Asking for Information Before a Meeting

[samantha91]

After you get a prospect on the phone and confirm an appointment from a cold call, when do you find out how much benefit they would be interested in and other factors such as smoking, basic medical questions such as if they suffer from an illness or seeing a doctor or if they have no medical concerns. My problem that I am having with cold calling as a new agent, and finding out basic information before the meeting to have some quotes ready.

How do you feel about running quotes in front of the prospect? I feel that I should come prepared and that includes coming with a least three different options.

When do you ask prospects from cold call qualifying questions to generate a lead before a meeting?

 

[dstrack]

Some agents will tell you just set the appointment and once there find out how you can help/what products they qualify for... Then sell it.

Personally I am a phone only guy... but even if I wasn't I would never go to an appointment without even qualifying them first knowing exactly how I can help them.

 

[samantha91]

Some agents will tell you just set the appointment and once there find out how you can help/what products they qualify for... Then sell it. Personally I am a phone only guy... but even if I wasn't I would never go to an appointment without even qualifying them first knowing exactly how I can help them.

. Can you share how you do that with a cold call and not get hit with hesitation and people abruptly hanging up.

 

[dstrack]

The easy answer is just keep calling until you find the ones that are willing to talk. Of course there is much more to it than that.

Think about what your markets pains are and then focus on helping them solve the pains. Talk about only how you can make the pain go away not your products, awesome company, amazing rates. People don't care about you, your company, or your products until they know you care about them.

I know this doesn't directly answer your question but its the best I can do at the moment. There are entire libraries on this subject.

I would suggest you read everything you can about sales and building trust. Check out youtube as well. Tons of free sales training on there.

 

[somarco]

People will not open up to you, on the phone or in person, until they feel they can trust you. If you can't establish a level of trust on the phone in 10 minutes or less you probably won't do much better when you get there .............. assuming they don't stand you up.

Like dstrack, all I do is phone sales. No cold calling. All inbound from my websites or referrals. By the time I talk to people they have a pretty good idea of who I am and how I approach the business, so I do have an advantage over agents that are cold calling.

It is probably harder to establish a bond with cold calling, but unless you want to waste a lot of windshield time driving to see people that don't qualify (for whatever reason) or will not buy (for any reason or no reason at all) you need to learn to establish a rapport and some level of trust before you ever get in your car.

 

[Jerard]

I only cold call door to door so this may "kinda-sorta" apply, but I ask a ton of things when I'm at the door before I ever do a quote. I find out their ailments, if they have an DL and SS card, and what methods of payment they have, even if they have ever been in jail (yea...I go to the bad side of town). I rarely do a quote from the first meeting but rather gather my info and call back for an appointment. The information I find out is best shown on the included attachments. Well, one attachment is the blank form I use and the other is from a recent sale with some usage notes. Use the form if you like, or not. If you do it would be helpful to change the company names to the ones you are contracted with.

Be advised that the Excel file may look like it won't print out correctly but it should print out fine.