Rate my variable life/securities telemarketing script.

[JacquesWerth]

Your first "Telemarketing Script" (above) is 65 words long. Very few people will listen to more than 45 words and not get turned off.

Prospecting is not "telemarketing."

Good prospecting is presenting an offer that requires an immediate "Yes" or "No," response. That way, you can easily average 60 prospecting calls an hour. So, you can make twice as many calls per hour and find the High Probability Prospects - those that want what you are offering.

Start your prospecting offer with "This is FirstName Lastname."

Is "Biggity" you real name or a pseudonym? If it isn't, give your real name. You should also give your last name for both authenticity and compliance.

"Hi, there..." signals that you are about to hit them with a sales pitch.

"Is this a bad time" or "Is this a good time" is confirmation that a sales pitch is coming.

"I'm calling you tonight because I wanted to tell you about a special program the firm is running this month." It is a waste of 20 words, because it leaves the prospect in the dark.

Your satement: "We offer a special kind of cash value insurance for children that can be used for college planning or future retirement." is clear and concise.

If you add something about low payments or tax benefits, you have a good prospecting offer.

 

[David C]

Do yourself a big favor, take Moonlight's advice.

 

[BiggitySwat]

Second, and more importantly why would you cold call like this?

How do you know they have kids? Why should they want YOUR "advice"?

Just to give you a bit of background: the lists I buy are pretargeted to recent parents. The prospects are definitely *recent* parents. I cold call to supplement my other marketing efforts, which are Direct Mail Annuity response cards and referrals. Right now, I don't have a seminar system, website, or speaking engagements set up, but that's definitely in the future.

Direct Mail definitely doesn't keep me busy all day long as there are not enough responses. I fill up the rest of the day with cold calls.

FYI: Alot of my cold calling efforts have been based on info I read from John Petrowski's cold calling for health insurance leads, the core belief being to quickly generate a warm lead for a follow-up. Not sure if it can be applied the same way to generating securities leads/financial planning leads.

Start your prospecting offer with "This is FirstName Lastname."

Is "Biggity" you real name or a pseudonym? If it isn't, give your real name. You should also give your last name for both authenticity and compliance.

My real name is not Biggity, it's just a nickname I use online. During live cold calls, I definitely use my first and last name as well as the name of my securities firm/RIA.

Your statement: "We offer a special kind of cash value insurance for children that can be used for college planning or future retirement." is clear and concise.

If you add something about low payments or tax benefits, you have a good prospecting offer.

Welcome to this board, Jacques. I bought two copies of your book, High Probability Selling, and I'm about 75% the way done with reading it. Great read so far.....

How about:

Mr. Prospect? This is BiggitySwat from Biggity Securities. I am calling you tonight because we have a special kind of college planning service available which can help prepare your children for higher education. What kind of plan do you have right now for your kids? (Is this something you want?)

Mr. Prospect? This is BiggitySwat from Biggity Securities. I am calling you tonight because we offer a special kind of cash value insurance for kids that can be used for college planning or future retirement. There are many tax advantages to our plans for you the parent. Is this something you want?

 

[moonlightandmargaritas]

FYI: Alot of my cold calling efforts have been based on info I read from John Petrowski's cold calling for health insurance leads, the core belief being to quickly generate a warm lead for a follow-up. Not sure if it can be applied the same way to generating securities leads/financial planning leads.

If you ask John, I'm sure he'll tell you that his telephone approach is based on info that he got from me. He has posted on it extensively.

To suggest that you can call people up to "warm them up" for something like college funding vs. a "demand" type product like health insurance (or P&C) is comparing apples to oranges...

You can beat your head against the wall making cold calls, but doing some seminars/speaking engagements is not only more effective, but easier too.

Why do it the hard way?

 

[BiggitySwat]

If you ask John, I'm sure he'll tell you that his telephone approach is based on info that he got from me. He has posted on it extensively.

To suggest that you can call people up to "warm them up" for something like college funding vs. a "demand" type product like health insurance (or P&C) is comparing apples to oranges...

You can beat your head against the wall making cold calls, but doing some seminars/speaking engagements is not only more effective, but easier too.

Why do it the hard way?

Like I said, cold calling is just supplemental. I do agree with you that a Financial Planner can possibly get more leads and credibility from public speaking. However, that system is not set up right now (we're working on it) and in the meantime, I would still like to keep busy with new clients. That's the reasoning behind the cold calls.

I get your point though about demand products vs. services. Do people NEED to plan for their child's education.....I like to think so, but many would disagree. Then again, do people NEED health insurance.....yup.

Let me ask you this, then: if not cold calls, and seminars are still underway.....what now? Dump more money into my direct mail?

 

[Salary_Guard]

Direct mail is a good proven way to generate fairly qualified leads. As long as your initial data is fresh and accurate.

 

[Delta76]

Hi, this is Biggity from (B/D name). I am a local financial advisor in the neighborhood, and I advise parents on their different options for funding their childrens' education. What I wanted to do is sit down with you and show you some of the options and get your thoughts. How does that sound?

Let's say they say yes and you sell a $300 per month 529 plan. How do you make any money?

$300 X 5% = $15 per month GDC. That's before the haircut! I would liken selling 529s to selling dental in this business. You would go broke trying to lead with it, but if someone wants it while selling the health, it's an easy add on.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Good prospecting is presenting an offer that requires an immediate "Yes" or "No," response.

I disagree, a good script allows you to get a prospect talking conversationally about their situation.

 

[Golden Jet]

Let's say they say yes and you sell a $300 per month 529 plan. How do you make any money?

$300 X 5% = $15 per month GDC. That's before the haircut! I would liken selling 529s to selling dental in this business. You would go broke trying to lead with it, but if someone wants it while selling the health, it's an easy add on.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


I disagree, a good script allows you to get a prospect talking conversationally about their situation.

I'm familiar with Mr. Werth and he teaches a good system called "High Probability Selling." Getting a yes or no, immediately, tells you whether or not you have a HP prospect. We all know that low and medium probability prospects will have conversations with us. If you get them to say yes, a conversation will follow and you will be spending time with someone who has a high probability of buying from you.

 

[BiggitySwat]

Let's say they say yes and you sell a $300 per month 529 plan. How do you make any money?

$300 X 5% = $15 per month GDC. That's before the haircut! I would liken selling 529s to selling dental in this business. You would go broke trying to lead with it, but if someone wants it while selling the health, it's an easy add on.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


I disagree, a good script allows you to get a prospect talking conversationally about their situation.

Delta,

I use the 529/Coverdell/VUL opener because it seems to generate less sales resistance and nastiness on the phone than when I previously prospected for life insurance/mortgage protection.

Once I sell the 529 and have them added to my book of business, they are added to my newsletter list (with their permission) and client-only appreciation events. The endgoal with these clients is to take over their entire book of business (except P&C insurance).

So, from the 529/Coverdell/VUL/IUL, I then ask for:
1) Mortgage protection (term life)
2) Disability/CI (if not had from work)
3) Retirement planning (Roth IRA, VULs, etc)
4) General investments for mid-life goals (equities, commodities, aggressive growth securities). Investing money to aid in generating capital for the downpayment on a house, for example, etc.
5) Referrals. I can help their parents with final expense planning, their brothers and sister with their business, and so on. Also can set up group 401K/403b plans for business owners.

Has this been working so far? Kind of. Some of the prospects I convert to clients eventually turn over their entire book to me, others don't.

Not disagreeing with you at all by the way....if I just get the 529 sale and they don't want me to touch their other business, it does really screw up my ROI. So this is a flawed approach but one that I've been familiar with. That's why I'm here to get ideas

But going back to my initial problem - my WEAKNESS is prospecting and keeping costs down. Once I meet a prospect, my closing ratio is high....but that means nothing if I can't get the appointment! After reading of all the successes with cold calling on this forum, I thought that it may be worth pursuing in addition to MoonlightMarg's suggestion of hitting the seminars and public speaking engagements.

 

[Delta76]

I'm familiar with Mr. Werth and he teaches a good system called "High Probability Selling." Getting a yes or no, immediately, tells you whether or not you have a HP prospect. We all know that low and medium probability prospects will have conversations with us. If you get them to say yes, a conversation will follow and you will be spending time with someone who has a high probability of buying from you.

Actually, the more I thought about my approach, I actually do go for a yes or no, then the conversation develops: "I've talked to a lot of business owners lately who are frusterated with their premiums and I wanted to find out if that's a concern of yours?"

If I get a "no", I'm on to the next call, if "yes", I start more questions and get to the conversation. I'll take back my initial comment.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Once I sell the 529 and have them added to my book of business, they are added to my newsletter list (with their permission) and client-only appreciation events. The endgoal with these clients is to take over their entire book of business (except P&C insurance).

If it's working for you, don't change it. I just know that I made some stupid mistakes starting out and chased people for Roth IRA contributions and when I tracked some down, the other business often didn't develop.

If I wasn't focusing on health, I would probably lead with life insurance. Most people are not adequately covered and you get paid for your efforts immediately. You could still use the same approach as you currently do to collect more lines.