Financial Advisor – Appointment Setting
Let’s fill your calendar with qualified appointments
We help financial advisors develop an end-to-end lead generation system that includes follow-up phone calls for lead qualification and appointment-setting.
Call us at 508-473-8643 to find out how we can work together.
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Ask any financial advisor what they want to see from a lead generation program, and most would agree they would like to see more appointments.
Specifically, more appointments from qualified prospects.
Those appointments could in the form of:
- a face-to-face meeting (at their place or yours)
- a Zoom meeting
- or a phone call
The point is these are one-to-one meetings with people who not only meet your qualification requirements, but also have an interest in speaking to an advisor.
Feeding your sales process
Generating qualified appointments is a milestone step in your sales process.
Although you haven’t closed the sale yet, you are very close – and assuming the right qualification process has taken place beforehand, you can feel comfortable that a good percentage of those appointments will convert into customers.
Even those that don’t close right away could become customers down the road. So, it’s important to stay in touch and be at their doorstep when they do decide it’s time to make a decision.
Generating warm leads first
When we talk about making phone calls, we’re not talking about cold-calling. That is an option, but generally not a good one in our view.
We think it’s better to call your warm leads – people who have in one way or another opted in to your website and perhaps requested information.
In other words, we believe in using the phone to follow up leads you are generating through another activity – whether that is direct mail, online advertising or SEO activities.
Phone calls to qualify prospects
When we qualify prospects, we call them and ask them questions that will help determine if they are a good fit for you.
Every advisor might have a different set of qualifying criteria.
Many will want to confirm if the prospect meets a financial requirement – a minimum level of investable assets for example. Others may want to confirm the prospects fits a certain demographic profile such as age. And if you’re a focused on a particular niche, like a profession or a veteran, the phone call will want to be used to confirm that status as well.
A follow-up phone call is also going to establish whether a prospect already has an advisor and will try to determine how satisfied they are with that advisor.
Finally, the lead qualification process is going to try to determine the decision-making timetable for the prospect.
What is the purpose of the appointment?
When you offer the prospect an opportunity to meet with a financial advisor, you want to give them a reason – a benefit for doing so.
From your standpoint, it’s a hot lead and a chance to meet with a qualified prospect.
But how does the prospect see it? What are they thinking this meeting will give them?
It could be they are shopping for an advisory and want to meet with one or more as soon as possible.
For financial advisors, the purpose of the meeting could be a free consultation, or a free strategy session, or a free portfolio review, or simply a get-acquainted meeting.
Whatever you want to call it, the meeting must have some perceived value for the prospect. And you should make every effort to communicate that value in your messaging.
Scheduling appointments when they are ready
Timing is a critical element in appointment setting. When you are starting out, any appointment is a good appointment. But eventually you will see that appointments with early-stage leads are not always a good investment of your time.
When you’re following up on the phone, you might find out the prospect isn’t planning to make a decision right away – that their initial inquiry was intended to gather some preliminary information.
In that case, you might be better off to arrange a short introductory meeting with a plan to meet more formally with a longer meeting down the road. Of course, in the interim, it’s important to stay in touch with a consistent drip email campaign.
Tracking your numbers
Let's schedule a FREE Strategy Session
Do you have any questions? Would you like to know more?
Then let's schedule a one-on-one Zoom Strategy Session. There's no obligation. Just a chance to get some answers.
If you prefer, you can schedule your demo by phone at 508-473-8643,