Prequalify Your Prospects
You should prequalify your prospects, determining whether they are the right candidates for your services. --Cliff Oberlin and Jill Powers
As a part of your presentation, you should prequalify your prospects, determining whether they are the right candidates for your services. Have some questions ready that will help you drill down to what they really want and the best way to deliver it. You want to find out what motivates them, what they value about money, and where they want to go with it. If it helps, you can prepare a script for these questions. Either way, the key is to be a good listener at this point.
If the prospects seem like a good match for you, walk them through your entire process, methodically describing what will happen at each step. Explain that the next step will be for you to gather the information from them that you'll need to formulate your recommendations for their specific needs. The reason for doing this is that you want them to have faith in the integrity of your process. It's easier for prospects to make a decision and a commitment when they understand that you have a consistent, high-quality system in place to serve them.
-Cliff Oberlin, CPA/PFS, CFPM, is CEO, and Jill Powers, CFP, CDP, is president, of Oberlin Financial, in Head Start
and 