Protect Your Time & Close More Clients
You could be missing out on a huge opportunity if you don’t have this one role on your financial advisory team.
The role? Appointment setter.
Doesn’t have to be their title. But it’s a critical role and function that can protect your time as an advisor, and help you close more clients.
What is this role?
This is the first person on your team any new prospect speaks with:
Your setters’ calendars should be wide open to new prospect calls. And only they should be able to book time on your advisors’ calendars.
They also have a couple other important tasks we’ll cover below.
Two huge reasons setters are so valuable are TIME and POSITIONING.
TIME: Your time is valuable. In a multi-advisor firm, all of your advisors’ time is valuable. It should be spent with clients, and with qualified prospects. It should not be spent chasing down unengaged leads, or doing the early work of qualifying and disqualifying leads as they first come in the door. A setter does that work. Depending on any number of factors, they could free up as much as half of your week for higher-value activities.
POSITIONING: This could be even more important than time. If you’re the expert financial advisor, why are you chasing down leads on Monday morning? Don’t you have clients to serve? This subtle signal communicates how valuable your time and advice are, and clients will value your time and advice higher if they’re both harder to get to.
So what does a setter do?
This is a front-line communication role, focused on helping qualified clients connect with the best advisor to serve them.
If you have a lot of inbound leads (via advertising and content marketing), one of the most common tasks they’ll do each week are discovery calls.
They’ll function as a front-line filter for new leads, qualifying and disqualifying potential clients, based on the criteria you set out. For qualified prospects, they’ll have access to schedule time on the advisors’ calendars. And they’ll ensure that when these prospects meet with an advisor, they bring in the appropriate statements and other documentation to make that advisor meeting as effective as it can be. (When you communicate that your time and advice is valuable, you can expect higher compliance here!)
Your setters can also handle a mix of other tasks.
For example, they can handle follow-up throughout the sales process. Before the discovery call, between the discovery call and the first appointment, between the first and second appointments, transitioning clients into onboarding… The appointment setter can become a type of “new client concierge” who ensures that they feel taken care of, as they start their relationship with your business.
Setters can also follow up with MQLs — Marketing Qualified Leads (as opposed to SQLs — Sales Qualified Leads). These leads may have requested a report, filled out a quiz, or otherwise given their contact information for anything other than a direct appointment with the team. Typically about 5% of these leads generated from cold audiences and 10% of these leads generated from warm audiences would book an appointment, if engaged in the right way. This is a huge opportunity for setters to create value, if you’re generating leads in this way.
Setters can also take over some outbound prospecting tasks. If you’re doing more manual prospecting, this is a powerful way for them to add value. Simply document the process that works, adapt it to their role (which can be done in a way that enhances positioning), and let ‘er rip.
Each of these tasks stands to protect your time, improve your positioning, and better engage more leads — all of which can lead to more clients and production.
So, who should fill this role?
You might already have a member of your team who can handle this.
Yes, your setter can be a dedicated sales role, filled by someone who is hired explicitly to play an important role in a consultative, professional selling process.
But this can also be a way for more junior members of your team to get a lot more face time with potential clients as they gain more experience.
So a junior advisor or an advisor in training can be a great choice to fill this role. They get experience in contributing to production. They get a ton of client “face time.” They’ll develop their own relationships with clients, which could be beneficial to the business long-term. And they’ll provide all the benefits of the setter role.
Does your team have setters? Do you have someone who should be filling this role? Will this be your next hire? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
To your success,
Roy Furr
PS: I find most advisors either need to attract more potential clients, or convert more of their current leads into clients. I’ve spent the last 20+ years achieving both goals, and I’ve worked alongside advisors to achieve these goals to the tune of over $2 billion in annual production. If you want to know more, comment “attract more clients” or “convert more leads” and I’ll share next steps.