Whites Of Their Eyes

Most advisors do reviews with your clients, which is a good thing for your clients!  But too few advisors use the annual review to leverage new business and income.  In the previous post, I illustrated one tool successful advisors can use to leverage their annual reviews for new business… but say you aren’t interested in that full program and just want the “nuts-and-bolts” version.  I’ve got you covered!

Here’s a great checklist to use with your clients to uncover needs that will both help you provide value to your clients and possible leverage to find new business.  Yours courtesy of 5Q Group.

More money… No marketing costs… and can be implemented immediately.  Sounds like the perfect marketing program.  If used correctly, it is.  It has been used by hundreds of advisors over the last 10-year period to jump start their businesses or to break through plateaus. 

Too much hype?  Yep, that’s why I’ll show you exactly what it is… how it works… and how you can get access to it for free.  Just watch this coaching video I did a few months back. It will walk you through it step-by-step. 

The segment walking through this marketing program begins at minute 9:16 of the video.  If after watching the video, you’d like to access the program and software for free… just give us a call at (877) 941-9710 and we’ll get you going!

• Single, never married Boomers make up a surprising 13% of all Boomers
• Divorced and separated makes up 16%
• Widowed Boomers make up another 3%

Add those together and you get 32%.  What are you doing with your marketing and sales that is directed straight at them? Something that addresses their very unique wants and needs.  If you could be your territory expert on those wants and needs… you basically lock in a third of your marketplace.  Oh, and by the way, these people will be your best referrers.  They stick together!

Source: The Boomer Consumer

Looking for a great appointment getting idea?  Try this with your warm list.  Begin your letter speaking about the need for a second opinion.  Here’s some different ways you could do that:

• Mary, you might be doing just fine but… if you only listen to one person… and that person makes their living off you, wouldn’t it make some sense to at least get one more opinion?
• Mary, you may be doing just fine… but when the person you work with makes their living by selling you investments, wouldn’t it make sense to get a second opinion?
• I’m sure your advisor told you about all the advantages of [what you invested in] with them… but did you hear any disadvantages?  Is there really such a thing as a perfect investment?  We’ve never heard of one, and we are looking all the time 😊.  Maybe it’s time to have just one other opinion to make sure what you are doing is the absolute best for you?
• If you ask an advisor this one question… and they can’t answer it… RUN AWAY!  The question is, “Can you please tell me about the company Long Term Capital Management, and what lesson you took from their experience?”

Now, offer a free blood pressure monitor (you can get a decent one for less than $30) for anyone that comes in for an appointment.  Use the blurb, “To be Healthy and Wealthy… a 2^nd opinion is always a must.”

Which would you rather have?  A lead or a referral?  Duh, a referral.  But of course, leads are much easier to get. 

So, what if you could make a lead feel like a referral?  Would that be good?  Of course.  It takes some work, but it is worth it.

Here’s how you do it.  Create value-based offers like white papers, videos, podcasts, webinars, seminars, and research.

Now:

1. Touch your prospects with these value-based offers over time in multiple ways
2. Communicate with them 1-to-1 via snail mail, email, texts and phone calls about these offers
3. Make your offer to meet about providing value… INSTEAD OF being about their money and investments

By providing your prospects a consistent flow of value-based information, you instill a sense of trust that your prospects will willingly give you and your firm.  Little by little that trust grows and it takes on the same type of power that makes referrals so valuable.  TRUST.

Financial Services are intangible, they are abstract.  People can’t touch, smell or taste them.  This makes it very difficult to clearly demonstrate why your services are needed or are good.  Difficulty in clearly demonstrating your service can lead to the following:

Now that we understand selling our intangible service is difficult… how do we remedy that?  When you go into Costco or an ice cream shop, do they ever offer free tastes?  Why do they do that? 

How can you create a “free taste” of your services?  What can you do that will allow them to hold, feel, experience what you do? 

• Provide a Preview of your services—show them how to create a digital executor and let them know why it’s important.
• Give them something easy to accept—give them a cheat sheet on how long they should keep their household records, or any other “tip” type checklist.
• Give them tangible research—provide them with a link to research something that has a direct impact on their lives.
• Make it interesting—avoid huge amounts of details and instead get to the point about EXACTLY how something you offer benefits them.
• Become a leader—become an expert in your area by cultivating relationships with your local community, newspapers, radio stations and tv stations about a specific expertise you have.
• Mine your backyard—are there services that you offer that some of your current clients didn’t yet use?  Or maybe they aren’t even aware that you do?  You bet there are!  Go back and show them new and exciting things that you can do for them.
• Rinse and repeat—once you have cultivated your specific area of expertise… constantly repeat your value-added offerings through every avenue available to you.  Something repeated constantly, and often, becomes TRUTH.

Make it your goal to make your services, as tangible as possible.

Research by the Boomer Project has found people in their 50’s, 60’s and older are more likely to process ideas, advertising and communication from companies that make “conditional” claims… claims that include words and phrases like… “if”… “when”… “for people that…”

As an example, a recent ad for a Advisory firm had the headline, “Introducing the biggest change to the 401(k) since, well, the 401(k).  Sure, it’s a cute headline but it is ineffective.  It sets off red flags in older people’s minds.  They think, “according to who?”  Absolute statements like… the biggest… the most important… best… only… these words will likely be met with doubt and skepticism. 

If you want your message to be believed and thus effective, be honest and straight forward.  Don’t exaggerate.  Nothing is perfect and nothing works for everybody.  And don’t compare yourself to other firms.  Investors think that you are picking and choosing only the things that make you look good.  Doing this will not help but will instead instill distrust.

Here are some real-life examples of the do’s and don’ts:

• Instead of saying things like “everybody” and “the best investments” consider something like—If you’re nearing retirement and looking for investment strategies that make sense for you now, call us today.
• Instead of comparing yourself to others, instead consider—People that use our firm feel they have retirement plans customized to them and their particular needs.

Keep these things in mind with your advertising… and your marketing dollar will yield a much better result.

An elevator pitch is a brief (think 30 seconds!) way of introducing yourself, getting across a key point or two, and making a connection with someone.  The best elevator speech is a Killer Unique Selling Proposition.

This 36-min video walks you through creating a Killer USP… and gives you 5 effective USP’s to start using yourself.

In the research report Evaluating the Cost of Sales Calls, over 90% of buyers stated they wanted more value and less selling… they want the people selling to them to be resources for ways to make their lives better.  Unfortunately, buyers said they experience the opposite 69% of the time.  And only 39% of buyers felt that the people marketing to them understood their needs, instead of just selling to them.

In the RainToday.com research report, How Clients Buy, 85% of buyers reported that the people who sold them made major mistakes.  Some of the top errors were not listening and not understanding needs.

So, how do you get your marketing to be more value oriented and ensure the client that you understand their needs?  Use Value-ad Lead Magnets.

Definition of Lead Magnet from Investopedia.com

A lead magnet is a marketing term for a free item or service that is given away for the purpose of gathering contact details; for example, lead magnets can be trial subscriptions, samples, white papers, e-newsletters, and free consultations.

Here’s some examples to get your creative juices flowing:

• Do you have retirement calculators on your website?  There are many services that you can use to create calculators for you… outgrow.co is a great place to start.
• Tax reduction tip sheets available on your website?
• Hiring a shredding truck and host a shredding event
• A Sign-up for your monthly newsletter on your website?
• A white paper give-away describing the 10 Biggest IRA Mistakes
• Teach a community class on the 5 Biggest Retirement Mistakes and How to Avoid Them… or any other topic on which you have expertise
• A guide to how to leverage employee stock options can attract high earners

These are just a few of the ideas, but you get the drift.  With these types of lead magnets, you’ll attract people that are interested in the things that you do best.  It’s a Win-Win!

Ken Dychtwald of Agewave, who many believe to be the world’s foremost expert on Boomer Retirees says Boomers have four traits: idealism, anti-authoritarianism, eagerness to embrace change and self-improvement.  How many of these are you leveraging in your practice and marketing?

Are you saying your products and services are right for all retirees?  If so, big mistake.  Boomers think… I’m not everybody!  I’m ME!  I’m special. 

Instead of saying you work with retirees, talk about the types of people who you have worked with successfully.  Describe them in detail or better yet, tell a story.  If you can paint a picture in your potential client’s mind of the type of investor with whom you’ve had success… they can then decide for themselves if you’ve described something that applies to them.

Keep in mind with Boomers… they are always thinking, “You aren’t the boss of me!”  They want to feel as if they are making their own decisions and not being sold something.