While many financial planners and advisors use seminars as their primary prospecting source, some skip some very critical steps they can take to achieve more successful seminars. By neglecting to implement certain appointment setting best practices, they potentially cost themselves of a great deal of appointments being set at their seminars.
The following are some great tips on how to increase seminar appointments:
Create Clear Call to Action
Passing out the business cards and simply asking your audience to call if they need the service is certainly not the most effective way to set up appointments. Creating a clear call for action at both the beginning and the end of your presentation and requesting attendees make appointments is crucial. Explaining your appointment-making process, how easy it is to accomplish and the value it will provide while they are your captive audience will greatly increase your appointment setting ratios at your seminars.
Offer a Discount
A special offer, a discount or a deal for the seminar attendees will create a sense of exclusivity, leading to making attendees feel like they are getting a better value than everyone else.
Place a Deadline on Discount Offered
Make sure to reiterate several times that the special offer or discount will only be applied if they set an appointment within certain time-period. Remind the prospects that they can reschedule but they need to have the appointment set to become eligible for the offer. This will create a sense of urgency and motivate the prospects to act quickly. It is also helpful to keep the offer to the two-week limit.
Utilize Seminar Response Sheets
It is strongly recommended to utilize a seminar response sheet in presenting your seminar material. It is important at the beginning of your presentation to discuss the importance of them completely filling out these forms. Once these forms have been filled out, this is an excellent opportunity to provide a clear call to action instructing the attendees on the ease and importance of scheduling appointments. They not only provide a way to reach these individuals following your event, they also provide a way for attendees to follow along throughout the seminar, noting questions or concerns they may have on different topics of discussion.
Have Adequate Support Staff at Your Event
Regardless of your expected crowd size, it is very important to have at least one additional individual there to greet your guests, schedule appointments as well as collect seminar response sheets. Larger crowds will require more than one additional staff member. In having adequate support staff, you will have the resources to place a person at the door. They can then make sure everyone leaving has filled out seminar form and encourage any individuals leaving without setting appointment is aware of the limited time for discount or special offer. This can help result in additional appointments being set that would have been otherwise missed without someone there to monitor the door.
Following these guidelines, you will be much more likely to collect the necessary information regarding your prospects as well as appointments that have been set.
Hold Question and Answer Period
A question and answer period following your presentation can provide a valuable resource in helping to set more appointments. Questions from attendees can provide immediate feed-back on your presentation, helping to establish a two-way dialogue between you and your guests. Of course, it is important to limit the questions you answer to general questions, with none aimed at specific situations of individuals. Simply explain these are much better answered in a one-on-one private setting.
Immediate Follow-up is Key!
The morning immediately following the seminar, it is critical that appointment making follow-up calls begin. With seminar information and concerns still fresh in their minds, this is your best opportunity to set appointments with individuals that did not set appointments following the event. In making these follow up appointment setting calls, should attendees refuse to set appointments to meet with you, this is still a great opportunity to help confirm contact information and permission to send valuable information to them going forward to keep them informed.
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