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Prospecting is the backbone of your business. Nothing happens until you get yourself in front of potential clients – which is why the most successful advisors are generally those who regularly prospect right through their careers.
The more you prospect, the more proficient you will become and the more business you will secure. The act of prospecting also empowers you and helps you to overcome your fears.
Here are four such fears that prospecting can eliminate for you.
1. Fear of failure
Prospecting regularly will help you overcome your fear of failure. Once you have made prospecting a habit you’ll discover that the rewards of getting on the phone (rather than sitting fearfully by it) far outweighs the risks.
Once you embrace prospecting you’ll see so-called ‘failures’ or ‘no’s’ as instances where you simply lost the battle, not the war. This will enable you to put things into perspective and see failures as inevitable occurrences on your ultimate path to success. By making the decision to prospect rather than procrastinate you’ll grow accustomed to failing – a lot – but you’ll learn the ability to get straight back up and get onto the next call.
Prospecting regularly will also enable you to identify if you’re making the same mistakes over and over again. If you prospect every day, you’ll accumulate sufficient data to enable you to analyze your results over time. Then you can change what you do. You can measure the number of leads, contacts, follow ups, ratios and more. Armed with this data you can identify where things are going wrong – and tweak your process to achieve better results.
2. Fear of rejection
Most advisors have held this fear at some point – the feeling that when people reject your ideas they are also rejecting you personally. By facing up to your biggest fear, i.e. prospecting, you will be standing up to your ‘inner bully’; the bully that’s holding you back from achieving the success you deserve.
People are not rejecting you, just your ideas. So, overcome your fear of rejection by facing up to it – you will then feel in control of your life and destiny. Become excellent at prospecting by practicing every single day and you will start to experience fewer rejections. Be like a top athlete and control your fear by endless practice – the more you practice, the less power your fear of rejection will have over you.
Prospecting continually will teach you that rejection is a natural part of the sales process and it happens to everyone. It’s almost never simply about you, it’s about your offer. Some people will be interested – and others not – and if they aren’t interested they aren’t a prospect for you.
3. Fear of losing your best client
Even if you’re a great advisor it’s only natural that clients will move on – they could get divorced, die and so on, so your client base will always diminish over time.
If you dread the day your most profitable client leaves, afraid you’ll be left high and dry, then you need to change things. You need to know you always have a good client base to fall back on and the only way to make this happen is to prospect.
By prospecting on a never-ending basis you’ll ensure you don’t have to have this fear.
Related: Ways to Get Clients to Talk About Money
4. Fear of your competition
Ours is a highly competitive industry however you should never devote time to comparing yourself to the competition . Most advisors lack drive and a willingness to prospect every day. If, unlike them, you set yourself the daily goal of prospecting – even if just for an hour a day – you’ll be doing something most of your competitors aren’t doing.
By getting on with the job at hand and prospecting, you’ll focus away from worrying about the competition and you will be taking practical steps towards achieving your own success. By developing your soft skills and becoming excellent at prospecting you can put all your energy into finding that next client.
These are just some of the fears prospecting can eliminate for you. Devoting enough time to prospecting is essential – if you prospect enough, you’ll see enough people and open enough accounts to grow your business in a healthy and steady way. Consequently, you’ll be able to achieve success and live the life you want.