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Why
Do I Need a Model Day?
By Tony Parmenter, Advanced Marketing Specialist
I have helped design a lot of Model Days. There are two ways to set one
up--the right way and the wrong way. I'd be willing to bet that when
a Marketing Consultant tells RRs to design a Model Day, 90% of them immediately
throw one together the wrong way just to appease the Consultant's
demands.
How do you make sure your Model Day is done the right way?
The wrong way is to simply block out time you estimate should be "enough" and then jot down some arbitrary numbers for incoming contacts and appointments. This type of Model Day does not reflect real goals and will never truly help you achieve your ultimate production goals.
The right way is to break your larger goals down into daily and weekly goals with your yearly production goal in mind. Then you design your day with the calling blocks, appointment blocks, and any other time allotments needed to accomplish your daily and weekly goals. If you follow the structure you set and meet your daily and weekly goals, you should also hit your monthly and yearly production goals.
Once you have your Model
Day blocked out appropriately and designed with your overall goals in mind,
there are a few tricks you can use to help it really work:
- Make sure that anyone
with access to your calendar (meaning anyone who schedules you for appointments)
has a copy of the Model Day plan and knows when they should and should
not schedule any possible activity.
- Make sure that the
first and only person in your office answering the phone is your Service
Assistant, and be sure that she is screening out all unnecessary work.
- Use the RR Daily Stats Worksheet to track what you are accomplishing each day. Many RRs feel this tool just turns them into bean counters, but that is not what we are after. We want you to see how well you are progressing toward your goals in each hour. Think of the Worksheet as training wheels--you are merely using it to get to a state of consistent performance where you can take the training wheels off. If you take the training wheels off too soon or don't use them at all, you are more likely to get some bruises and scrapes and may give up altogether before achieving your goal.
We have all heard the
adage that sales is a numbers game. While that is true, it does not mean
that you are simply a bean counter. Instead, you can use numbers to set
goals at manageable levels and analyze the statistics to obtain predictable,
recurring results in order to create steady progress toward your final goals.
Then all you need to do is block your time to reproduce those results at
regular intervals. You are not merely a bean counter--you are a "financial
strategy scientist," and you are testing theories to make changes
in the world you work in . . . or at least to make more money in that world.
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Keeping
All the Plates in the Air
By Matthew Hicken, Senior Marketing Consultant
You just got the Monthly Drip Campaign started and are trying to make sure
it is targeted. You have run seminars in the past and would like to get
them started again using the System. You have a bunch of old Prospects who
need to be cleaned out with the Old Prospect Card Campaign. Your team is
telling you that you need another employee. You have been listening to some
of the BGM Radio broadcasts and think that one of the Mass Mailing Campaigns
would work great in your area. Your Marketing Consultant is calling every
other week and telling you to get some of your statistics in line and to
get those Gorilla Chart assignments done. On top of all of this, you've
been meaning to get out on the golf course to improve your swing before
you play with your friends again.
You have probably seen the street jugglers who throw one item after another into the air and still manage to keep them moving in a somewhat organized way. You might have even seen the performers who keep plates spinning on the tops of sticks and balance them with all the parts of their bodies. They are experts at what they do. We want you to become the expert in your area, too. Professional performers need a lot of practice and go through a lot of trial and error before they become experts. They also probably receive coaching from someone who knows how the act needs to be done. The same is true for you: It will take some trial and error in your office to make sure your "performance" is set up right, some coaching from people who know how to do things effectively, and some practice and planning to get everything done.
Not everyone conquers the Monthly Drip Campaign or finds the one Campaign that will suddenly double their number of Prospects and increase their production the first time. In addition, not everyone can effectively juggle all of the issues they face, and there will be many times when things fall. When that happens, it is not the time to leave everything on the floor and say, "it won't work for me." It is time to collect everything and start again with one piece, then two, then three and so on. Maybe one of the things you were juggling was too heavy and threw off your balance. Some heavy items to watch for are: 1) Trying to do it all without a Computer Operator; 2) Trying to run Mass Mail Campaigns before the Monthly Drip Campaign is running; and 3) Hiring a full "million-dollar team" before you need all of its members. Stick to the plan your Marketing Consultant recommends, and you won't fail.
Now that you have the right coach in place (Bill Good Marketing, Inc.), there are some things you can do to help your Consultant know what you need most. First, you need to decide what your vision is. Where do you want to be in one year, five years, and ten years? Second, you must define your mission. What are you trying to accomplish in this industry? Third, you will need to define who your customers are. Right now, some of you are probably saying, "My customers are anyone who has money." What about Jerks? And what makes them Jerks? A lot of times, it may simply be that they are different from your ideal Client. Defining your ideal Client and identifying your niche is another important step. With this information, your Consultant can help you reach your goals and help you see your vision come to fruition.
Finally, you have to have a strategy that allows you to juggle more and more as time goes on. This really comes down to your daily planning. Planning should take place before each day begins. You need to look at all of the items you need to get done each day, from contact goals and money found to Clients you need to meet with. All of your tasks must be prioritized, with like activities put together, and then a schedule needs to be followed. This schedule should be a written plan that is in front of you all day. In your daily meetings with your Service and Sales Assistants, copies should be given to them. They need to know your plan and goals for the day to help you accomplish them.
Your weekly staff meetings
should also help in this area. Discuss weekly goals in these meetings, including
Weekly Statistics, Opportunities Due and Action to Do Reports. Once a month,
this meeting should also be a marketing meeting, unless you have a Marketing
Assistant in place. The marketing meeting should discuss things like Monthly
Drip messages that will be going out and any Mass Mail, Connections or other
Prospecting Campaigns that are going to be run. After that meeting, everyone
should get to their computers to download letters for the Drip and other
Campaigns. The RR should review the letters at this time and make any necessary
changes. The CO should then take the letters and edit them in the System
per what the RR wants. Then the Campaigns should be downloaded and started
as necessary.
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Setting
Better Goals
By Tony Parmenter, Advanced Marketing Specialist
"I'm
making my target number of calls, but I'm not hitting my production
goal.
This down market is making it impossible for me to make any money."
Come on, I know you have all thought that at one point or another. My question is this: While you're having this problem, why do I keep hearing from other RRs who are hitting their monthly goals, others who are exceeding their goals by 20-30%, and still others who are on target to double or possibly even triple their production and/or assets this year alone? The answer is usually the same . . . better goals.
Now, when I say "better goals," you
may say, "Hey, I should lower the bar so I can do well, too!"
EEHHHHH--wrong! The trick to having better goals is taking that big scary
looming year-end production goal and breaking it into bite-sized pieces.
Before I worked at Bill Good Marketing, I was in computer sales. My focus was on selling computers to the huddled masses. My first manager, the one who got me started in the sales game, was a typical "run in circles" sales guy. He would give us a goal and then lay back and take a soft stride at the beginning of the month, but as the end drew closer, he would start to run more and more frantically to make up for lost money. We never seemed to hit our goals.
Most salespeople work in this same "storm building" method. The best way to see it in your own business is to look at how much business you did during each week for the past six months. Most RRs will see increases towards the end of the month, but in spite of a seemingly great struggle at the end, they may never quite make it to their goals.
Shortly after experiencing this issue in my sales career, a new sales manager joined us. He looked at the way we were doing business and taught me an important lesson. He showed us that rather than focusing on the end results, we should break our goals into bite-sized amounts. We took our monthly production goal and broke it down into weekly and daily goals, and then we went a step further. The new manager asked each of us to track the number of people we talked to in relation to the total number of computers sold AND the total number of computers sold in relation to total dollars brought in.
After two weeks of doing this, he showed us why it was important. I found that I sold to one out of every three people I talked to, and that the items that I sold were typically high in cost and therefore brought in more money. We divided my sales numbers into my daily goal and found that if I were to approach 15 people a day who fit the niche of people I had previously been targeting, I could easily hit my daily goals and thereby move myself on a steady daily course toward meeting my monthly sales goal. I ended my sales spikes and began consistently hitting my goals almost immediately.
So how does this apply to your situation? Simple:
- Start with your production goal--let's say it's 500K. Deduct your trailing production (trailing 12)--let's say it's 100K. That leaves us with 400K that needs to be brought in through new Client accounts.
- Figure out what your average Client brings you in production--for our example, let's say it's $4,000.
- Divide that into your remaining production (i.e. $400,000/$4,000=100), and that will tell you the average number of new Clients you need--we need 100 for this example.
- Divide that number by 50 (the number of business weeks in a year), and that gives you the number of new Clients you need to get each week--looks like we need 2-3. Then look at your closing ratio--we'll say we have a 50% ratio, or a 1 in 2 closing rate. That means we need 4-6 closing appointments each week to hit our goal.
- Now, let's say 1 in 7 new Prospects sets an appointment with us each week (that's pretty much the average). That means we need 28-42 new Prospects contacted each week. If we break that down by days, that means we need about 6-8 new Prospect contacts every day.
See how you can break your big scary goal into something manageable on a daily basis? In our example, if we make the calls necessary to contact eight people each day and set an appointment with 1 in 7 of them, we'll get more than enough appointments to close two Clients each week.
Remember, the key is setting better
goals.
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Warming
Up to Cold Calling
By Alex Reynolds, Marketing Support Specialist
In this new age of "do not
call," many RRs feel that cold calling has gone the way of the dinosaurs.
But this new legislation just did you the biggest favor you could have asked
for. You can now access a list of all the people who don't want you to call
them and take them off your calling list. This doesn't mean you won't do
business with some of these people; you just don't have to go through the
agony of cold calling them. We can all remember at least one bad cold call
where, upon answering the phone, someone spewed every nasty name in the
book, even the ones sailors won't use, and slammed down the receiver. It
was the call that made you vow never to sit down to smile and dial again,
effectively ending one of the best campaigns at your disposal.
Many of you want to know how to increase your business. The easiest and cheapest way to do that is to get on the phones and make cold calls. Telephone campaigns are probably how you got started in the business because they are the easiest and most inexpensive campaigns available. The irony is that the most common complaints I hear from brokers today are, "I don't have the money for campaigns" or "My firm limited my budget." Often, these are the same brokers who say, "How am I supposed to get new Prospects?" and "I need more Clients." It doesn't matter if you are the cold caller or if you hire part-timers to do it, but someone in your office should be making calls for at least ten hours per week.
The right cold calling and mass marketing strategy will add 20-30 interested Prospects per week and fill the Prospect pipeline to capacity. You should have 800-1500 Prospects at any given time. It is preferable to have qualified Prospects, but if you need new Clients on the books, anyone interested should be considered a Prospect. If your pipeline isn't 800 names strong, you need to add to it. Don't feel bad if it isn't--this pipeline constantly needs additions. Every time a Prospect signs on the dotted line, dies, or becomes a Jerk, there's one more spot to fill.
Here are some of Bill Good's guidelines to keep in mind when you get on the phone:
Focus on numbers, not results.
Bill recommends 60 dials per hour because it increases your success ratio.
If you are making that number of hourly attempts, the significance of each
call diminishes. Rejection will matter less to you as a caller, and this
will be reflected in the way you sound and in your results.
Use a headset.
Comfort is the number
one reason to use a headset, but it will also dramatically increase the
flow of your calls. You will add 10-12 dials per hour by not having to struggle
with the handset.
Always use a script.
You will make more
calls if you use a script, and the quality of your calls will be higher.
Chances are you already have a script that you use when you call people.
A good rule of thumb is if you have said something on more than one call,
that's your script. Write it down and stick to it.
Always
have a list of numbers ready.
Whether you are working from a spreadsheet, printout, or numbers pasted
on index cards, have enough of them ready to shoot for 60 dials an hour.
Never
hang up.
Hanging up accomplishes two things: wasting your time and making your elbow
sore. Every time the receiver lands in the cradle, you just have to pick
it up again. If you do need to set down the receiver to take some short
notes, make sure to pick it back up as soon as you can. Cold calling can
be tough and stopping in the middle of things makes it harder.
Ask
for additional numbers.
When you get someone who is interested on the line, ask him/her for a daytime
phone number. If you don't, you are going to be stuck calling at night
and on weekends forever.
Only
let it ring four times.
If no one answers by the fourth ring, hang up. Anyone answering after the
fourth ring is not happy you called. However, if you're calling a
retirement community, give them an extra ring because it may take them longer
to get to the phone.
Don't
write anything negative.
Just because people you talk to today aren't interested, it doesn't
mean they won't be interested in the future. If your list is full
of negative comments, it will be more difficult to call the numbers with
those comments the next time the list is recycled, and you'll lower
your success ratio.
Don't
stay on terminal hold.
When calling businesses, there are two situations where you will encounter
being put on hold. The first time will typically be with the receptionist
who routes the call, and the second will be with the assistant who screens
incoming calls for the decision maker. The first hold should be less than
twenty seconds, and the second should be less than sixty seconds. If you
find yourself on hold longer than this, hang up and try another time.
Don't
leave messages or get callback info from non-decision makers.
Asking for a better time to call or leaving a message is pointless when
calling a mass mail list. You probably won't call back when the decision
maker is in, and I really doubt anyone is going to rush to the phone to
call you back.
Cold calling takes
nerves of steel and a desire to succeed. The major reason it's not
a bigger part of RRs' strategies is because they don't like
doing it. Hiring a part-time non-registered cold caller could be the easiest
and cheapest alternative to putting together a large-scale mass mailing
campaign, even in the Do Not Call Era.
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© Copyright 2003 by Bill Good.
All rights Reserved.