Back last summer, I convened the first  Wholesaler Masterminds groups, and the ideas shared on those calls have really been terrific. The collective wisdom of these groups, freely sharing ideas, is more than most wholesalers get in 10 years of national sales conferences, divisional meetings and Friday conference calls.

The ideas presented here only scratch the surface of the depth and breadth of knowledge, experience and wisdom great wholesalers apply in their practice every day. While the tone, texture and context are lost in a blog post, the ideas are still of interest. For that reason I offer the following thoughts distilled from over 12 hours of calls:

          2. Do you have a community of Twitter followers, of Facebook friends, or  LinkedIn connections? Why not build a ‘community’ of brokers?

          3. Handwritten Thank You cards get noticed now more than ever. 

          4. Handwritten Thank You cards that are specific to a broker’s interest (wine, golf, NASCAR etc.) are a home run, every time. 

          5. Use Copytalk to dictate your call notes, thank you cards, follow up letters from your phone right after your appointment. 

          6. Good wholesalers ask for referrals. 

          7. Great wholesalers ask for referrals and deliver feedback to referrer on the progress of those referrals. 

          8. Develop a Fallen Angels List. Stratify that list by asset class, product, firm, producer level, and by geography. 

          9. Business planning is a waste of time without firm business commitments. Tell them how much you need from them in dollars. 

        10. Old school marketing used fax blasts. New school marketing uses VoiceShot. 

        11. Joint client appointments allow you to display your brilliance. Great wholesalers press for them. 

        12. Good, albeit common, question asks “what cases are you working on?” 

        13. Great, consultative question asks “what cases have you missed on?” 

        14. Have an agenda for your meeting with reps that you have been seeing for years so it does not turn into a social only visit. 

        15. Keep your internal, your scheduler, and your admin (you have one right?) all on the same page with Google Docs. Share calendars, spread sheets, etc. 

        16. Loops, zones, sub-zones are great. And sometimes a great wholesaler has to set a follow up appointment for hot prospects sooner than the rotation would otherwise dictate. 

        17. Run broker’s preferred fund grid through an analytic screen like FI360 to see where your product better fills styles needs. 

        18. For a phone call that requires a visual (PowerPoint, charts, graphs, tours of brochures, etc) use Glance . It is a simple, low cost way to bring your    spoken word to life. 

        19. For your VIP brokers host a client call with a portfolio manager. 

        20. To find outsource help (virtual assistants, admin support, etc) explore elance.com 

        21. Take the time to comb through the IXI or Coates Analytics data that the firm provides and know your territory, and its weak spots, thoroughly. 

        22. With the holiday months ahead focus on relationship building with Centers of Influence. 

        23. Re-engage producers (see #8) with lists of clients that you hand deliver. 

        24.  Stay in front of the information tsunami with RSS. Learn how to use Google Reader. (use password ‘learn’ to view the video)

That’s just a sample folks. These calls are making good wholesalers great wholesalers. The best part is the participants are helping each other.

Here’s hoping you’re not competing against any of them!

About the author:

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Rob Shore: The divide between sales professionals that leave lasting, memorable impressions on clients, prospects, colleagues and superiors versus the nameless faces in the great sea of sameness is enormous. That's the reason why Rob Shore has dedicated his career, and the over-arching message of his companies shorespeak®, and Wholesaler Masterminds® to increasing the MQ-Memorability Quotient® of his clients. He brings his extensive experiences as a former broker, wholesaler and president of major distributor to clients as a coach, consultant, trainer and speaker.

Find out more about Rob at http://shorespeak.com