I often write about the questions….not to insult, but to instruct.  Not to embarrass, but to shine.

You really can shine selling prearrangements.

Don’t think so?  I do…I know you can shine.  I know you can stand out above the rest of the mediocre sellers because you’re doing something none of them will do.

You’re improving your SELF.  You’re reading this site.

A recent question, “How long does it take to really get going?  To really sell lots of pre-need?”

I wish I could have asked, “how long do you think it takes?”

Do you think it will take a year?  A month?  A week?  A day?

Your belief system is very strong and powerful.

Did you know after WWII officially ended there was a Japanese Soldier who didn’t get the news?  Actually, there was more than one.  But, one in particular wouldn’t give up.

Our belief system is pretty powerful.

Lt. Hiroo Onoda was sent by the Japanese army to the remote Philippine island of Lubang.  His mission was to conduct guerilla warfare during the war.  He was never told the war had officially ended, for 29 years.  Oh, he did get some hints in the form of fliers that talked about it.  He continued to live in the jungle, ready when needed eating coconuts and bananas and evading search parties he believed were enemy scouts.

Our belief systems are powerful.

Even though Lt. Onoda was wrong and the war had ended he believed the war never ended.  Belief systems are strong.  It took his former commander to convince him the war was over…29 years after the war ended.

One thing I like to share with pre-need sellers is there is no limit to how much they can sell.

Do you believe you can sell lots of pre-arrangements?

I have a good friend who has studied persuasion and he has shared a few secrets with me about “belief” and how you can change your belief.

He’s putting together some materials I’ll be showing in the near future.

For now, I’ll be putting out tips on how you can change the way you think in order to change what you’re doing in order to sell more pre-need.

There will be some home work, the test will be whether you achieve number one status in your company or beat your own personal records…much like a golfer who wants to beat his personal best game.

The real test is going to be the bank.  The real test will be the deposits you make at the bank.

Happy Selling!

David…

P.S.  check out the catalog page for the latest materials designed to equip you to double your sales in half the time.

P.P.S.  I’ve expanded the TOP TEN POSTS.  Click here to get the information.

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I’ve been in the laboratory experimenting with postcards and will be updating you soon.

One thing I can tell you is the more steps you add to your system of follow-up the better your return.

But I thought I’d mention a few important things about your follow-up system.

First, you need a follow-up system.

A follow-up system is a pre-planned, organized, way of staying in touch with a prospect.  A follow-up system is part of two-step-prospecting.  A follow-up system is more than your normal prospecting.

A follow-up system is used to warm up your prospect.  Once a Prospect responds to your marketing you plug them into your multi-step follow-up system.  In fact, the more steps in your follow-up system the better your responses from your prospects.

Remember, the goal of a system is to plan it out so all you have to do is add a name and the system takes over.

Recently, I’ve been experimenting with postcards in my follow-up system.  I did a 300 postcard mailing.  I’ll be letting you know of the results soon.

This month’s subscriber newsletter has sample postcard of a recent mailing I did to previous customers.  We (the cemetery) have not had any contact with these folks in 15 – 39 years.  The goal was to make contact with these people after years of neglect and bring up the items necessary to complete cemetery arrangements and/or funeral arrangements.

To all my subscribers look in your email tomorrow for the latest newsletter and sample postcard.  If you aren’t a subscriber yet, well, why not?  Subscribing has privileges. 

Happy Selling!

David…

P.S.  There are a few Enchilada Packages remaining.  The package has everything I’ve got including the kitchen sink.  When you subscribe you’ll get a a special link to the Whole Enchilada Package in the “welcome” email and the most recent and past issue of the newsletter.

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We’ve spoken about the idea of researching a market and a strategy to capture new business by combining different techniques including postcards and in-person.

I’ve also mentioned a technique for in-house sales people to follow-up with at-need families.

I’ve given you some real world numbers and results from this strategy.

In part 3 we talked about combining these strategies and how to use them for in-house sales specifically at-need follow-up.

Below are the links to the previous parts:

Click here for part one

Click here for part two

Click here for part three

The question for you today…

What other methods of prospecting can you incorporate into your own current system?

The next step is to take all of these strategies and figure a way to apply them to your own unique situation.

There are individuals who keep up with this site that do not sell pre-arrangements.

I’ve had car sales people, realtors, small business owners…. to name a few.

Why do you think they keep up with this site?

Because they can transfer the prospecting techniques I talk about into their own profession.

In other words, this stuff works for anyone in Sales.

I just happen to focus on pre-need.

But, it also points out an obvious observation you might have missed.

People from other industries keeping up with this site are trying to improve.  They are going outside there own industry to improve.

This is why I talk about so called “industry gurus” who have never sold anything let alone what they are preaching to you about how or what to do.

You should study successful sellers. 

Period.

You should invest in YOUR SELF because no one else will do it for you and no one can take it away from you.

The more successful you are the more you call the shots. 

Finally, do the 5/60 rule.

Spend 5 minutes a day working on your goals and 60 minutes a day improving your self. 

There’s plenty of material on this site plus the catalog page to equip you.

Now, quit fiddle farting around and do it!

Happy Selling!

David…

P.S.  Subscribers to my site are about to receive an email offer of the Whole Enchilada (everything I’ve got including the kitchen sink!)

If you aren’t a subscriber yet hurry up….

The offer will be in the mail shortly.

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This question came in. 

If you preach two-step prospecting why are you dropping by people’s house unannounced?

Good question…

First, if you’ve been a reader of this site for any length of time you know I encourage you to do a two-step-approach to prospecting.

The prospects I’ve been dropping in on have already done business with the cemetery.   Also, I sent a postcard mailing to reintroduce me and the cemetery before I dropped in.

It is a two-step approach using in-person and a mailing strategy.  We’ve already done business with these prospects and have a connection.

Which, by the way, is the best way to do business.  Most pre-need sellers completely forget about doing business with existing customers.  This is by far the easiest way to do business because your customer has already made a commitment and has a connection with your company.

But, of all the last century style prospecting out there I happen to like door-knocking.

Mind you, I don’t love it, but I do like it.

Nothing beats meeting a prospect face to face to determine if they are a lead.

A lead is someone who doesn’t own arrangements but open to discussing it.

See my starter package for more on tapping into your warm market of leads.

Getting rejected at the door from a prospect who isn’t interested is not near as frustrating as it is on the phone.

Most people have a door-mat that says “welcome” and most will be nice to you at the front door even if they are not interested.

But, another reason why I like door-knocking is ‘birds of a feather flock together’.

When you combine strategies you develop a synergy that makes your prospecting even more powerful.

Let’s take our current series on “drop-bys”.

Check out part one here

Check out part two here

Remember the idea of combining strategies?  I had researched people we’ve done business with but forgot about some 15 – 45 years later.

I further went through those files to locate likely traditional casket burials.

I used the on-line white pages to match the prospects who were still living in the same homes years later (stability) and made sure the ages were within my range.

I then map-qwested those individuals and grouped them together to make it easier and efficient to drop-by.

I even sent those prospects a postcard mailing a week before I began my drop-by test.

Now, I could incorporate another strategy of door-knocking the neighborhood where the drop-bys are grouped and the odds are those people would be interested in traditional burial.

Of course, the above statement may or may not be true.  The only way to find out is to test it.

However, if true, I have a new lead source that is within my target market.

The point is; I’ve now combined yet another prospecting strategy with the previous ones.

And, I could also send a postcard mailing to the three or four block radius of my drop-bys before I begin the experiment.

This is how we intertwine strategies of prospecting.

For some of you this might be a little higher level for others you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

So, if you’re brand new to this site check out the catalog page for starter stuff.

If you’ve been around awhile look for my combined packages of more in depth prospecting strategies.

Finally, if you are in-house sales think about how you can incorporate some of these strategies to what you already do.

It’s a heck-of-a-lot easier to add something to an existing strategy than to start from scratch.

Let’s say you’re in-house sales and will be following up on an at-need family in their home.

Why not send a postcard mailing to a three block radius of your family’s home and door-knock those houses when you go to meet your family?

Further, why not research a three block radius of homes (near your at-need follow-up home) that your cemetery/funeral home has already done business with and include those folks for drop-bys when you go to meet your at-need family?

The more you combine these prospecting strategies the more likely you are to create a snowball effect and bring in even more business in the next 6 months than the last 12.

Happy Selling!

David…

P.S.  Remember, YOU and only YOU make things happen.  No one else will do it for you.  So, why not arm your self with the latest in proven strategies and techniques designed to make you a very successful 6-figure-income-pre-need-seller?

Click here for the catalog page

P.P.S.  If you haven’t already become a subscriber why the heck not?  It’s FREE and I’ll send you a series of emails designed to equip you with the latest high level pre-need selling on the planet.

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Let’s move the subject to snowballs.

Years ago I lived in a place where it hardly ever snowed.

But, one evening, for no particular reason it snowed quite a bit.

By the way, the snow disappeared by mid-morning the next day which is a lesson in itself to take advantage of opportunities when they arise and don’t wait or dilly dally around as the opportunity may soon disappear.

I had left work about 15 minutes before everyone else and decided to make a bunch of snowballs.

Now, I could have made one or two snowballs and waited for people to exit the building and begin throwing them but if I had as soon as the recipient discovered what I was doing they would be able to retaliate before I could make a sufficient number of new snowballs.

So, instead, I made as many snowballs as I could and when the opportunity arose I immediately began to throw my snowballs non-stop until they were gone.

This is called massive action.

You need a sufficient number of leads (snowballs) for this strategy to work.

Here’s what happened.

All of the folks I threw snowballs at immediately took cover and were forced to defend.

They would defend by making a snowball and throwing it back wildly so they could make another snowball.

While I kept throwing snowballs.  While they were under fire it took several of them several more minutes to determine a new strategy to retaliate.  Hence, the sales associate who laughed when she saw me working 15 – 45 year old leads was left behind because I had a game-plan.

I continued to throw those snowballs and my aim became better and better the more I threw.

Here are the lessons learned in my drop-by test:

If I had only dropped by on a few prospects the system would not have worked (massive action was necessary and I dropped in on 6 – 12 leads a day).  With each new day I would get the number of drop-bys up in the 10 –12 range.

So, obviously I wasn’t as good at this technique when I began but because I had so many leads I could continue to practice and get better.

As I became better at drop-bys, I guess you could call it, more comfortable, I was able to drop-by on 10 – 12 a day consistently.

The more prospects I dropped in on the better I got at speaking to them (after awhile all of my prospects were reacting the same way to my unannounced visit).

Of course, many of these prospects were not home when I dropped by (I made 3 – 4 in-person contacts every day).

I spent maybe 2 – 18 minutes at the door talking.

Each prospect who invited me back at a future time purchased.

I warmed up some leads for a future undetermined time (I have no results from those yet but will let you know in a couple of weeks).

Those massive drop-bys turned into massive action and a snowball effect that allowed me to write new business.

As I continue this experiment for two more weeks I’m willing to bet that I’ll match the results of the first two weeks.

Additionally, I’m willing to bet that a lot of the leads I warmed up the first two weeks will meet with me over the next couple of weeks creating a bigger snowball effect.

I’m sending another note to the remaining folks that were not contacted as well as the ones I attempted who were not home for the initial drop-bys.

By setting up my drop-bys close together I was able to save an enormous amount of time prospecting for new business.

One other note:

When I researched this group of people I made sure ages were within my optimum range and the business would be high probability of traditional casket burials.

As I researched, if it appeared to be cremation I eliminated them from my list.

This is important because 3 out of the 4 agreements I wrote were traditional casket burials.  Segmenting your list of prospects helps you  focus on your target audience.

Next time we’ll talk about list segmentation and how you can put together targeted lists of folks with some commonality that fits within your target market.

By the way, it was the enormous amount of prep-work that I did that made the biggest difference.

You’ve heard me say this before; you’ve got to research the group of people you want to do business with and not allow the market to dictate to you.

I can’t tell you how many sellers of pre-arrangements waiting for business to come in the door.

These sellers have no idea what business is going to come in the door because they aren’t proactive in their prospecting.

Because I was searching for a particular segment of business the responses and attitudes were all pretty similar.

This made it easier for me to communicate with these folks.  Had I not done the early research I would have wasted a lot of time.

Click here for part one of this series.

Happy Selling!

David…

P.S.  We’re in a higher level Prospecting series for the next couple of weeks.  If you’re having trouble go back to my previous posts (Archive Page).

P.P.S.  Also, if you haven’t invested in your self yet you need to now.  No one can take away your education and experience.  If you don’t seek it out no one will do it for you.  The better your understanding of Prospecting the more marketable you are.  The more marketable you are the more valuable you become….you get to call the shots.

Click here for the catalog page of opportunities

BUT, you’ve got to take a little bit of initiative and go do it.  Head over to the catalog page and at least arm your SELF with the starter package, if nothing else.

You can achieve more in the next six months than the last 12 months combined.

Now, go do it.  Click here for the catalog page of opportunities.

If you aren’t a subscriber yet….subscribe today.  It’s easy and I’ll send you a confirm link so be sure and rescue the link from your junk-mail section.

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I’m going to list 10 areas you can create a sale out of nothing without really trying.

Part one the first three opportunities:

1. Trolling for dollars
2. A strategy for covering funerals
3. Use a display 2-step postcard/brochure

We’re up to:

Opportunity Number Four

Walk-in 411 opportunities.  A common situation you might find yourself in is when people call in or drop in for information but nothing else.

Typically, most pre-need sellers will try to get the sale on the spot.  But, not all are successful in getting the sale.

What do you do next?

How about putting those people into your follow-up program?

If they still haven’t purchased?

Put them into your Stay-in-touch program.

The worst thing you can do is nothing or forget all about it.

Opportunity Number Five

JV opportunities.  Make Funeral Director your new best friend.

Let me share a secret with you.  Many times the Funeral Director hears things during the at-need arrangement.

What they hear are family/friends bringing up the thought of pre-planning.

Most funeral directors will give that information to you as long as you treat the family well.

For the cost of lunch or other inexpensive bribes you can make friends with funeral directors and they’ll ultimately be your new best friend.

Opportunity Number Six

Ask for referrals.  There are numerous ways to get referrals and numerous opportunities through out the at-need process.

Take out a pencil and note pad and make a flowchart of all the steps involved with an at-need arrangement.

Look for additional opportunities to get referrals at each step of the process.

Next time we’ll cover Opportunity Number Seven

Happy Selling!

David…

P.S.  Click here for part one.

P.S.  Click here for part three

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