Why any advisor would be concerned about a "Do Not Call” list confuses me. Why would anyone waste time marketing in a way where the prospect does not call you first? I have done that for 18 years, and the only reason other advisors don't is that they fail to believe that business can be that easy. So they continue to call strangers, waste 90% of their time and then get blown out of business by a regulation that shouldn't impact them anyway.

Here's how you get prospects to act first:

1. You place ads offering a free booklet to a very specific market. For example I run an ad for $80 a week offering a booklet that appeals specifically to people who own annuities (the same system works for other products). Interested people call me first to get the booklet, so there is no regulation prohibiting me from calling them back. And I close about 20% of these people to appointments because they came after me—I did not chase them. That ad generates $100,000 in annual commissions. Some readers I am certain have tried advertising with poor results. That's simply because there are rules to make ads work that most advisors will not obey, or won't do the work to accomplish:

a) The ad must be emotionally compelling to a very targeted audience. To be "emotionally compelling” requires you to write in a way opposite to what you learned in school. You learned how to appeal to the left brain (logic) and good ads appeal to the right brain (emotion). To train yourself, you need to study books such as "Magic Words that Bring You Riches” by Ted Nicholas or "Cash Copy” by Jeffery Lant. In other words, if you want to be a great marketer, you need to train yourself in marketing.

b) The ad must make a non-intimidating offer.

c) The ad must ask for a response. "Image” advertising is a waste of money.

d) You must test, test and retest. I have developed many ads that flopped. So rather than give up (as many advisors I have observed are prone to do), I changed the ad and tried again, and then again and again until I got it to pay off.

2. You send direct mail requesting a response. This works the same as ads—the direct mail offers a fee booklet or an invitation to a seminar. Every advisor thinks that "direct mail doesn't work in my area” or "my area is over-seminared.” Then how come other advisors are successful? Because they do the work to uncover the science of seminars and direct mail rather than try once and give up.

3. You have a TV show and people call in. This does't take gobs of money and I can show you how to produce and air six, broadcast-quality TV shows for under $1500 usin

g the free Community Access stations in your area. In every town, the cable provider must provide one free station and offer that air time to anyone with a non-commercial message. So you air an educational show and then offer the transcript to the viewers who call. These callers are excellent prospects.

4. Most advisors know they want referrals but have no system to obtain them. That system has already been created. Denny Roodman, a planner in Missouri, created a system for himself when he got fed up with other marketing that took too much of his time. His experience with this system is that some months, he gets so many referrals he cannot keep up (and other advisors have this same problem with the system). The difference between what Denny does is that he has converted the steps of getting referrals into a science, whereas other advisors think it's an art.

5. Free press. Doug Casey offered a free booklet by sending a press release to a major metropolitan newspaper. The paper ran the offer and Doug received over 300 calls for his booklet. If you can write something interesting (or have a professional writer write it for you), you can get free press to make your phone ring.

The best thing about the "Do not call” list is that it may finally force advisors to learn how to market, resulting in more business than can ever be achieved calling strangers.

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