Adding Steps to your Prospecting Ladder

I had an email from an exasperated pre-need seller. You could feel it. She wasn’t just frustrated, she was exasperated!

I forget how many ”NOs” but there were quite a few.

Reminded me of the time I went 0 for 12. That’s baseball lingo for no hits in 12 at-bats. Or, I struck out 12 times in a row. No, nothing, nada, zilch. Just a whole bunch of nos.

To make the whole experience even more humbling I had just rode the success wave of 14 sales in a row.

It happens to all of us. I’m not sure why this is but it is what it is.

Here’s how you handle it.

First, it isn’t you but it will have a deep affect on your psyche. It will really bother you upstairs.

Second, you’ll begin to think you’re some how jinxed. Or, you’ll begin to think you need remedial training.

The only thing I can tell you is to “double-down”.

See more people.

Increase your activity level because it will lead to good things. Usually when I up the activity level by a factor of 2 or 3 it generally creates a snowball heading down the hill getting larger and larger building a huge wave of new business next month.

Don’t fret.

Increase your activity to ride out the storm. It’s like the ocean tide sometimes it’s in and sometimes it’s out.

Anyway, the big lesson is to add steps to your prospecting ladder.

Most sellers of pre-arrangements stop at one or two contacts with a prospect.

Many more make one phone call and call it quits.

Recently I spoke about the postcard mailing to customers we hadn’t had contact with in 15 – 39 years. (if you aren’t a subscriber go to the top right of the page and in the “welcome” email I’ll send you a few How To Sell Pre-Need Subscriber newsletters, look for the postcard issue)

I didn’t just send postcards to these people. I also followed up with phone calls and dropped-in unannounced.

The postcards had an excellent response but I can think of one couple in particular that did not respond to the postcard and I dropped in unannounced.

I couldn’t get in the door and scheduled a time to meet with them. I even sent them a note to remind of the meeting but when I arrived they were leaving.

So, I phoned again, and again. The last phone call led me meeting with them later that afternoon at their home.

How many contacts did it take to get the sale?

Postcard,
In-Person,
Note-snail-mail,
In-Person,
Phone Call,
Phone Call,
In-Person

Seven contacts total.

The point is most stop at one.

Add more steps in your prospecting ladder.

Don’t just phone.
Don’t just mail.
Don’t just drop-by.
Don’t just set appointments.

Do all the above and mix it up.

Had I not been able to meet with that couple the last time they would have received my newsletter next.

In other words until they tell you to get lost add more steps and continue to contact your prospects.

Happy Selling!

David…

P.S.  Check out my latest offerings.

…..

“I hear he has true grit.”
–Kim Darby, from the movie True Grit.

There’s no other way to describe the pre-need seller than fortitude and determination…grit.

You gotta dig deep down inside to discover the YOU that’s wanting to succeed.

The YOU that’s this close to breaking out and selling like there’s no tomorrow.

I received an email from a new seller of pre-arrangements.  He was telling me about recent weather and how he was hampered with his canvassing of neighborhoods.

Here’s my reply:

Incorporate more than one main prospecting strategy.  Do several things because you never know when one strategy quits working.  When you are depending on ONE THING you risk a lot.  It is similar to putting all your eggs in one basket.  Drop the basket and you’ve lost it all.  But, if you’ve got 12 baskets you cut your losses and can continue to sell.

Don’t just door-knock or wait for walk-in business or work the files or mailings.  Don’t depend on any one thing.  Do several things.  Do several things at the same time.

Massive action

“Never let your head hang down. 
Never give up and sit down and grieve. 

Find another way.  And don’t pray when it
rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.” 
–Leroy “Satchel” Paige

Don’t stair-step.  Do several things at the same time.  There is no ladder to success.  Make it a one step jump to the top.

And always be appreciative of what you have.

“Never give up… and never surrender.” 
–Jason Nesmith, from the movie, Galaxy Quest

Now, go out there and just do it!

Happy Selling

David…

…

I often say many industry norms are difficult to change.  Industry innovation comes from outside the industry.

For years surgeons continued to operate on stomach ulcers even though medications had been developed to stop the bleeding.

We all resist change.

For the most part we prefer routine and comfort over blazing new trails.

Pioneers have the arrows in their backs.

I’m not an advocator of blazing new trails.  I’d much rather find a formula that exists or duplicate a successful system.

“When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.”  –Benjamin Franklin

“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.”  –Benjamin Franklin

“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else”  –Benjamin Franklin

“It’s a heck-of-a-lot easier to tweak an existing system than to start from scratch.”  –David Dassow

I had a conversation with a fellow pre-need seller the other day, as he was in awe of the number one producer in his category.

I remember saying to him, “he doesn’t know what he can’t do.”

It’s difficult to un-learn things.

For the most part it’s holding on to what doesn’t work that holds us back.

A tennis pro friend of mine used to teach.  I worked with him for 20 minutes one time and improved my game ten fold.

I asked him why people would take lessons.

He told me that when he teaches tennis he doesn’t really teach people how to play because they already know how to play.

His goal is to eliminate one or two bad habits. 

For me it was a slight change in my grip.  A very slight change. 

The bottom line is change is a good thing but tweaking small changes is a better thing.

I once heard someone, I think it was General Schwarzkpf say; he’d much rather make a hundred decisions quickly and be wrong 80% of the time but change quickly than make a hand full of decisions slowly and be right 80% of the time.  You’ve got to be able to adapt quickly.

If you’ve been planning that postcard mailing, door-knocking, letters, phoning, follow-up, do it all quickly.  Implement massive action NOW!

Don’t stair-step-it.  Implement several things at the same time.

Better to be wrong on a handful of things quickly than to be right on one or two that takes you forever to implement.  Implement a bunch of things and keep the stuff that works and dump the stuff that doesn’t work.  But, do it quickly.

“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.”  –Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.”  –Dwight D. Eisenhower

“If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.”  –Dwight D. Eisenhower

Make lots of little changes and don’t worry about what anyone tells you. 

“If you don’t know what you can’t do there’s nothing you can’t do.”

Happy Selling!

David…

P.S.  There’s a few packages left “Whole Enchilada” of everything I’ve got including the kitchen sink.  It’s available to all subscribers at a One-time-Offer.

If you aren’t a subscriber head to the top right of the page and subscribe now.

If you are a subscriber check my latest email with the special top secret “whole enchilada” link.

….

The BIG LESSON in this week’s latest newsletter is out.  It’s FREE to all subscribers but you’ve got to do one thing and one thing only…

You’ve got to be a subscriber

Subscribing is FREE and easy.  Simply go to the top right of the page and be sure and click the “confirmation” link I send you.  By the way, you might have to rescue the “confirmation” link in the junk-mail-trash can section of your email in-box.

I’ll send you The Latest Newsletter in the “welcome” email.

Newsletter Issue # 03      –        Free to subscribers 

The Big Lesson:

Process & Training

The Big Lesson

Issue #03

This month’s big lesson is about the process. Recently I received a book from a subscriber in New Jersey.  He goes by the nick name “Buzzy” and I wanted to publicly thank him for sending me the autographed book below;

Winning the NFL Way
Leadership Lessons from Football’s Top Head Coaches
By Rob LaMonte (with Robert L. Shook)

I often talk about how you can learn something from just about anybody if you can eliminate your own biases and listen for the content and ideas.

One of the emails I used to send my subscribers involved Tiger Woods.  The point is Tiger is considered the number one golfer in the world and he has a coach.  If the number one golfer has a coach why wouldn’t you?

But, after Tiger’s personal problems I began receiving emails from subscribers complaining about using Tiger as an example.  I eliminated the email (shame on me!).

What I should have done was leave the message to continue to illustrate the point.  None of us are perfect and we all have failings both personal and business.

If you want to learn how to improve yourself you need to understand what successful people are doing that you aren’t doing.  It is necessary to overlook other’s short comings to get the message.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the latest book I’ve been reading on leadership.

So, why am I recommending a leadership book to sellers of pre-need who may or may not be in management?

The book talks about 5 NFL football coaches, where they came from, and what they accomplished as head coaches including their work ethic and philosophy.

There are several lessons you can take away from this book whether you are a supervisor or individual seller of pre-arrangements.

On page 81:

“Andy Reid has never been like that. Instead he says,
‘I want you to make sure those guys are on time and make them work hard
when they’re in the training room.’
Coach never focuses on the product.
He focuses on the process.

There are two lessons to get from this paragraph.

Big lesson number one

Be on time and work hard in training.  Here’s the analogy.  Time is important.  Check out my previous postings on time and how to get more of it.  The reason football players work hard in the training room is so they’ll be conditioned to play the entire game at 100%.

…

To get the rest of this Newsletter FREE

become a subscriber today and

I’ll include it in your “welcome” email

Happy Selling!

David…

P.S.  If you’re already a subscriber, check your email box…

…

We’ve been talking about ten of those opportunities:

You can use one or more of the strategies I’ve outline.  You can also develop new strategies and use combinations of the ten strategies above but no matter what you do be sure and do SOMETHING.

Massive Action

My final comments on this series deals with the biggest problem I find with pre-need sellers.

The problem is a lack of action.

You’ve got to do something in order to get something.  If you do nothing you’ll get nothing.  If you do something you’ll get responses and results.

You can incorporate these strategies during slow times or part of a regular schedule of activity.

One final thought.  Don’t just incorporate one strategy.  Do several strategies at the same time.  Take massive action and generate massive amounts of activity now.  You’ll soon discover synergy takes over.

Synergy takes over when
you implement massive action

The term synergy means; the working together of two or more things to produce an effect greater than the sum of their individual parts.

Massive action will bring a greater sum of Activity.  The more activity the more sales opportunities.  Opportunities equals more sales.  You can achieve more in the next six months than you achieved all of last year through massive action.

Start today!

Happy Selling!

David…

P.S.  Head over to the catalog page for strategies and techniques you can implement today.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

….

…

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.

………