QUESTION:

I played golf with a client and one of his friends joined us. The friend is a successful commercial RE salesman. We only mentioned our careers briefly. At the end, we exchanged cards for future golf games.

How do I make the leap from acquaintance to prospect to client? Since, he’s successful in RE sales, I feel he must know others in similar circumstances.

Do I call him? Write an email? Do I invite him to lunch to learn more about his business? Do I invite him to lunch and say I’ve helped others in your situation, let’s see if we could work together?

ANSWER:

Thanks for taking the time to write.
There are a couple of ways that you might proceed with this.

1. You might invite try another round of golf. Ride with him and get to know him and his business more deeply. He may ask you more about your business. Then you can suggest a lunch meeting to explore business opportunities.
2. You can call or email him to move right to the business opportunities lunch.

Do you want him as a client, as a center of influence, or both? I think you should be clear about that with yourself as you move forward. Be clear with him as well.

The key about turning him into a center of influence is your referability. He has to really understand your work and trust you. This trust doesn’t often come quickly. It could take a few lunches, meetings, rounds of golf, etc. Of course, if he experiences you as a client, it will be easier to establish your referability.

QUESTION:
Hello Mr.Cates: I like many of your ideas. However, have you ever been told by our compliance department that we can not ask for the phone numbers of referrals by our current client base because they might be on the do not call list?

At my prior Investment Firm, I used a simple referral card that I would attach to a mailing that I send to existing clients. I had a lot of success with it. However, the compliance department at my current company said not to do that, because of what I just mentioned. Just thought you may like to know.

ANSWER:
Thanks for taking the time to write. This is the first I have ever heard of this. Every firm I work with allows their advisors to collect phone numbers of prospect. But, then, they have to check them against the do not call list. Many companies have software that helps them with that.

So, if you can’t collect phone numbers, how do you contact your new prospects?

Of course, email is becoming a pretty good way to get connected to new referral prospects. The client sends an email to their friend and CC you. You then, after a couple of days, follow-up with an email to the prospect (and CC the referring client). You use email to negotiate a quick phone appointment with the prospect.

I hope your company would allow something like this. If not, they might as well tell you not to prospect at all.

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