Until a practice becomes an Exponential Business and has over a hundred unsolicited introductions a year, it must focus on three areas of marketing simultaneously. To maintain consistent revenue a practice must have short, intermediate, and long term revenue sources. continue reading…
Less than 5% of clients give referrals on a consistent basis. Why is this number so low despite our efforts to deliver great service to our clients? I believe it is because of the inherent risk of referrals. When your client endorses you to somebody else, they put themselves at risk to loose two relationships. They have the chance of losing their relationship with their friend whom they have referred and they have a risk of breaking up their relationship with you. Not because of something they have done, but because of something outside their control. Because if the referral doesn’t work out with you, who are they going to blame? And if he loses his best friend, whom is he going to be upset with? You. That’s why people don’t make referrals, there’s too much at risk.
But if you can find a stranger that they don’t know, and have them talk with the stranger about what it is like to work with you. This is a safe way for them to learn the Language of Endorsement™.
As the client answers the strangers questions he is building an endorsement script. So the more they are a reference with you, the more comfortable they becomes talking about you.
This is the simplest way to remove the risk of referrals.
For years, experts have maintained that, before you can build trust, you need to build rapport. But these days, everyone knows the basics of marketing and selling—a strong handshake and straightforward eye contact, for example. These techniques are now so overused that the stronger the handshake and the longer the eye contact, the more uncomfortable the prospect becomes, feeling they are dealing with a used-car salesman rather than a professional.
Over the last decade, surveys of baby boomers have consistently yielded the same result: investors are chiefly interested, when dealing with financial advisors, in information that can help them make better, more informed decisions. They want an expert, someone who knows what they are talking about and can provide them with better knowledge. Rapport building is not the beginning of the relationship process— expertise is. This is even more important following uncertain economic times.
How should you approach the “head, heart, feet” relationship-building process? First, you’ll need to identify whether a client or prospect is a thinker or a feeler.
Prospects who are feelers tend to process information in their hearts. Typically, a feeler will accept the advice or recommendation of a third party regarding your expertise. When attending a conference or workshop where the speaker has the endorsement of a larger group, for example, the feeler will tend to assume speaker is an expert, then spend the bulk of their time trying to see whether they feel comfortable with them. They will ask themselves, “Do I feel I can trust this person and what their saying?”
A thinker, on the other hand, will spend the bulk of their time trying to figure out whether the speaker knows what they is talking about. They will continually ask themselves, “Is this person an expert?” Once they determines that the speaker is indeed an expert, they will trust them implicitly, then move quickly to the “feet” stage.
Very rarely do prospects have enough information to understand whether you can truly deliver on the promises you make. This is why using references or advocates is a critical step in the marketing process. A solid reference will bolster a prospect’s trust and reassure them about the quality of your performance.
As you review this relationship-building process, take a moment to answer these three distinct questions:
• Do you have advocates up-front to disclose your expertise on the topic at hand?
• During the conversation, do you allow an exchange of dialogue where trust can be built?
• Do you use reference advocates to help the client better understand your ability to follow through on your promises?
Using this approach to building relationships allows you to better understand and meet your prospects’ needs. And by identifying whether a particular prospect is a thinker or a feeler, you’ll be able to focus your time and attention on the area of your presentation that’s most important to your prospective customer.
Winning prospects’ trust doesn’t begin with building rapport—despite years of expert testimony to the contrary. To kick off solid relationships with prospective customers, you’ll need to focus on one thing: positioning yourself as trustworthy.
Suppose a couple, after spending an hour in your office, leaves thinking exactly the same way they did when they arrived. Somewhere in that hour, you’ve fallen short. To win new business and forge solid relationships, you need to change prospects’ perspectives, build trust, and demonstrate that you can deliver on your promises. I call this three-step process “head, heart, and feet.”
Let’s start with “head.” During your meeting with a prospect, you want them to undergo a transformation: to add to their knowledge base and change the way they views things. They may come in thinking one way, but they leave with greater knowledge, more information, and a new perspective that challenges them and demands that they respond.
The next step: “heart.” Prospects are always on the lookout for evidence of whether or not you’re trustworthy. To convey your credibility quickly and effectively, engage each prospect in a dialogue—a give-and-take that demonstrates that you understand them and their particular configuration of needs. Doing so will help you earn their trust and respect.
Finally, “feet”—the stage where the prospect contacts existing clients and learns that you’ve made a difference in their lives, that you do what you say, that you show up on time, and that your team follows through on what you promise. Now their ready to engage their feet and to build a relationship with you.
Clients learn about us by what we do and not what we say. Our actions reflect what is most important to us. If our customer contact time is spent talking about our products, our services, and ourselves, the customer soon understands what is truly important to us and it is not the customer. As Peter Drucker says “the aim of marketing to to make selling superfluous, to so know and understand our clients that the products fit them and sell themselves.” The financial services industry even has the “Know Your Client” Rule and we all agree this is important. The problem arises when we start to work with the customer. Our need to close the business, to generate revenue, and to feed our families, forces us to speed up the process and “get to the close.” These motives reveal themselves in our initial contact, when we do not focus on the client and their needs but rather on our agenda. If this shift from the customer to ourselves is generated by what motivates us, are we realizing what we truly want? Or are we selling ourselves short and settling for something less than the best in our business. In the coming weeks we will look at what we really want as business owners. Before that we need to understand how relationships are built.
Creating a professional image is doing the small things right. Throughout my career we used a channel lock binding system to create hard cover presentations. ChannelBind is the best company on the market today. After you purchase your binding machine you can baind as many covers as you desire. We had the cover embossed with “Confidential” and our contact information so we could use them for any type of presentation.
The website includes a video that explains how the system works. This will separate you from the herd.
No matter what business you are in, everyone wants to maintain and enhance their lifestyle throughout their lifetime. This basic desire is forgotten many times when clients visit their financial advisor. The products and services offered by the advisor are insignificant if this primary concern is overlooked. Why is the most important financial concept rarely discussed?
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David Allen as just released his new book Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life
John Bogle the founder of Vanguard Funds has written another important book. Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life
The window of time left this year is small, but the opportunity is great. In the next four weeks you can make a significant difference in the lives of others. And as they see in your actions your desire to help them achieve their dreams you can replace the lost assets that the market has temporarily taken away. So instead of just breaking even when the market returns, you can have a significant gain in assets and revenue, while having added outstanding value to the relationship.
Example script for call to Top 25
Mr. Client over the past several weeks we have talked to many people who are worried and fearful. They had no one to help them understand their situation. If you know someone you respect and value who is worried, there is no need from them to be in that situation. We’ll be happy to take them through the same analysis we use with each of our clients, at no cost or obligation, to make sure that they know where they are today, where they want to be in the future, and have a plan of action to get there. We do not what someone you care about to be afraid.
We will post the audio file and notes from the conference call next week.
The following is an excerpt from the new Second Edition of Attract Clients that will be available soon.
There are times when the biggest difficulty you face in business is getting clients to commit their funds to an investment choice. Perhaps they agree with the concept of fee-based assets and even go so far as to say they want to place their money with professional managers, but then the question becomes not so much what to do or how to do it, but more importantly when. When is the best time to make the change and move the assets?
