How To Book More Appointments With Your Target Prospects

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Neary, and this is episode 294. In this episode, we are focusing on sales. It is the kickoff to the second half of the year. We just took a week break out of the podcast last week knowing that it was the Fourth of July. You were probably out enjoying the weather, family taking a break. So we took a break as well. But we are back at it. And in episode 294, you will learn how to book more appointments with your target prospects. Because here's the reality. You're not booking enough appointments right now and not enough prospects know you exist. In today's episode, you are going to take away this lesson. People prefer to do business with people they know. And I'm going to teach you how to apply a prospecting strategy that is built around this philosophy of getting more people to know who you are so you can book more appointments with target prospects. We have six months to go. You have plenty of time to hit your sales goals, but you got to get going. So don't delay. Dive into today's episode and walk out with tactical strategies to up level your prospecting. All right, let's dive in. Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the podcast. We took a break last week. Given it was the 4th of July week, we didn't really think many people were going to be listening to podcasts on Friday the 5th, so we decided to take a break. I hope you took a break yourself. You had time to sit down with family. I know about two weeks ago, we were up at what we call family camp in Minocqua, Wisconsin. So we got to spend a few days with our family, and I hope you got to do the same. But here we are, it's Friday, July 12, as I this episode goes live, and it is go time for the second half of the year. I hope you are ready. And that's what I wanted to use this today's podcast to talk about is sales, closing more business. And so in this episode, you're going to learn how to book more appointments with the right prospects. So over the next two solo episodes, I do this is kind of part one. In two weeks, you'll hear part two. We're going to focus on the two biggest areas of concern most producers have today, which is booking more appointments and closing more business. When we work with advisors, these are typically the two biggest problems they have. Not booking enough appointments or, hey, we're booking appointments, but we're not turning them into sales. If that is you, both of these Episodes in the next three weeks are going to be very, very beneficial for, for you. And it's interesting, you know, even as we sit down as a team at Complete Game Consulting and we talk about our own marketing and our own ideal prospects, we often still get asked, despite all the content we put out there, so what do you guys do? And we've been reflecting on that and realizing in our own mind that, hey, maybe we need to improve our marketing. Maybe we aren't clear enough about what we do and really what we're doing right now. You know, if we look at what we do at Complete Came Consulting is it's helping advisors like you get more attention with ideal prospects so you can turn that attention into meetings and turn the meetings into sales. And that's what we're going to start with today. How can you book more appointments? Because that's your problem right now. You're not booking enough appointments. And to level set today's episode, let's start with this mindset perspective. I don't care how long you've been in the industry, whether you're in your first year or your 25th year, the truth is, not enough prospects know you exist.

And one of the biggest lessons I've learned over the last five years, especially in growing Complete Game Consulting, is that people prefer to do business with people they know. So the truth is, if not enough prospects know you exist, that means they don't know who you are, which is going to make it very hard for them to do business with you. And the way you prospect today has to really incorporate a sense of how are you letting your prospects get to know you, because the more you can let them get to know you, the easier it's going to be for them to do business with you. One of the lessons I've learned from a mentor of mine that I thought was so profound in the world of sales is, believe it or not, getting more prospects to know you makes it easier for you to sell. However, it actually makes doing business easier for the prospect, because if they really feel like they know you, it's easier and more comfortable to do business with you. You're actually making their life easier as well. Believe it or not, this is why referrals are so powerful, is because a referral is easier for a buyer to leverage because they put the trust in the fact that the person they know is introducing them to someone else they know.

And so that's where we're going to start, is we're going to start with the level set of people prefer to do business with people they know. So if you want to book more appointments with your ideal prospects, you have to start letting them get to know you more, which is what we're going to talk about in today's episode. Because right now, here's where you are challenged. You're not booking enough appointments, therefore you're not selling enough business, therefore you're not making enough money. And I've talked to a lot of advisors who aren't making enough money, or at least not making the money they desire. And when we offer programs like Complete Game University, that I think is very affordable at $199 a month, and I have advisors telling me I can't afford that. Either they're full of BS or they're not making enough money, which means they're not selling enough business. And when you're not selling enough business, guess what? You're not enjoying your job. And when you're not enjoying your job, you might hit a point where you might even be looking for a career change. Maybe that's you listening right now. And you're probably listening to the podcast because you're searching for answers, right? Well, I hope I can give you a few today.

Because there is a world of opportunity right now to grow an amazing book of business in the insurance industry. Think about that. That's probably why you got in the industry in the first place. I know. It's why I got in over 20 years ago. I was told, the sky's the limit, right? I can grow a book of business as big as I want if I just put in enough work, if I just connect with enough prospects and I target the right people. There is unlimited opportunity in the insurance industry. It does take hard work, but, man, is there unlimited opportunity. And.

To really set the stage for what I'm going to share with you today, I thought the best way to do this would be to talk about a text message I sent a client a few weeks back.

This particular client has made some.

Jumps from one agency to the next over the last six to eight years. And I received a text from him a few weeks ago, and he was asking my opinion on two firms that he was contemplating. Both had made offers to him. Two firms that he was contemplating to go to work. Going to work for. And he wanted my opinion on both organizations. Which ones do you. Which one do you think will be better?

And I sent him a text message. I don't think it was the answer he was expecting, but it was the answer he needed. I said, listen.

Wherever you go, whoever you elect, to end up joining, it doesn't matter.

Because at the end of the day, my question for you is, how are you going to change?

You see, a change in environment, a change in agencies will not do anything for your results unless you decide you're going to change. And that's where I want to start today's episode with you. If you're not booking enough appointments, I'm here to tell you that it has nothing to do with the fact you don't have the right prospects. You don't need better prospects, you don't need a better market, you don't need a better product, you don't need a better niche, whatever that might be. No, no, no. My first question is going to be you. Where are you going to be better? The reason you're not booking enough appointments is you're not putting enough work in and you're not performing to your capabilities. I hate to tell you that, but it's just the truth.

Now, I'm going to give you some tips today that are going to help you improve how you book appointments. But we have to start there. It isn't about a different tactic, different strategy, different product. It's about you showing up differently.

So how can you book more appointments in the second half of the year so you can hit your 2024 sales goals? Remember, people prefer to do business with people they know. How are you getting more people to know who you are? Sitting behind a phone and making cold call after cold call is going to make it very hard unless you're doing other activity, which we'll talk about. Sending cold emails to people who have no clue who you are is going to be very difficult unless you're putting in other activity, which we're going to talk about. You gotta get more prospects to know who you are because they prefer to do business with people they know. So here are a couple mindset shifts I want you to start making that I think will put you in a better position to book more appointments. The first one is ask yourself this question. Do you prospect out of necessity or do you prospect because you get excited about the fact you can help people?

Let me repeat that. Do you prospect out of necessity or do you prospect because you get excited about the opportunity to help people? The way you answer that question determines the type of energy you bring to your prospecting. If you actually don't like prospecting, so you do it out of necessity. And every week you get up and go, ugh, I gotta make calls, I gotta do drop ins, I gotta send emails, whatever it is you are bringing the wrong energy. This is why you're not booking appointments. I am a big believer in energetics, but if you wake up every day saying, dang, I'm excited because I get the opportunity to go out and help people today, you're going to bring a much more positive energy to your prospecting. That positive energy will naturally lead to more appointments. People will feel that energy. The second question, do you truly believe in what you sell? Are you selling just to make money and you actually don't believe in the products you sell? I know it sounds crazy. There's a lot of people in the insurance industry who do not believe in what they sell or they do not believe that their team can actually produce what they sell. That's a bad energy to bring to your sales. Do you believe what you sell can truly help people?

Again, if you truly believe what you sell can help change lives or change businesses, you're going to bring a very different energy to your prospecting.

So I ask you these three questions because it might just be your energy that you're bringing to your prospecting that is causing a lack of appointments.

Negative energy will not create positive results.

You have to enjoy the process of prospecting because it means you get to help people. You have to believe in what you sell. This is why we work with advisors and agencies on how to create a process they can productize, because now they can sell a product they truly believe in. And do you believe what you sell actually helps people? You. You answer all those three questions with a yes. You're going to bring much more positivity to your prospecting, much more energy to your prospecting, and that will equate to more appointments. But that alone isn't the only thing that is going to create more appointments. No, no, no, no. Now we need to get into some of the tactics. That was a mindset shift. Now let's get into some of the tactics and I'm going to share three tactics that I think will help you book more appointments here in the second half of the year so you can get closer to hitting your sales goals. First one is time management. Yeah, that is a tactic. Are you blocking time to prospect? I know that sounds crazy, but you would be shocked how many advisors are hired with the job of selling business and they just don't block time to sell business. Now, if you are somebody who has multiple roles within your agency, so you do have to sell, account manage, maybe you even lead a team inside the organization, you gotta be even better at time blocking because you got Less time. But are you actually putting blocks of time in your calendar for prospecting? One of the things I've always been accused of, no matter where I've worked, is having a very intimidating calendar because I fill every white space in my calendar with activity. So if I got a couple hours on a Thursday morning, guess what? It's going to be time blocked. For things like business development, in order for you to stay consistent or stay locked in on prospecting, you actually have to perform the art of prospecting. And the only way you're going to do that is to block the time in your calendar for that activity.

And so we have to start with time management. Are you managing your time effectively? Are you putting your priorities in your calendar like prospecting? Or are you letting others put their priorities in your calendar? Client request, internal requests, team meetings, teammates needing your help. I know it sounds altruistic that you just love helping people. I get it. But it's also keeping you from putting in the work to actually book appointments so you can sell business and make more money. So time blocking is where we have to start. You have to be more efficient at owning your calendar. Go look at your calendar right now, especially next week, and look at how much white space you have in it. I want you to start filling up that white space with prospecting activities, which leads to tactic number two. Okay, Andy, I'm time blocking. What activities should I throw in the white space in those blocks of time? Great question.

When it comes to prospecting today and the activities you put into your prospecting, you have to be able to cast a wide net. If your only source of prospecting today is cold calls and cold emails or drop inside. Winning business today is extremely tough. I'm just gonna be honest with you. I've done other episodes on this, and I'm not gonna beat this dead horse anymore. But we have to just be honest with ourselves. Cold calls and cold emails are not as effective as they used to be. Cold calls are more difficult today purely because of the numbers. It takes 18 calls to get one person on the phone. Just get them on the phone. Which means it takes 180 calls to get 10 people on the phone. That means you have to. 10. You have to spend three hours minimum three hours to get 10 people on the phone. On top of that, if you're calling a cell phone number, they're probably not going to answer it. If they don't recognize the phone, or worse yet, their phone might say you're spam, it's harder. There's so much Noise in the world of email today, even though emails are still important, there's so much noise, sending out cold emails is not as effective as it used to be. We're getting 125 emails a day. I think I heard as the last statistic. It's just hard. If those are your only channels of prospecting, booking more appointments is going to be very difficult. It just is. You have to cast a wide net. So what is it? What does casting a wide net mean? Well, this comes back to you've got to get a lot of people who know to know who you are. It's hard to get somebody to know who you are if the only time they ever hear from you is a cold call where you're trying to ask for an appointment. You have to be doing other things to let them get to know you. This is where social media comes in. LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok. I don't care what you use. If you're in the business to business world, you got to be on LinkedIn. Social media and the content you create for it is a way you can get more prospects to know who you are. Podcasting I host a podcast every week called the Bullpen Sessions. Right. I don't do it because I think I'm going to become a top 100 podcaster. I do it because it's more content and it's another channel to let you get to know me.

How about public speaking?

It's a great way to get in front of an audience of target prospects and deliver a lot of value and let them get to know you. Networking.

Are you networking enough with centers of influence or target prospects? Are you asking for enough referrals? This is a huge issue advisors struggle with. Most advisors do not ask for enough referrals. Remember, people prefer to do business with people they know. Referrals are a way to get business from people who know people you could help.

My point is this. You can't just rely on the traditional methods of prospecting anymore. When I got in 24 years ago, 23 years ago, I was taught how to cold call, go door to door and send out some blind emails once in a while. Those days are gone. You can't build a thriving business, especially in the world of insurance where sales cycles are longer. You can't build a thriving business on that alone. You have to be using the other channels to create awareness. Awareness creates an opportunity for prospects to get to know you. The more they get to know you, the more credibility, the more likability you create. And it's gonn make it easier for them to hire. It's just simple. So I want you to go look at your prospecting activities right now and I want you to determine what activities you are focusing most of your attention on. If you're blocking time now for those activities. Now you need to figure out what activities you need to put in those blocks of time. And I'm here to tell you the day has arrived. You need to do as much of what I just taught you as you possibly can. Keep cold calling, keep sending cold emails, go do drop in so you get out and about. But you gotta be asking for referrals, you gotta be sending out email campaigns, you gotta be networking, you gotta be putting content on LinkedIn. Why not have a podcast? Why not be doing webinars? Why not be public speaking or looking for speaking opportunities at associations and memberships where your target prospects live?

This is how you cast a wide net. This is how you get a ton of people to know who you are in a very short amount of time. All of this will lead to activity.

And hot, good activity. Which brings us to our third tactic. So now you're blocking time for the art of prospecting and selling. Now you know what activities you should be filling those blocks of time with. My last question, or my last point is are you putting in enough volume? I know that really doesn't sound like a tactic, but it is. Are you putting enough volume in? Sometimes the answer is just more. We're having this conversation a lot right now inside our organization as we look to sell programs like our Social Media Sales Academy and in Complete Game University we talk about how many people we're reaching out to. And often the answer is we're not reaching out to enough people. It's volume. You've got to put in more of the work you're already doing. You're so caught up in short term wins that you try one sales activity for a couple weeks and then you say it doesn't work and you're on to the next thing you have to put more work in. I love this story that I heard from Alex Hormozi, you may know who he is. Built a thriving gym.

Gym business, sold it for many millions, and now has gone on to help other businesses grow their own businesses. But he shared this example in a piece of content I saw and I thought it was so appropriate. He had a mentor who was helping him grow his gym business. And what the mentor had shared with him is if you want to go generate more leads, one of the best ways to do that in the gym business is go out and put flyers on people's windshields. So one day Alex Hormozy goes out and he starts going car by car and throwing flyers for his gym on windshields. Comes back out of that day spent putting flyers on windshields, he generated one new lead, one new membership, and he was pissed. So the next time his mentor caught up with him, he asked him how it went and Alex said, that strategy doesn't work. It sucks. I put 300 flyers on windshields, I spent all day doing this and I got one frickin lead. And the mentor just looked at him. And the mentor laughed. And Alex from Woolsey said, why are you laughing? He said, because we don't actually start tracking data until we have put out 5,000 flyers on windshields. So what gives you the right to say this strategy doesn't work when you've only put out 300? And I share that because it's also a good piece of advice for you and I. If you try LinkedIn content for two or three weeks and you don't generate a lead, what right do you have to say it doesn't work? If you're only making 10 calls a week and you say cold calling doesn't work, what right do you have to say it doesn't work? Because the answer is you're just not doing enough of it. The third tactic is volume. This is a numbers game.

The more people you connect with, the more people you reach out to, the more people you put content in front of, like LinkedIn content and podcast content and webinar content, the more activity you are going to create in. It is purely a numbers game. So before you tell me that your prospecting activity doesn't work, look at how much of it you're doing. Because I'm willing to bet right now it's not enough.

Sometimes the answer is just more.

So with these three tactics in mind. Blocking time for prospecting.

Putting the right type of activities in these blocks of time to cast a wide net, to get a lot of prospects to know who you are.

And then just making sure you are putting in enough volume. You do this consistently enough, you are going to create activity, you are going to book more appointments.

At this point, it comes down to the three things we preach the most consistency, persistency and patience. You have to do it every single week. You have to consistently and persistently follow up with prospects. You can't just reach out to them once and think they're not interested because they didn't reply to A call or an email. But you got to be patient. You can't try one activity for a couple weeks and then determine it doesn't work. You can't expect your prospecting to turn into appointments and turn into a sale in a matter of 30 or 60 days. That's not how it works. But every week, if you apply consistency, persistency and patience, you are going to create all the activity you need to turn that activity into sales so you can make the money you want to be making.

Because at the end of the day, putting in the work, having the mindset to get excited, to help people, to believe in what you sell, to believe your product can truly help people, and then time block, put the activities in and then do a lot of it.

That will lead to activity, appointments, more money. But probably the most important thing it's going to do for you, it's going to bring more enjoyment to your life. You're going to actually love your job. And so that's my advice for you today, is if you're looking to book more appointments right now so you can make some more money. Before you go looking externally at switching the environment or the tactic or the strategy, first start by looking inward and figuring out how you can make some mindset shifts to be more energetic about selling. Then go to work on the tactics, be consistent, be persistent and be patient and you will hit all your goals, your sales goals, your revenue goals, your paycheck goals and your fulfillment goals. Trust me, the shit works. Now I do want to make one quick announcement on the heels of this episode. Our next Social Media Sales Academy.

Is starting in September. We just kicked off our current one, but our next Social Media Sales Academy will be launching.

In early September. And if you want LinkedIn to be one of those activities, you dial in to build awareness, to build likability with your target prospects. That's what this program is for. Over six weeks, you and I.

Will work hand in hand and I will teach you our LinkedIn Diamond Marketing Playbook strategy. I teach all six hours and you will learn how to use LinkedIn to connect with target prospects, turn those connections into conversations. So you want to learn more about that, go to our website, completegameconsulting.com schedule a call with our team to see if it is a fit for you and get yourself enrolled in the Social Media Sales Academy. In six weeks, you will learn how to turn LinkedIn into a lead generating machine. We've seen what it's done for our business, what it's done for our clients businesses. We want to do a the same for you. So go check it out. And then please, please apply what you learned in today's episode to your prospecting and you will book all the appointments you want to book. In our next solo episode. I'm going to teach you how to turn those appointments into closed business. See you in a few weeks. Be well. That's all we got for today's episode of the Bullpen Sessions podcast. One thing that would really help us both and other new potential listeners is for you to rate this show and leave a comment in itunes, Stitcher, or wherever you tune in to listen to the show. Also, make sure to link up with us@completegameconsulting.com on social media. And please share this podcast with anyone who you think might enjoy it. Until next time. Remember, clarity creates confidence. Confidence creates consistency. Consistency makes you unstoppable.