FA 200 - Techniques for Prospecting: Prospect or Perish
FA 200 covers the front end of the practice: finding, qualifying and converting prospects into clients. The exam tests market selection, prospecting methods, referral systems, activity management and the compliance rules that constrain outreach - not sales charm.
Qualify before you prospect
- A prospect has a need, the ability to pay, and the willingness and authority to decide. Missing any element, you have a suspect.
- Pick a niche (occupation, life event, affinity group) so your message, proof stories and centers of influence are specific.
- Natural market first: existing clients, family, CPAs, attorneys, property-casualty agents, mortgage and business brokers.
Methods and their economics
- Cold: calling, walking routes, direct mail. High volume, low conversion, most heavily regulated.
- Warm: referrals, introductions, workshops and seminars, digital content, alumni and association groups, orphan policyholder lists.
- Referral ask: earn it after delivering value, be specific ("who do you know who just sold a business?"), make the introduction easy, then report back to the referrer.
Activity math
Track dials → contacts → appointments booked → appointments held → fact-finders completed → closes. Ratios are your personal baseline, not universal constants, and the weakest ratio is where leverage lives.
Compliance boundaries
- National Do Not Call registry, with existing-business-relationship and written-consent exceptions.
- TCPA: prior express written consent for autodialed or prerecorded calls and marketing texts.
- CAN-SPAM: accurate headers, physical address, working opt-out.
- Advertising, titles and social profiles require review; no guarantees, no misleading designations.
Worked example
An advisor makes 250 dials a week, reaches 20% (50 conversations), books 20% of those (10 appointments), holds 70% (7), closes 30% (2.1 clients). To reach 5 clients weekly without changing ratios, dials must rise to 250 × 5 ÷ 2.1 ≈ 595 - rarely realistic. Doubling the contact-to-appointment rate from 20% to 40% produces 20 appointments, 14 held and 4.2 clients on the same dials. Reasoning: improve the worst conversion ratio before adding volume.
Traps that cost marks
- Reporting dials as production.
- Asking for referrals in the first meeting, before value exists.
- Purchasing internet or third-party leads without checking TCPA, DNC and state licensing.
- Treating a seminar attendee or a list name as a qualified prospect.
- Using unapproved titles or testimonials in social media outreach.