Some skills that wholesalers employ really separate the men from the boys, the posers from the superstars, the wheat from the……well you get the idea.
One of those advanced skills is Forward Scheduling.
Picture this sequence of events:
- You have great meeting with a high potential rep, for our purposes we’ll call him The Whale (TW). TW is in your Top 50 for 2010 and you have every intention of converting them from an occasional seller of your product, better than a one ticket wonder, to superstar producer status.
- During the meeting you are taking copious notes about where the opportunities lie for both product placement and how to contribute to The Whale’s overall business (no, I will not use the over-used ‘value-added’ because I’m boycotting that phrase).
- You now have a number of follow up items that needs to be completed for TW such as:
- Putting TW’s existing fund grid through an analytics program to test your funds.
- Running a hypothetical for an immediate income stream for a prospect TW will be seeing.
- Getting information about the availability of a portfolio manager to conduct a call for TW’s 20 best clients.
- Before you leave the office you say to The Whale that in addition to promptly handling the items on the to do list that require immediate follow up, you would like to schedule the next visit to go through the fund grid and the associated analysis that you will run so you can talk through the results.
- You and The Whale are now scheduled for 4, 6 or 8 weeks out.
- You debrief the visit with your internal and give them the most pressing to do’s upon leaving TW’s office.
- You put your notes into SalesForce.com (or similar) and…
- You enter the dates of the next meeting in the forward schedule.
- Now it’s the internal wholesalers opportunity to leverage the benefits of the forward schedule:
- Internal calls The Whale to follow up on the pressing to do’s from the meeting that just took place.
- During the conversation the internal mentions to The Whale that they see the next appointment on the calendar and that they will be working on the analysis that the wholesaler promised, checking to see that The Whale doesn’t have any additional question or concerns.
- Internal mentions to TW that they will be back in touch shortly before the next scheduled meeting with the external wholesaler to cover any additional agenda items that TW might like to add.
- A week before the scheduled appointment with The Whale you send an email to confirm the appointment. Make it short and sweet:
Whale,
Looking forward to the continuation of our discussion re your practice and how advancing the relationship with Foonman Funds adds to your 2010 bottom line.
As a reminder were meeting on Monday March 8th at 10:00 AM. If there has been a change to your schedule please let me know as this time is reserved specifically for you.
If there is anything else that you would like me to be prepared to discuss to help you grow your business please let me know.
Regards,
World’s Best Wholesaler
To recap, the benefits of Forward Scheduling are:
- Less time spent scheduling, as a number of appointments with your best producers are preset via the last meeting.
- Tighter coordination with your internal partner.
- Keep your rotations/loops in good order.
- Maximize the potential of systems such as SalesForce.com. If your firm has no such system simply use a shared Google Calendar.
- Impress reps with your organization skills because most wholesalers simply are not organized.
- Reminds reps that your working on their practice and their agenda (mostly) vs. the dreaded “show up and throw up” that too many wholesalers practice.
- Less pressure to fill the calendar the week before a trip.
- Allow your internal partner to help “clear the weeds” before your next in person visit.
Feel free to add more benefits or suggestions about Forward Scheduling via the comment section below – it won’t hurt a bit!
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Rob,
This is one of the best articles to come out from your group-and that’s saying something, because they are all thought-prevoking and actionable.
If my hair-stylist (note, I didn’t say colorist-just yet!) can forward-schedule me for a $25.00 haircut, is there any excuse for a $ XXX,XXX wholesaler? I think the reason for the difficulty in External Wholesalers scheduling ahead is they don’t have an Annual Travel Schedule. I have done my Annual Calendar based on Top Producing Advisors and Cities/States (Primary, Secondary and Tertiary markets). The key is to also, review Quarterly to “rebalance” if need be. The frequency of travel for me coincided with % of Sales/Assets
It not only looks good to clients that you know were you plan to be for the next 12 months forward. It also, can help you out with a “client seminar” that someone asked you to do at the last minute-usually, because another wholesaler backed out or didn’t get the A-Ok for the home office.
“I’d like to help in some way, but my firm required that I physically participate and speak in these kinds of events. Looking at my calendar, I’m in Waco, TX that day. Perhaps, we can plan something for a select group of your clients for my next trip in to Natchadoches in 16 weeks? (Make sense?)
Good stuff, Rob.
@Dean
Thanks for the kind words – I appreciate it.
Your analogy re hairstylists is a great one – and I refuse to get my hair colored!
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