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For becoming a successful guerrilla advisor, one thing you can never avoid is rejection. Only way to make sure that you don't get rejected is, not to try at all. All the great discoveries in the world are the final outcome of the number of failed attempts before final success.
Biggest reason why many advisors are doing less business
One of the main reasons most of the advisors are constantly doing less or mediocre business is, the fear of rejection. Due to fear of rejections, we do less attempts and less number of calls to existing and potential clients. Fear of rejection in our community, especially after the 2008 crash, is so high that most of us have become much more conservative than required. But true guerrilla advisor knows the importance of the "rejection" for being successful. One of the laws which guerrilla advisor never forgets is that, he/she has to personally encounter certain number of "rejections" in order to hear the one golden "Yes".
Most of the advisors I meet today are very much convinced about equity as an asset class for next five years, but they lack the confidence to meet and talk to clients about it.
But the problem with most of the advisors is that, they will only try to make a call to the client only if he/she is more than convinced that the client is surely going to invest and client is not going to have too many objections which advisors have to address. Or maybe most of the time, advisors are waiting for their clients to call them and give the invitation to come to them and make them some product presentation. We need to understand one fact that, we are selling the product which surely is the best for the clients.
Chances are that almost every prospect you go and offer the product and your service :
1) Doesn't recognize you as a good advisor
2) Doesn't believe into the product
3) Doesn't feel need to invest into the products you are selling
4) Has his/her own trusted advisor.
But important word in the above sentence - is "almost". Almost means not everyone, there are few people who surely will understand the need to the product which you are promoting or will recognise you as a trusted advisor. Unfortunately, we do not have any magic wand, which can tell us who these people are. The solution is very easy, prospect many on regular basis and those people whom you can say "fit for you clients", will surely emerged from the process of filtration. But very few of the us, actually can do it on the consistent basis. Continuous prospecting for new clients and continuous efforts to get business from the existing clients is inevitable.
We all normally are very excited when we start the business but after few years, we fail to understand the principal of continuous prospecting for getting the business without worrying about the potential rejections from the prospects and the clients.
The story of the monkeys and the bell
We are like the monkey into the psychological experience. I read one experiment from one of the books of behavioural psychology. There were few monkeys in a cage with a big bell. These monkeys are trained to know that every time they ring the bell, they will get few bananas to eat. So whenever the monkeys were hungry, they rang the bell, and got the bananas.
After few months, the bell is re-wired in the manner that, instead of getting the banana every time when monkeys rang the bell, they got the electric shock. When first time it happened, monkey got zapped to the other side of the cage. Monkey tried it for second time, again the same result. Initially the monkeys couldn't understand what was going on so they kept trying and getting zapped. But with the passage of time, monkeys started understanding that they will get shock every time they try ringing the bell. So, the efforts started to reduced. After few days when the bell was rewired not to have electric shock, the monkeys were almost starving to death, but still they didn't try ringing the bell again.
We, human beings, do have some element of that helpless monkey inside us. We start the business with lots of enthusiasm and desire of having the big AUM and getting financially free only depending on the trail income. But when we are zapped by some undesired circumstances, we start decreasing the efforts. We call a client and client is not interested saying markets are bad, ZAP. We call the client and client is not interested saying mutual funds are not good, ZAP. We try calling the client and client is busy, ZAP. After being zapped for few times, we stereotype the outcome which we will get, if we try calling the client again, and that is ZAP.
A Guerrilla Advisor, on the other hand, knows that he/she should keep on prospecting, on regular and ongoing basis. He/she also knows that clients should be contacted and efforts should be made several numbers of times, before he/she gets final agreement from one prospect or client for believing in him/her or in the product. Guerrilla advisor also knows that he/she cannot change the circumstances namely, market situation, sentiments, regulations, interest rate, inflation, index or any other things. But you don't need to change all these to become a successful guerrilla advisor, you only need to do what you are supposed to do in best possible manner, that is to keep on meeting clients and prospects, sharing your knowledge and discuss about the products suitable for them, with full confidence.
I would like to share few steps which you can take to win the game of the rejection. Because the more rejections you can handle effectively without getting tired, the more positive results you will attain. Applying those in your routine, will help you win the game of rejection.
Set your long term goals
If you have not set your long term goals, go back and read the previous article (click here) again and set your goals. Long term goals along with the little urge to get the immediate gratification will surely provide you to put the consistent efforts.
Know your Success Ratio
The awareness and clarity on your "Sales Ratio" will help you being more prone to the rejection. Sales Ratio is an estimate numbers of calls you need to make one sale. There is no science to find out the Sales Ratio, but based on your experience, you can figure it out that, on an average how many clients you normally have to meet before making one sale. Or how many prospects you normally have to meet before acquiring one new client.
The sales ratio can be described as S=1/C, means one Successful Sale is obtain when you make "C" number of calls. Once you know your own "C", it would be easy for you, not to lose your mind every time you get the rejection. For example, if you know that, on an average by making the product presentation to 5 clients, you successfully get one conversion, it means you need to get 4 rejections in order to get one conversion.
When you are conscious about your "C", you know it very well that every rejection is taking you one step closer to one successful conversion. Being conscious about your sales ratio, will help you, maintaining the consistency.
Start maintaining your dairy or excel sheet, where you should mention the log of all your calls along with the results, whether it's rejection or agreement. Keeping records for 6 month and analysing the data of your calls, in terms of conversion vs. rejections, you will find out few very good estimates.
You will come to know;
- How many calls it takes to you to have one appointment with the prospect.
- How many calls, it takes you to sell one SIP.
- How many calls, it takes you to acquire one new client.
- How many calls, it takes you to sell one debt/equity/hybrid fund to one client.
Above are just few examples, but having clarity on various "Sales ratio" estimates, based on your records, and would surely help you face the rejection without getting emotionally upset about it.
Understand - It's not personal
Many advisors, when being rejected by client, take it personally, getting emotionally disturbed. When client rejects advisor's proposal, adviser takes the blame on self. While in reality it may not be the case. Client might not like the product, or client might have his/her own reason to reject. The reasons can be many including some of your mistakes also.
Rather than taking blame on self, advisor should look at each rejection as an opportunity to learn something out of it. Every mistakes or rejection surely comes with some learning. You may learn something about yourself or something about necessity of having some changes in your presentation style.
Get into the habit
The best way to handle rejection is to create the habit of accepting the rejection gracefully. And for creating the habit you need to get into a disciplined routine. You can decide to dedicate a specific time everyday calling clients and prospects. The ideal time is the beginning of the day. Start your day with minimum 30 calls, including your clients and prospects, talk to them regarding products or your services, with an objective of setting appointments with them.
Keeping the same time everyday to do this calling, will help you cultivate this habit faster and easily. Remember, the more number of people you reach out to, the more business you would generate.
Build strong rapport
Guerrilla advisor treats every rejection as an isolation case and never rejects the prospect or client, who rejects him/her. If someone is not buying from you, it doesn't mean he/she never will be your client.
You should develop a strong rapport with all of them, with the help of regular emails, SMSs and calls. You never know when some of the communication from your side, might hit the target. Remember, what I told you in my second article in this series, consistency is the key for being the successful guerrilla advisor.
Have a mastermind group
Create a group of the likeminded advisors (ideal number is 5 to 6) in your city or area and have regular meetings with them. You can meet once in every fortnight for 1 hour for discussing the specific sales and business related issues.
You need to be very careful also in selecting the group members. The discussion during the master mind group meeting should strictly be restricting in finding out solutions on personal sales related problems. You should have strict penalty for the person who diverts the discussion, from being it learning oriented to blame game. No blames and complaints should be entertained in the group. Each advisor should come with one main written problem, and rest of the members should share one probable solution to each problem based on their experience. That way you will have 4 to 5 new probable solutions on how to face the problem, next time when it occurs.
When you meet other advisor and talk to them you will know that you are not alone, who has to face certain number of rejection for getting one successful closure. That would help your mind to create a neutral view for each rejection.
Acknowledge your Success
When you acknowledge the small successes you get during the day, your mind will become habitual to find the success, irrespective of the number of the rejections you have to face. Every night, before going bed, write down top 3 good things you accomplished in a day, irrespective of them being small or big. Focus on every sale you get and make sure to write it down. That would help you noticing that every success in terms of sales surely outweighs the rejections.
All content in Marketing Wiz is created by Wealth Forum and should not be construed as views of Kotak MF.
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Marketing Wiz is a joint initiative between Kotak MF and Wealth Forum, where we bring to the distribution and advisory fraternity marketing insights that can help you connect better with prospects and clients, win new business, serve clients better and thus enhance business growth. The Guerilla Advisor is an exclusive column within Marketing Wiz, penned by Jigar Parekh of Prudent CAS.