Too Many Sales Calls
Volume 12, Number 28
Issue 576
I still get way too many unsolicited telephone calls from investment counselors and advisors. I speak about this topic and I have written extensively about it. Heck, I even prepared tongue-in-cheek written instructions about “How to be Approved as a Vendor” that are faxed before I speak with especially-irritating salespeople. Investment advisors just don’t get it: “Stop making unsolicited sales calls to people—its passé!” Why in the world would I trust my client referrals to someone who isn’t creative enough to know that earning my them takes years of dedication and patience and isn’t something that can be had by simply thinking you have the right to meet all the CPAs in your newly-assigned commission-only territory?
At least three times a week my office receives a telephone call from someone who states that they are a financial adviser, counselor or broker who claims that they saw my sign, saw my flyer or met me somewhere. They sternly suggest that I should sit down with them to get to know them. My response is always, “Why would I want to do that?”
Exactly; why would I? I have worked for twenty-one years forging relationships with a core group of wonderful advisers who would walk to the ends of the earth with me to serve any client that asked to be referred. Why would I jeopardize my clients’ security with someone that I hadn’t known over the long-term? I won’t. Unsolicited callers just don’t get it: Don’t call all the CPAs in the telephone book and think that it is your right to be able to waste my time. If I’m good, which I am, I already have relationships in place. I won’t insult them by entering into new ones.
Salespeople don’t have a right to meet with me just because they are brand new in the business or because their own business is struggling. The best businesspeople know that the telephone is the worst way to earn a new customer.
The BEST way to find new business is to market services or products passionately and enthusiastically in a unique way and in order to reach a specific target market that is interested at the proper time and the proper place.
For the same reason that we are “overstored” (too many stores), we are also “over-financially-advised” with too many financial “professionals” out there trying to stumble over each other to take business away from each other.
The WORST way to get new business is to use the telephone to cold call. From my point of view, it is the oldest idea in the world to sit down with the yellow pages and call every CPA listed to ask for a meeting to talk about a referral relationship. Try taking the time to send a handwritten note of introduction, but DON’T say you’ll be calling or stopping by. Instead, try seeking me out in public at one of the events that I attend when I’m ready to be barraged by solicitors. Or, simply be patient: If you are truly great at what you do and will be successful at it, our paths will eventually cross and if you have the “staying power” in the industry that is indicative of excellence, your time will come with me—eventually.
My favorite way to entertain new vendors is on my ideal terms: I hear great things about a new business from people I trust. If clients, associates and friends tell me of positive experiences with anyone (and I ask that question often), I often seek that person out to compliment them on what I’ve heard and to ask, myself, to learn more about them. Don’t call me; I’ll call you.
I write a lot about entrepreneurialism and about starting businesses. A great product at the proper place at the proper time that is delivered with passion and enthusiasm in a solutions-oriented way is all that it needs to become rich in money and rich in relationships.
How come the only people that ever call me are financial advisers who think that they are the key to all my problems? Why don’t other people call? What I really need is a passionate and enthusiastic roofer, electrician, brick layer, tree cutting and removal service and a painter. My kingdom for any of these people who are honest and solutions-oriented!!! Why don’t these people call me to offer passion and enthusiasm? How come the only sales calls I get are the ones about things that I don’t need? I just think that blue collar people don’t know how to market themselves properly.
So, these days, when someone calls me to ask about starting a business (and the question is usually, “what kind of a business should I start?”), my first recommendation is actually “any blue collar service industry that is under-served by honesty, ethics, passion and enthusiasm.”
Now, there are some specialty products and services that I do have wonderful providers for and would love to talk with you about them: investment adviser, plumber, general contractor, odd-job contractor, Internet website and marketing design, estate planning, auto mechanic, flyer delivery service, bankers, mortgage officers, attorneys, caterer, heating and air conditioning, insurance agent, lawn service company. These are people that I love to recommend because they make me (the referrer) look good. Plus, I want to help keep them in business because they carry the banner of successful entrepreneurialism to the next generation.
The same principles apply. Why don’t plumbers, electricians and electricians call with the same zest that financial people do? If you’re a blue collar person who is great at what you do, business will inundate you if you put even the smallest effort into unique and spirited marketing. (Val-Pack is NOT creative; Yellow Pages are NOT creative). Just remember—non-traditional marketing is the clue. Don’t simply do what your rivals in the marketplace are doing, as the public will not be able to perceive any difference.
A unique product at the proper place at the right time is what matters.
David B. Robinson, CPA
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