When I was in sales, New York City is where I worked. It’s the greatest city in the world. It has an electricity running through the population you don’t find anyplace else. Everyone needs to have been someplace else 15 minutes ago. I found this fast-paced environment great for business.
Four years of my production years were spent in our firm’s flagship office in Lower Manhattan. There were180 advisors on about 100,000 square feet of floor space! That’s about 2½ acres. It was a fast-paced environment.
Working in my cubicle and later in my office (with a door!) I learned advisors can accomplish almost any task in three minutes.
• You could make a sales presentation over the phone in three minutes.
• You could get a trade approved and ticket signed by a compliance manager in three minutes (often less).
• You could explain a problem to your manager in three minutes.
• You could eat lunch in three minutes.
Three Ways This Fast Paced Environment Worked For Me
This was a time when the telephone was the primary communication channel and besides face-to-face conversations, the only other channel compliance liked. Early in my career, my manager explained: “During the hours the market is open, you should be on the phone constantly.” Immediately after the Crash of 1987 (I’m dating myself here) he explained, “Every client gets a call. Every one.” Keeping current with your clients meant getting everything done in short intervals.
1. People will take your call if they know it’s going to be short. Everyone else in NYC was busy too. Once your clients got to know you, regardless of their lofty position, they would take your call if they knew it was going to be short.
2. The right introduction. When calling when the market is open, there’s an energy that gets transmitted into your voice. My calls to clients usually started with: “I need two minutes of your time” or “Here’s why I’m calling.” I had a client who was a named partner in a NYC law firm. One time he told me: “The thing I like about you, Bryce, is you get to the point.”
3. Getting off calls. Once I had my conversation, I needed a way to disengage. Obviously I would thank the person for their time, however my sign-off line became “Gotta hop!” Clients would laugh in anticipation. “Yes, I know…you’ve gotta hop!”
What Do You Accomplish?
Do you get robo telemarketing calls? Live calls wanting to buy any real estate you have for sale? Political calls? They have a cost connected with them: Your time. Unlike money, which if lost can be earned back and replaced, once time is gone, it’s gone.
By being brief, you are being respectful of the other person’s time. You are acknowledging it’s valuable without stating it. I often use the expression “You have many other projects that are competing for your attention.” It makes a good impression.