Who’s in the pipeline? 10 ways to keep a steady stream of benefits leads & prospects

Prospecting has not gone away. As a benefits professional, you need to have a steady stream of leads and prospects headed in your direction. You need to keep the pipeline filled. Because prospecting is often our least favorite activity, when things get busy or you are ringing the cash register, prospecting often falls off the list entirely. Where will new clients come from?

There is an educational component to benefit plans. Many employees do not understand what their employer is making available. The employer is paying a cost to provide these benefits. If you can identify professional organizations or service clubs composed of business owners, explaining the basics and components of a good benefit plan can be an educational topic of interest.

Everyone wants business to walk through the door. The only ways to make this happen are to be the low-cost provider or have a monopoly for the product you provide. That is not happening. You need to fill the pipeline yourself.

1. Social media Your firm has rules. They have also established best practices. You know who does this well in other areas of the country. You need a strategy that goes beyond simply posting content and hoping someone reaches out.
2. What is your follow-up process? Regardless of how a lead or prospect enters your orbit, they need immediate attention. What is your procedure? What are the series of steps that need to take place before the lead or inquiry becomes a client?  Is this a written plan? Is every lead tracked through the pipeline?
3. Calling business owners. You want businesses as clients. The Do Not Call (DNC) rules are primarily designed to protect residential customers. Business-to-business selling is considered a legitimate channel. The challenge is finding people you can reach by phone, people who are not over-prospected or protected by screeners.
4. Getting referrals. This is the ideal source of new business. A happy client tells your story. Someone either reaches out to you or your client tells you to contact this business owner. How do you let your current clients know you encourage referrals? How quickly do you follow up once you get a name? Maintaining client confidentiality, is your client aware you followed up, but haven’t heard back? Have you thanked the person who the referral?
5. Advertising. This is often a firm-wide effort, but it can be positioned to promote the firm as an individual with a face. Your local market likely has personal injury lawyers who advertise extensively on TV. It’s obvious it cannot be one person, yet it humanizes the firm. The object is to be top of mind when the potential client realizes they have a need. By building brand recognition, you become their first call. Brand recognition also opens doors.
6. Cold calling. This overlaps with the business owner strategy above. There are firms who run prospecting campaigns to generate qualified leads, which businesses buy to approach directly. I think the calls we get asking, “Do you want to sell (address) or own any other property you would like to sell? We represent a local investor…” There are many logical reasons to believe cold calling is dead. It refuses to die because it is effective.
7. Mailings. These make sense because they can be done on a large scale. You can identify businesses with specific characteristics. You can build a list of newly incorporated firms or ones that have recently changed hands. Like cold calling, it’s a numbers game, but it can identify interested prospects.
8. Cold walking. Ever notice the “No Soliciting” sign on the window of a business? You see them, but not that often. The message is you cannot walk through the door and attempt to sell the owner something. Cold walking has been around for a long time. Your phone might encounter voicemail, but a live person walking through the door and asking to see the owner is treated differently. This is especially true if the person behind the counter replies: “I’m the owner.” Bear in mind medical practices, businesses in industrial parks, professional suites and business incubators are also concentrations of businesses.
9. Speaking to groups. There is an educational component to benefit plans. Many employees do not understand what their employer is making available. The employer is paying a cost to provide these benefits. If you can identify professional organizations or service clubs composed of business owners, explaining the basics and components of a good benefit plan can be an educational topic of interest.
10. Professional association membership. Are you a worker bee? Many competitors might belong to the Chamber of Commerce, but few volunteer on a regular basis. If you can get yourself into a role where you interact with the general membership on a frequent basis, you are on the way to becoming “that guy” who comes to mind when people have a specific need. Try this as an exercise: Think of several needs you might have someday. Make a list. Assuming you are active in the Chamber, attach a name to each need. You will discover there is a banker, realtor and accountant who are top of mind. You want to gain this name recognition too.

Related: Mastering sales prospecting: A 12-point plan to zero in on the perfect leads

Everyone needs to keep the prospecting pipeline filled. Here are 10 suggestions. What’s your strategy?

Bryce Sanders is president of Perceptive Business Solutions Inc. He provides HNW client acquisition training for the financial services industry. His book, “Captivating the Wealthy Investor” is available on Amazon.