Make the Post Office your best friend
March 4, 2009 by David Dassow
Part 4 of our series on 7 Prospecting Secrets…Make The Post Office Your Best Friend
I remember years ago during a fishing trip we found a spot where the fishing was easy. All I had to do was drop the line into the water and the fish took the bait. It was great!
A buddy of mine became tired of fishing and made an off-handed comment. He said, “it’s not easy enough, I’d rather throw a net into the water and grab them by the truck-load.”
Let’s face it you can only make so many phone calls and knock on so many doors. There’s a limit to how much prospecting you can do on your own without a fishing net.
That’s where the Post Office comes in. None of us like to admit it but it really isn’t that expensive to mail a letter. Can you imagine if you had to deliver the letter in person? Well, when you Prospect the old tired way you are delivering the Pre-Need message one person at a time.
The Post Office can help you immensly. There are several methods to develop your list of folks to mail. Check previous postings for tips on building lists.
There are three techniques I use with the Post Office. Technique number one is to send a series of sales letters linked together in a sequence two weeks apart. Technique two is a cash-flow-surge sequenced mailing. And technique 3 is the follow-up program and a regular monthly communication from you to your Prospect.
You can easily and naturally contact way more people through the mail than through personal contacts. One other tip. Be sure and make contact through the mail multiple times. In this day and age of advertising, junk mail, black-berries, text, cell-phone, email, twitter, most people will not even open a piece of mail they don’t recognize. There’s magic in frequency.
Happy Selling!
David
P.S. One final note for today. I had a discussion recently with a Pre-Need Selling Associate who thought it wasn’t smart to mail more than one piece of mail. A study was conducted years ago. People go through mail over the waste basket and place letters into “A” pile, “B” pile. The “A” pile are bills and correspondence from people they know. The “B” pile goes straight into the trash.
Here’s a quick easy exercise you can do in minutes. Go to your local Post Office that has post office boxes. Just watch people check the mail and how they sort it. You’ll be shocked to discover people throw out most of the mail (without opening it) before they leave the building.
One final, final note. Why would anyone open up mail you send to them? Send your mail in an un-marked white envelope. Do not use letter head envelopes unless you already have a relationship with your recepient.
Ok it makes sense but do you just start pulling names and address’ out of the phone book?
Scan previous posts and make sure you’re signed up for email updates from me. The technique of mining your natural market leaves at least 150 for your list (http://howtosellpreneed.com/referrals/low-cost-prospecting-nat-mkt), these are some of the mistakes made (http://howtosellpreneed.com/success/top-10-prospecting-mistakes), the basic three steps to soft prospecting (http://howtosellpreneed.com/referrals/three-steps-prospecting), continual follow-up..one way is through a newsletter (http://howtosellpreneed.com/referrals/follow-up-until-they-buy). As for names to contact. Get a Champion Endorser. Take your Natural Market and create referrals by the truckload instead of one(sies) two(sies) http://howtosellpreneed.com/referrals/a-champion-endorser http://howtosellpreneed.com/products/members-page-27
Look through my posts such as: http://howtosellpreneed.com/success/mystery-of-pre-need-selling where I talk about niching and constantly preach to you about developing your own niche. The easieast way is through your natural market because birds of a feather really do flock together. Check out this post: http://howtosellpreneed.com/selling/how-sell-preneed-scratch there’s a whole bunch of links to other posts.
The bottom line is to get ONE STEP PROSPECTING out of your head and start 2-Step Prospecting. Develop you list based on your niche. What is your niche? The easiest way to discover your niche is to mine your natural market. Identify those commonalities and begin to look for folks who have those same characteristics. A quesstion came up recently. A younger person just started selling pre need and insisted none of his friends would be interested. The point of mining your natural market is NOT TO SELL your friends. But he has a valid point. So I told him to use the concept I lay out in mining your natural market and go after his friends parents instead. But not to sell. Just to prospect.
Getting a list of folks is pretty easy. Defining who you are seeking is the tough part. I can’t answer that question specifically because I know very little about you and your market. What I can say is look for commonalities and develop a list of folks likely to purchase from you. Obviously age, home ownership, retired/working, kids in or out of the house matter. But so do things like cultural preferences. Religious preferences. Some people are likely to pre plan becuase their parents did or it is common in their community, ,etc, etc.
See my most recent post on this topic. How to develop a list of Prospects
Happy Selling!