Writer, Strategist, Investor
Congratulations for reaching the end of the year!
It’s the end of December. Time to fill out your Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up.
Are you ready for next year?!?
Wondering what the heck a Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up is? Read the first Monthly Sales Funnel Check-up blog post that kicked it all off!
Friends,
It’s the time of year when I reflect on the past 12 months and think about what’s in store for the next 12 months.
I’ve had an amazing year and am so thankful for you.
For my clients, thank you for entrusting me with a critical part of your business. I’m thrilled to have been able to write for some pretty great people.
For my friends, followers, and community, I have benefited immeasurably from your insight. I hope to have given back even a small portion of what you’ve given me.
You’re not going to hear much from me this week because I’m wrapping up some end-of-year projects for clients, I’m planning for next year, and I’m relaxing with family and friends. I hope you take some time to recharge your batteries as well.
I’ll be back with a vengeance in 2012 and I hope you will be, too.
Let’s work together this coming year to take your financial or real estate business to a higher level than you thought possible!
Have a fun, relaxing, happy, and safe holiday season.
Sincerely,
Aaron Hoos
Early in my career as an investment representative, I had booked an appointment with someone who seemed quite eager to learn more about how I could help them with their portfolio, but when I showed up at their house, they weren’t as enthusiastic. They weren’t cold but they didn’t immediately hand over their cash to have me invest it for them.
I learned a hard lesson about selling to clients: “Yes” and “No” don’t always mean “Yes” and “No”.
Selling your financial or real estate services to a prospective client might result in a positive or negative response when we first talk about what we do. And a positive response from the prospective client might inspire us to blaze full steam ahead while a negative response from the prospective client might cause us to slam on the brakes. We tend to think of “yes” and “no” as being binary responses – either a fully positive yes or a fully negative no.
But what successful financial and real estate professional know is: There are many levels of “Yes” and “No” when selling… they aren’t two responses; they represent a spectrum of responses.
To show you what I mean, I’ve mapped out a few points between the most resounding yes (the bullet at the top of the list) and the most resounding no (the bullet at the bottom of the list)… and then I listed some of the shades in between.
(The “Yes” side of the spectrum)
(The “No” side of the spectrum)
Obviously it’s impossible to capture all of the degrees between yes and no but I’ve listed enough to give you an idea of what I’m talking about — yes and no aren’t binary; they’re two points on a much larger spectrum.
So, when you’re selling and you hear “yes” or “no”, keep investigating.
You might discover that the “yes” isn’t as eager as you were hoping for. You might need to increase the sense of urgency once you’ve sold them initially on the concept of you helping them… to turn a “Yes, later” into a “Yes, now!”
Or, you might discover that the “no” isn’t as much of a rejection as you thought it was. Perhaps they have objections that they can’t formulate in their mind. You might need to ask questions to help turn a “No, I’m not convinced” into a “Yes, now!”
No matter what you hear the customer saying, that’s not the final word… you need to go deeper to find out what they really mean.
Even though you likely serve a local clientele, that doesn’t mean you can’t excel online. You can grow your local practice using ebooks, or you can broaden your client base by selling some of these ebooks.
In the list below, I’ll use “Springfield” as an example of how to use local-specific content in some of your ebooks. Obviously you’ll want to exchange “Springfield” for the name of the area you serve.
Also, I’ve used the words “accountant” but you will probably want to only include the title that best describes you.
I’m living in the weird purgatory of continuing regular projects for clients and wrapping up year-end projects… but knowing that a lot of people are not even thinking about starting new projects until the New Year.
It’s the calm before the storm because my 2012 work calendar is filling up FAST. So if you want to start a project with me in the New Year, you might want to shoot me a quick email now just to briefly let me know.
And this week, I’m….
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