Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
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Dear Bev,
I work in an office with another advisor who loves to sell. He does direct mail campaigns, calls prospects regularly to make appointments and pushes himself into many new situations. My business is languishing, and he keeps trying to coach me on how to grow it. I don’t think his approach will work for me, but he says I am just scared of trying. Can someone who isn’t comfortable being sales-y learn how to be a salesperson?
Ted H., Midwest
Dear Ted,
Do you want to do things the way he is doing them? Do you envy his style and want to imitate it? Or, do you want me to justify that there is more than one way to get new sales and you don’t have to be like him to succeed?
I sense significant style issues between you and your colleague. He is probably very outgoing, upbeat, gregarious and dominating in approach. In other words, he plows through with a smile and a back slap! I don’t mean to diminish what he is doing – it’s working for him. But clearly, he is wired to do it this way and it is comfortable for his needs.
In your case, you may see the outgoing approach as off-putting. I note that you used the word “pushes” when you talked about his entry into new situations. This indicates to me that you find his style a bit distasteful.
We can all be good salespeople – and we need to be. We are always selling – ourselves, our talents, an idea, a recommendation or our services. Selling isn’t about pushing, in most cases. It’s about relationships.
If you have built strong relationships with clients, I suggest starting there. Begin to network with anyone and everyone you know. Change your mindset around selling. You view it as negative and pushy, because you are watching your colleague. Oftentimes, when it comes to high-end services like wealth management, selling can be done in a softer, subtler manner. You do have to ask, and you do have to close, but you can manage the process in a manner that is more fitting for your style and your comfort level.
Dear Bev,
What are the best ways to get a prospect to return a phone call?
Gerry S., Vermont
Dear Gerry,
Manage the relationship from the very beginning. Once you get to the point where the prospect just isn’t responding to you, you only have a few options.
It’s much better – at the outset and throughout the sales process – to manage expectations and the steps. Let prospects know, up front, that the most difficult part of the process often comes when they have all of the information but you can’t reach them to find out what decision they want to make.
Partner with them – ask them, what you all can do to avoid this? Ask them about their timing and decision-making process. Learn in advance.
If you haven’t been able to do this, here are a few tips:
- Follow up by both email and voice mail – don’t default to one or the other.
- Let the prospects know you don’t like to be a nag, so you would appreciate if they could let you know their timing.
- Leave a voicemail asking if everything is okay. Let them know you are concerned about them.
- Continue to keep in touch by sending an article, note or item that lets them know you are thinking about them.
And perhaps most importantly, don’t make it about you. People get busy. They often really can’t decide what to do – or life intervenes. Inertia is often the biggest sales obstacle. Until someone says no, assume you need to just keep on keepin’ on!
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995; in 2008 she co-founded Advisors Trusted Advisor to offer dedicated practice management resources to advisors, planners and wealth managers. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate students Leadership & Social Responsibility. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).
She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.
