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Atricle Dump - A Simple 4-Step Approach to Sales Success for Financial Advisors
If you have been in business any length of time, I can assure you that habits, not conscious thought, are guiding your marketing actions. Many business people are great optimists, or they probably wouldn’t have gotten into the game to begin with. They keep doing everything they’ve ever done in the hope that one day it will produce results. STOP! It’s time to get the brain back in the game!If you are like most people, each time you come across a new marketing idea you add it to your existing approach. You never think to weed out the approaches which haven’t yielded any fruit yet. You just keep adding more. Time for that to change!Marketing strategies and actions tend to accumulate. They hang around and continue to siphon off time from your day (even when they may not be working as well as you'd like). We get into habits of actions. Seldom do we take time in our busy schedule to really assess how we are spending our time.To improve your marketing, you'll need to clean out some old ways of working.Start to make this a habit. Every week, at a minimum, schedule time in your busy day for a marketing tune-up. Ask yourself the following questions during that tune-up:1)What’s working in my current marketing efforts?2)What’s not working at all?3)What’s not working as well as it should and how can I improve it?What’s Working?These showed be hard to find. They are all the marketing actions you are t
The Million Dollar Sales Formula Step #2:
The Initial Meeting and Most Important 45 Minutes of Your Sales Process!
Why 45 minutes? Well, for those of you who haven't studied direct response marketing...allow me to enlighten you. There's an adage in copyrighting that says the purpose of your headline (and everything you ever send out should have a headline) is to get people to read your first sentence. The purpose of the first sentence is to get your prospect to read your second sentence and so on.
The same is true of a well executed sales process.
The only objective of a first appointment should be to have a second appointment. You do this by limiting the first appointment to allowing the prospect to ask you any questions they have about you, then asking them questions for abou
In the contracting meeting, the department head reviewed my proposal and slid the contract back across the table at me, shaking her head. “Too much,” she said. “I’ll give you 20% less.”This was more than a decade ago, when I was just starting out in private practice, and one of my first big opportunities was to help a large department work through a long-standing state of unrest that was getting in the way of operations. Here I was, sitting with the head of the department, attempting to finalize the contract proposal I'd so carefully constructed.Pleasantly, I explained that I hadn’t deliberately inflated my proposed fees to come in with a highball offer or play negotiating games. The proposed fee was a real number based on careful consideration. I further explained that while my hourly rate was not negotiable, perhaps she and I should revisit the scope of the work to be done to see if that could be scaled back to bring the cost down.She shook her head again, this time rolling her eyes ever so slightly, as though she couldn’t quite believe she could be talking to such an imbecile. “Everything’s negotiable,” said she, “even hourly fees.”Now, I had just finished a book cautioning new consultants not to negotiate their rates (assuming their rates were based on something real, like overhead, income needs, going rates in the field, etc. and not just pulled out of the air) because it became a slippery slope. At a loss for wh
With formulas, all the typical human-error is removed. It's replicatable. It's like 2+2. When I do it I get 4. You do it, you get 4. You see, if you know that a formula works - virtually anyone with a pulse can 'plug-in' to the formula and get the same results. If you haven't reduced everything you do in your business to some type of formula...then you're working too hard and will never get predictable results.
And with the right "formula" your results can become mucho-predictable. You will know exactly how many new clients and new money under management you'll have in two months; or 6 months; or 6 years for that matter. It's easy and I'll show you how and why it works for anybody, anywhere, all the time.
So let's get to what I call the Million Dollar Sales Formula...
The Million Dollar Sales Formula Step #1:
We've all had prospects that no matter how much we know they should work with us, for some reason or another choose not to. Often times financial advisors will beat themselves up chasing the prospect, trying to figure out what went wrong - and almost always think it's because either: A) The client's an idiot (which is sometimes true) or B) We said something wrong in our meetings/sales process
I on the other hand would contend that most our our sales failures in financial services is due to something we did far earlier than when we asked for the business (you are asking for the business, right?). Through extensive trial and error, what I've found is that we fail to make the appropriate 'first impression' before the meeting process has even begun. And that's why we lose clients that should never be lost.
How do you fix this?
By making sure you send out a packet to all prospects prior to them meeting with you. When done correctly this 'packet' can literally close 32.4% of the prospects before they even meet with you. I know, I've measured with and without and can substantiate that exact number. Let me share with you the pre-meeting components that must be executed to significantly increase your closing ratio:
An appointment reminder letter with map to your office along with instructions of what your prospect needs to do to be properly prepared for the meeting. Think of this as a welcome letter and short home-work assignment to ensure both their and your time is well spent. The cover letter should be printed on a professionally designed letterhead with a professionally designed logo, and should have your website address on it. Which, by the way, you should absolutely have a website - and it should look good and serve a purpose. To see what I mean go to www.redrockwealth.com. This is an advisor I know who is doing all the right branding and is not sacrificing a powerful direct-response marketing message in the slightest of ways.
A Confidential Personal Profile. This is what they put their name, date of birth, children's first names, and the like on. It should be no more than one page and should also ask for the names of their current broker, advisor (these are different and will make your client decide exactly what their current "advisors" are in their eyes), attorney, accountant and insurance agent. In the same section you should also give the your prospect a satisfaction scale of 1 - 5 to rate their current financial professionals.
A Confidential Financial Profile. Now this is basically what it says it is - a place for them to answer a few thought provoking financial questions, create an income statement and a balance sheet. You should also always ask what they would change about their financial situation if they could change just one thing, as well as what is truly important about money to them. The responses they give to this questionairre will prove vitally important in your meetings (note that I said 'meetings', not your one-shot-wonder single appointment slam-dunk appointment).
Your PROFESSIONAL business card. Don't try to be cute, please don't put your picture on it, and don't print your own. Your card should be on par with the finest law firm in your city, town, village, tribe...whatever. If this all sounds like a lot of work - it is!! But well worth it once you close your first BIG client.
The Million Dollar Sales Formula Step #2:
The Initial Meeting and Most Important 45 Minutes of Your Sales Process!
Why 45 minutes? Well, for those of you who haven't studied direct response marketing...allow me to enlighten you. There's an adage in copyrighting that says the purpose of your headline (and everything you ever send out should have a headline) is to get people to read your first sentence. The purpose of the first sentence is to get your prospect to read your second sentence and so on.
The same is true of a well executed sales process.
The only objective of a first appointment should be to have a second appointment. You do this by limiting the first appointment to allowing the prospect to ask you any questions they have about you, then asking them questions for about
When you need to have a message delivered to someone fast, you need to rely on a courier delivery messenger service to take care of your problem. They will make sure that they get your message out fast and accurate. A courier delivery messenger service can deliver anything whether it is across the street, across town or around the world. You can rely on them for major deals that have to be done.Having a dependable courier delivery messenger service on hand is going to be a good idea when you are in business. You have to be able to rely on someone to make sure that all of your important information is taken to the proper place and on time. You will be dependant on them for a lot of different things that are very important to your office or business.There are many courier delivery messenger services that offer express delivery. They will offer the same day delivery of any message or package that any of the clients may have. It does not matter if you are a fortune five hundred company or a small town business, they will get your delivery there in a jiff.Many good courier delivery messenger services will build a great relationship with their clients. This is going to be some thing that the customers can rely on and feel good about when they need some thing done. All the clients will be given a certain level of guarantee when it comes to dealing with most of these courier delivery messenger services.Many businesses ar
The Million Dollar Sales Formula Step #1:
We've all had prospects that no matter how much we know they should work with us, for some reason or another choose not to. Often times financial advisors will beat themselves up chasing the prospect, trying to figure out what went wrong - and almost always think it's because either: A) The client's an idiot (which is sometimes true) or B) We said something wrong in our meetings/sales process
I on the other hand would contend that most our our sales failures in financial services is due to something we did far earlier than when we asked for the business (you are asking for the business, right?). Through extensive trial and error, what I've found is that we fail to make the appropriate 'first impression' before the meeting process has even begun. And that's why we lose clients that should never be lost.
How do you fix this?
By making sure you send out a packet to all prospects prior to them meeting with you. When done correctly this 'packet' can literally close 32.4% of the prospects before they even meet with you. I know, I've measured with and without and can substantiate that exact number. Let me share with you the pre-meeting components that must be executed to significantly increase your closing ratio:
An appointment reminder letter with map to your office along with instructions of what your prospect needs to do to be properly prepared for the meeting. Think of this as a welcome letter and short home-work assignment to ensure both their and your time is well spent. The cover letter should be printed on a professionally designed letterhead with a professionally designed logo, and should have your website address on it. Which, by the way, you should absolutely have a website - and it should look good and serve a purpose. To see what I mean go to www.redrockwealth.com. This is an advisor I know who is doing all the right branding and is not sacrificing a powerful direct-response marketing message in the slightest of ways.
A Confidential Personal Profile. This is what they put their name, date of birth, children's first names, and the like on. It should be no more than one page and should also ask for the names of their current broker, advisor (these are different and will make your client decide exactly what their current "advisors" are in their eyes), attorney, accountant and insurance agent. In the same section you should also give the your prospect a satisfaction scale of 1 - 5 to rate their current financial professionals.
A Confidential Financial Profile. Now this is basically what it says it is - a place for them to answer a few thought provoking financial questions, create an income statement and a balance sheet. You should also always ask what they would change about their financial situation if they could change just one thing, as well as what is truly important about money to them. The responses they give to this questionairre will prove vitally important in your meetings (note that I said 'meetings', not your one-shot-wonder single appointment slam-dunk appointment).
Your PROFESSIONAL business card. Don't try to be cute, please don't put your picture on it, and don't print your own. Your card should be on par with the finest law firm in your city, town, village, tribe...whatever. If this all sounds like a lot of work - it is!! But well worth it once you close your first BIG client.
The Million Dollar Sales Formula Step #2:
The Initial Meeting and Most Important 45 Minutes of Your Sales Process!
Why 45 minutes? Well, for those of you who haven't studied direct response marketing...allow me to enlighten you. There's an adage in copyrighting that says the purpose of your headline (and everything you ever send out should have a headline) is to get people to read your first sentence. The purpose of the first sentence is to get your prospect to read your second sentence and so on.
The same is true of a well executed sales process.
The only objective of a first appointment should be to have a second appointment. You do this by limiting the first appointment to allowing the prospect to ask you any questions they have about you, then asking them questions for abou
What is the problem? There just isn’t enough of it going around. It’s too bad that it can’t be more like cold and flu season- impossible to avoid. I am constantly disappointed with the lack of care businesses take with their customers. If I’m paying for a product or service, I expect a certain amount of support to go along with it. Is it really too much to ask?What can you, as a business owner, do to improve customer service? There are a number of things, most easy to implement:-Offer money back if they aren’t satisfied-Listen-Deal with complaints and resolve problems quickly-Personalize your website (and make it easy to navigate!)-Monitor calls to improve service-Be helpful and take the extra step. Walk them to aisle three, don’t just point them to it-Don’t make promises you can’t keep. If you say it will be here Tuesday, make sure it’s here Tuesday-Answer the phone, or hire an answering service. People want to talk to a live person.Of course, there are many more. Just think of ways you like to be treated when you are a customer and act accordingly. The Golden Rule applies, and it need not cost a lot, if anything. Listening is free! Good customer service will keep old customers coming back, and bringing new ones in. Word spreads, and soon your business will be known not just for what it sells, but for the wonderful service you provide.
An appointment reminder letter with map to your office along with instructions of what your prospect needs to do to be properly prepared for the meeting. Think of this as a welcome letter and short home-work assignment to ensure both their and your time is well spent. The cover letter should be printed on a professionally designed letterhead with a professionally designed logo, and should have your website address on it. Which, by the way, you should absolutely have a website - and it should look good and serve a purpose. To see what I mean go to www.redrockwealth.com. This is an advisor I know who is doing all the right branding and is not sacrificing a powerful direct-response marketing message in the slightest of ways.
A Confidential Personal Profile. This is what they put their name, date of birth, children's first names, and the like on. It should be no more than one page and should also ask for the names of their current broker, advisor (these are different and will make your client decide exactly what their current "advisors" are in their eyes), attorney, accountant and insurance agent. In the same section you should also give the your prospect a satisfaction scale of 1 - 5 to rate their current financial professionals.
A Confidential Financial Profile. Now this is basically what it says it is - a place for them to answer a few thought provoking financial questions, create an income statement and a balance sheet. You should also always ask what they would change about their financial situation if they could change just one thing, as well as what is truly important about money to them. The responses they give to this questionairre will prove vitally important in your meetings (note that I said 'meetings', not your one-shot-wonder single appointment slam-dunk appointment).
Your PROFESSIONAL business card. Don't try to be cute, please don't put your picture on it, and don't print your own. Your card should be on par with the finest law firm in your city, town, village, tribe...whatever. If this all sounds like a lot of work - it is!! But well worth it once you close your first BIG client.
The Million Dollar Sales Formula Step #2:
The Initial Meeting and Most Important 45 Minutes of Your Sales Process!
Why 45 minutes? Well, for those of you who haven't studied direct response marketing...allow me to enlighten you. There's an adage in copyrighting that says the purpose of your headline (and everything you ever send out should have a headline) is to get people to read your first sentence. The purpose of the first sentence is to get your prospect to read your second sentence and so on.
The same is true of a well executed sales process.
The only objective of a first appointment should be to have a second appointment. You do this by limiting the first appointment to allowing the prospect to ask you any questions they have about you, then asking them questions for abou
I’d like to outline five different powerful tools that are used by all power closers. Anyone who masters these skills who does not possess them already will surely see profound results. The first concept is that power closers are intensely goal-oriented. Talk about goals and goal-setting these days seems to have become very clich?. In spite of this tendency, super-successful individuals who are driven to accomplish well-planned and clearly defined goals are distinguished from those who are mediocre. They know exactly what the bottom line is and exactly what they have to do to meet it. Not only this, but successful sales people typically push the bottom line so they increasingly out-produce previous records.The only reason they are successful in pushing the limits is because they are measuring. If you don’t know the facts, figures or standards, you’re trying to shoot a target in the fog. Then, not only do your prospects know the figures, but they also visualize their success. They can see themselves clearly in their mind’s eye accomplishing their goals. “Pre-programming” their success helps them fuel their ambition, desire and commitment. As a result, they have given themselves “permission to win.”Another key tool of power closers is responsibility. No matter what happens, they accept 100 percent responsibility for their results. When challenges present themselves, power closers deal with them rather than make ex
A Confidential Financial Profile. Now this is basically what it says it is - a place for them to answer a few thought provoking financial questions, create an income statement and a balance sheet. You should also always ask what they would change about their financial situation if they could change just one thing, as well as what is truly important about money to them. The responses they give to this questionairre will prove vitally important in your meetings (note that I said 'meetings', not your one-shot-wonder single appointment slam-dunk appointment).
Your PROFESSIONAL business card. Don't try to be cute, please don't put your picture on it, and don't print your own. Your card should be on par with the finest law firm in your city, town, village, tribe...whatever. If this all sounds like a lot of work - it is!! But well worth it once you close your first BIG client.
The Million Dollar Sales Formula Step #2:
The Initial Meeting and Most Important 45 Minutes of Your Sales Process!
Why 45 minutes? Well, for those of you who haven't studied direct response marketing...allow me to enlighten you. There's an adage in copyrighting that says the purpose of your headline (and everything you ever send out should have a headline) is to get people to read your first sentence. The purpose of the first sentence is to get your prospect to read your second sentence and so on.
The same is true of a well executed sales process.
The only objective of a first appointment should be to have a second appointment. You do this by limiting the first appointment to allowing the prospect to ask you any questions they have about you, then asking them questions for abou
Real Estate postcards are used as an effective marketing tool for advertising business and consistently generating new clients. Though word of mouth contributes to increase sales and marketing, it is restricted by the number of people with whom the businessman interacts, and also depends on the time the person devotes in networking. By using real estate postcards the networking opportunity is made easier and twice as effective, more so when it is used through email or direct mail.A real estate postcard sent through email or direct mail can be the easiest and fastest way to announce property listings, promote and publicize new commercial leases, and display testimonials, for properties that have been brokered previously and also current market trends. Real estate postcards can be sent through mail or postal services, to every house and family in the targeted areas for business campaigning. This is also called "farming mailing" aimed to target the "farming" area where the agent would like to restrict the campaign. This process has proved to be very useful to a number of agents, who have listed and sold properties earning enough money that has covered the campaigning cost, and yet have money left as profit.Other than buying real estate postcards from stores and sending them by post, they can also be bought or created online. Several online post card services offer the solution of customizing personal real estate cards, for promotional pur
The Million Dollar Sales Formula Step #2:
The Initial Meeting and Most Important 45 Minutes of Your Sales Process!
Why 45 minutes? Well, for those of you who haven't studied direct response marketing...allow me to enlighten you. There's an adage in copyrighting that says the purpose of your headline (and everything you ever send out should have a headline) is to get people to read your first sentence. The purpose of the first sentence is to get your prospect to read your second sentence and so on.
The same is true of a well executed sales process.
The only objective of a first appointment should be to have a second appointment. You do this by limiting the first appointment to allowing the prospect to ask you any questions they have about you, then asking them questions for about thirty minutes, then wrapping up. If you've sent out a packet like the one described earlier then every initial appointment will have your prospects coming into your office with their completed questionairres and all of their financial statement. When you have about 15 minutes left, you simply say the following:
"Now that I know a little about you, here's what we need to do next: I'll take the information that you've completed, my notes, and copies of your statements and prepare an analysis I call a Personal MAP for Retirement. This will show you in detail the specific areas in your finances that can be improved and by how much. We'll schedule a meeting time in the next couple of weeks to go over your report so that whatever you decide to do after that you will be able to make informed decisions that will improve your finances, fair enough?"
Did you see what I just did? Did you notice the last two words? These will become the most important two words of your career, guaranteed.
If executed correctly, nobody will be able to resist that second appointment. Now some people will ask how much it costs and tell them it's free, but you'll let them know based on what you find how much they would have to pay you should they make the educated decision to engage in your services.
Seriously, this stuff makes me giddy just writing it. You should be too! In just these first two steps I've already shown you how to at least double your closing percentage with wealthy financial planning clients.
The Million Dollar Sales Formula Step #3
The Second Appointment - Separating the Men from the Boys!
As a precursor to this meeting, here's a little tip: Make sure you send a thank you letter to the prospect for the first appointment and have it dual as a reminder of the second meeting. Follow the same rules as to the quality of the paper and the like and include another business card.
At the actual appointment, make sure you thank your prospect again for coming in, let them know it's nice to see them again - and always ask if they have any questions before you begin to show them your analysis.
The analysis should include the following (nothing more and nothing less please):
* Morningstar reports on their funds/variable annuities
* An asset allocation analysis
* A bullet-point style analysis of their taxes, long term health care needs, estate planning needs, and a quote of what you'd charge to fix their problems
And lets be honest here - everyone will have problems. Especially Million Dollar clients. If you can't look at their investments and show them how to save money on taxes, eliminate estate taxes, and improve their investments - then you need far more than an education in sales.
This step is really super-easy. The key is this:
"So as you can see Mr. and Mrs. Prospect, I've identified approximately $4,000 of immediate benefit to you from this analysis with another $1,700 each year thereafter. So there should be around a $20,000 benefit over the next ten years and my fee for making this happen is $595.00 for a step-by-step detailed plan of action. Fair enough?"
Some people will agree on the spot, other will not. Remember to never, ever, ever, ever, ever push for a close. This all has to happen very naturally. Understand that the reason people work with you is not for what you can do for them but rather or not they trust you and like you. Not many people like pushy sales people. So try your best to be very non-chalant about all of this.
And about the fee - hey, this can be whatever you want but you have to be charging fees. If your not charging fees then these folks will know instantly that the other shoe has got to drop and it's usually in the form of you selling them something for a commission. If you are fee-only this is never an issue; but if you are fee-based or commission-based you have to be charging a planning or set-up fee for taking a new client, PERIOD.
If they don't want to schedule their next appointment at that time, just tell them to think about this for the next few days and that you'll follow-up to see if they have questions.
The Million Dollar Sales Formula Step #4
The Ultimate New Client Acquisition Process!
I've said before th
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