What’s working, what’s not: an 11-point checklist

Related: How to create a practice with little (or no) natural market

Many of you will be unsurprised at what I’m hearing, but uncomfortable with how much you need to change your prospecting and phoning behavior to make a dent in your 2016 calls. Here are 11-point checklist to keep your prospecting on track:

• Dialing 700 times a week doesn’t work.  It hasn’t — for years.  But I’m still meeting rookies who have tried this method at the insistence of their manager, who was successful starting  THEIR practice this way.  Yes, decades ago.

• Only texting OR only phoning doesn’t work.  You need to MIX IT UP between technology, phoning and personal face-to-face marketing. No one methodology is the Holy Grail. I have people on every side of this triangle who are committed to just ONE idea.  You have to use all three.

• Sitting in the office won’t get you in front of new people.  You need to be AWAY from your office — with groups of new people, or one-on-one with someone — to increase your prospect list. Buying lists and obsessing over Linked In are not the answer.

• LinkedIn works, when used properly and not exclusively.  Hours and hours on LinkedIn means you’re leaning on technology.

• Hide your printed business cards.  When someone asks for a card, tell them you only use an electronic one since people prefer it. Then ask them for their phone number, get them in your phone and send them your contact info. Before you walk away from them, ask for an appointment, a follow up call or ask when you can follow up.

• Check how you look in your own phone as a contact.  Send it to a colleague’s phone.  Sometimes your address will repaginate in a weird way from a Samsung phone to an iPhone.  Do a test on different phones so you can get it looking right before you go to an event or send to a new prospect.

• Practice sending your contact info so you’re not clumsy at a meeting.

• Spend 40 percent of your week on meeting new people, not 10 to 40 percent.

• Stop buying lists of people who don’t know you. They won’t pick up when you call.

• Update your client files to get their cell numbers. Find out if they mind if you text them brief messages when you need to reach them. Or do they prefer email?

• Change your behavior. THIS WEEK.

Sign up for The Lead and get a new tip in your inbox every day! More tips:

• Prospects not listening to voice mail? Arrange a phone date
• DNC prospecting: What to do when you can’t call people at home
• How to evaluate prospecting methods
• 10 prospecting strategies that work

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