, depending on the relationship you establish. Clip articles from newspapers and magazines about balance, achievement, career development, business success, health, raising kids, having a better marriage, etc.

Once you have 12, including no more than three about yourself and your company, write a short note to go with each one in the word processor of your database management software. I mean short. Like, "Enclosed is an article about business success strategies I think you will find interesting. Let me know how else I can add value to your life and business. Sincerely......" One letter for each of the articles. Date each of the letters at one month intervals and print them all at the same time. Fold each letter with the respective article, put it in a stamped, addressed envelope and put it in a file folder for the appropriate month. For example, the letters dated May 1st are in the May file. On the first day of May you pull out the file and drop the pre-done letters in the mail. The work was actually done months ago! We use a strategy in our office we call "The Future Mail Box." We actually have 52 boxes on the wall, one for each week of the year. When we get a new prospect we put them on a "Value-added mail campaign" right away. We may have only identified them yesterday and we have already printed, stuffed, and stamped the envelopes that will be sent to them for up to 12 months to come. Whether they ever do business with us or not we will add value to their life, business, and success. I'm one of those weird guys who believe those trite little sayings like, "what goes around comes around." If not much is coming around TO you maybe it's because not much is going around FROM you.

This strategy works like carpet bombing in the Persian Gulf War. The constant bombardment softened up the battlefield for the ground troops. When you use this strategy with your universe of prospects it softens them up so your voice contacts have a much higher probability of being successful, When you employ this strategy with existing clients it softens them up so they don't feel like the only time you call is when you want to sell them something. They feel like you really care and have added value to their life. So when you do call with a product recommendation or request for referrals you are more likely to meet with success.

Newsletters are okay, but remember, few people have time to read an entire newsletter. Many will take the time to read one article if the headline catches their attention. If you use a newsletter, make it short and easy to read with short articles.

There are ways to do this without a database management system and computer. But, frankly, if you don't understand how crazy it is to try to build and maintain a client base without a computer you probably don't understand the value of the strategy you are reading about now anyway. I know it costs money to buy a computer and then you have to invest time in understanding how to use it. The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. Consider this, if you are not resourceful enough to get your hands on $3,000 for the equipment that manages your client relationships (the key to your success), then how will you ever be resourceful enough to succeed in your industry? And even if you can succeed without the right equipment, why would you want to work that hard and waste so much time and energy?

Volume and timing can be managed with systems which require a fairly low level of skill. However, influence is pure skill. Skill to build trust. Skill to get people to open up and tell you things they don't tell everyone else. Skill to tell people what to do with their money. People of influence are made not born. And they are always self made.

One of the things you are going to have to accept is that your company is not going to provide superstar training. For high levels of success you are on your own. You are very profitable to your company at a fairly moderate level of production. Amazingly enough, at many companies you can produce $35,000 of commission and not be in jeopardy of losing your job. At this level you may even be getting recognition and qualifying for trips and awards. Even though these levels of production don't finance much of a lifestyle or a secure future, your management typically isn't going to pay much attention to you when they have so many struggling people who "need their help." This isn't criticism, it's just the truth. If you want a number to shoot for, $400,000 puts you in the top 1% of all Americans. It puts you among the high paid executives, physicians, attorneys, and entrepreneurs. Which is were you belong considering the value you bring to your clients and the future of our country.

Volume. Influence. Timing. 3 keys to the high level of success you deserve!

©1999 Anne M. Bachrach, San Diego, CA