Financial Advisor Blog on Marketing, Lead Generation, Prospecting and Sales

I've noticed that people who sell have frequently been trained to sell to difficult prospects. They have learned lessons like "the sale doesn't start until you hear 'no' six times" or "never take no for an answer."

However, I've noticed that rich sales professionals don't abide by these rules. Instead, they invest not more than 5 minutes with a prospect to determine if there is a match between the prospect's desires and the seller's product/service. If there is no match, the professional moves on. Less wealthy sellers will grind the prospect and attempt to convince the prospect why the seller's product/service is so great and why the prospect should want it. Please don't do this, for three reasons:

• It's disrespectful. if someone says they have no interest, respect what they say. The reasons that sales people of all types (e.g. car sales people, insurance agents, stockbrokers) get low marks for trust is because of their agenda to sell their product rather than placing the prospect's agenda first.
• This is not the kind of client you desire. If you have to grind them to a close, this is a person who will have buyer's remorse, likely cancel the transaction or just become a headache later.
• It makes you poor by allocating most of your time to people who don't buy rather than to prospects who DO BUY.

So why do you try and convince a prospect when they express no interest? Because you believe that prospects are scarce. This is not true but most of the economy operates under this assumption. We address it in our next post.

Frankly, most sales skills books are poor. They contain scripts from the 1950s or focus on “closing techniques.” What I’ve learned is that when a sales conversation is done correctly, you don’t need closing techniques; the prospect wants to buy. They also focus on objection handling and when the lessons from the books below are mastered, objections disappear.

If you are just starting in sales, read “The Closers.” This is an old book with some older advice but it made a big impression on me and taught me that selling is not just a conversation about features and benefits. Selling is a science.


Next is SPIN Selling. Rather than repeat opinions (most of what you get about sales), this book is the research results of 35,000 sales presentations and details exactly what works. The books conclusions:

“Investigating is the most important of all selling skills and it’s particularly crucial in larger sales.”

“There is a clear statistical association between the use of questions and the successes of the interaction. The more you ask questions, the more successful the interaction is likely to be.”

The next book, Question Based Selling reiterates the same major conclusions—it’s all about asking questions.

Note that the two books above are written by authors involved in large ticket industrial sales. But the lessons are easily applicable to the one-call-close or the sale to individuals (insurance, securities, mortgages, law and accounting services, etc.)

Some sellers may think that they ask questions but not to the degree these books illustrate. In our company, we have even taken this one step further with a rule, “Never say anything that does not end in a question mark.” This prevents the me-focused selling so prevalent in America and insists that if the seller makes a statement about the features and benefits of his product, that the statement must still end in a question to the prospect, inquiring about how this stated benefit fits the PROSPECT’s desires.

David Sandler’s book “You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike in a Seminar” is awesome but please don’t even read it unless you already rank yourself a very skilled sales person. Sandler’s techniques for uncovering pain will be difficult to use unless you’ve mastered the tools of the previously mentioned books.

From the lessons learned, we’ve adopted two definitions of sales at Javelin Marketing:

“Selling is the asking of appropriate questions so that the prospect sees for himself that he wants to buy your product (service)”

“Selling is a conversation where the seller enrolls the prospect in the prospect’s vision.”

When you really learn how to sell, you realize that the notions of convincing, persuading and handling objections have nothing to do with sales when done by a master. Sales is about what the prospect wants, nut what you want. Will you be a sales master or do what others struggle to do?

Read and grow rich.

I just interviewed a candidate for a sales position. I asked him to sell me the product from his last employer. Here’s how the presentation went:

1. He opened by introducing himself with his name and company. (Do I as the buyer care? In fact, since I never heard his name or heard of his company before, my mind got stuck on it and I was thinking “who?”, “from where?” Of course, he continued speaking while my mind was stuck on his introduction).
2. He then asked if he could send me some information (like I have time to read it) on his company’s product which did this and that (he had no idea if either of these features had any interest for me).

I had no interest in offering this candidate the sales position as most everyone in America sells this way. They sell from their point of view with an “all about me and what I offer” approach. But the buyer cares only about one thing, “what’s in it for me?” I offered this sales candidate an alternative approach:

1. When the prospect answers the phone, ask a question, “Mr. Smith, have you ever looked for information, wasted hours of your time and someone else in your organization already had the answer?” (If the prospect has ever had this problem (and who hasn’t), he’s engaged).
2. My name is Bob Richards and my firm makes sure that this will never happen again to you or anyone else in your organization. How many hours a year do you think that would save you and your company?

Notice that this sales call is all about the prospect and his problem, NOT my product. As many professionals tell me they are “client-focused,” all I need to do is listen to the opening of their sales call or sales presentation to hear that they are like most sellers in America—“me centered.” Tape record your next few phone calls. Then listen to them from the prospect's viewpoint. Are you engaged? Do you want to hear more from this person? If you were hiring for a sales position at your company, would you hire this person?

Tomorrow's post will advise on how to engage prospects and sell them faster and for more money.

You think that prospects care about your products but they don't.

The financial press is flooded with discussions about wrap fee vs. commission accounts, services that investors can get on the Internet and how you can stay competitive. I see missing from all of these discussions the reason why investors do business with you—YOU. The clients you want, the best quality clients seek the advantage of the advisor relationship and NOT the best fund, the best manager or the best technology. Therefore, anything you put in the way of your relationship with the client will increase your risk of losing clients. And third-party managed accounts are one of the items that could ruin a client relationship.

Yes, using mutual funds or outside money managers can cost you dearly, particularly in a bear market. I’ll explain.

There are two basic types of clients you can attract. The poor kind who ask questions like, “What’s a good investment?’ or “Is now a good time to invest?” or “When will the market go up?” These are immature, uninitiated investors asking short-term oriented questions. These questions all beg the issue of market timing or investment selection. These are the types of clients that are oriented to buying “things.” These are clients looking for a hit and run. You sell them something, you collect a commission and the client relationship, if any, is about the investment. They call to see how their investment is doing; they are performance oriented. They often ask for additional hit and run encounters—they want another tip, pay another commission and any further interaction with them is about that investment’s performance. They leave as soon as performance is negative. You have a customer relationship, not a client relationship.

If that’s the type of relationships you want, that’s fine. But the above investor does not describe the clients most advisors seek. Most advisors seek people who buy “services” rather than seek to buy “things.”

The investor who buys services is placing much of their decision to proceed on their perception of you and the relationship with you. When you present them with a financial plan pushing them off on the money manager du jour or the basket of 5-star funds, you violate what they seek. Unless you are really providing a quantitatively measurable service like watching for style drift in the funds, watching for manager changes, and looking for performance variance from that firm’s stated benchmark, your tactic of pushing the investor off to a manager may cost you the account. Most advisors are not providing such services and are in fact using third-party managers as a way to duck responsibility for the clients’ financial future and to supposedly put them in the hands of experts.

But in a bear market, this strategy comes home to roost. Your client relationships are most at risk right now (market below 12,000, 6/24/08).

In a bear market, the client questions why they pay you when their account is falling. They question why they pay two sets of fees—one to you and one to the money manager. And what measurable value are YOU adding? Your client relationship is now at risk.

So I recommend that you sell your services (and they better be real value-added services for which you can provide evidence) or manage the money yourself. Yes, you can do as well or better than most professional money managers. Take a look at simple strategies such as the Dow Dividend Strategy, The Value Line ranking system or the Standard and Poor’s model portfolios and compare their three-decade records to any money manager you want.

Regarding those professional money managers you have been hiring to manage your clients funds, Peter Lynch, after discussing the handful of geniuses as George Soros, John Rogers and Warren Buffet in One Up on Wall Street says, “These notable exceptions are entirely outnumbered by the run-of-the-mill fund managers, dull fund managers, comatose fund managers, sycophantic fund managers, timid fund managers, plus other assorted camp followers, fuddy-duddies, and copycats hemmed in by the rules.”

There are many mechanical money management systems that do not require you to be in front of a quote screen, that require you only to rebalance your client portfolios annually. The advantage of mechanical systems is that all bias and judgements are removed (bias and judgement are the two downfalls of every investor if you study the literature on investor psychology). The biggest advantage however is that your client gets what they pay for—YOU handling their money.

You never need to make excuses for an under-performing fund or manager. You only need to bring them back to the system and services they agreed to when you met and show them that the promises of the system (to pursue a strict method of investing) are being met. Sure, values stocks and growth stocks have their cycles but if your services are sold correctly, your clients will anticipate that and not complain in a down market because the system will do what it is designed to do. When you give the client what they want—YOU—you retain them and you get more referrals. Additionally, when you manage portfolios with individual stocks, your clients have more identification and loyalty to their portfolios with you. Each month they get a statement showing recognizable, familiar names (assuming you have a fair portion or large caps in your portfolios) rather than statements showing a bunch of unknown fund names.

Get back to basics. You be the advisor and give the best clients the client relationship they want. Give them the comfort of knowing that the person they came to trust is the one watching their nest egg.

In the last post, I discussed the only three things that determine how much money you earn.

• The quality of the prospects you speak to
• The number of prospects you speak to
• The quality of your presentation (to schedule an appointment)

This post is part three which focuses on setting appointments, filling your appointment calendar.

It’s likely that your first contact with the prospect is a phone call. In previous posts of this blog, I recommend you send something that impresses the prospect before you call—a booklet that you published, an article written about you or that you wrote, a recorded interview—anything that tells the prospect, “this is not an ordinary sales person, this is a professional!” By predetermining your credibility, you generate trust and your first call is a warm call. And a warm call leads to setting an appointment.

On that call, you DO NOT talk about your products, your services, you, you, you. You talk about THEM. Here is a sample dialogue:
Hi, Mr. Jones?
yes
This is Bob Richards and 2 days ago you called by office and ordered a copy of my booklet, “Six Ways to Reduce Taxes.” Did that get to you?
Yes it did
May I ask, what motivated you to order the booklet?
I pay too much taxes and I need a break
How much tax do you think you pay?
My quarterly estimates are $20,000.
That is a lot. Has your accountant been able to help you?
Not really.
Has your financial advisor been any help?
We purchased some tax-free bonds, but that did not make a big difference.
It sounds like you’re not getting the type of advice you want; is that true?
Yes.
What do you think some solutions are?
I don’t know, I’m looking for someone that thinks creatively.
So you are seeking new ideas?
Yes.
If you got advice on new ways to cut taxes, what would you do with those savings?
I’d probably take another vacation.
You like to travel?
Yes, it’s my favorite activity.
Where are you gong next?
China
That's fabulous. Well let’s see if we can save enough taxes to get you another week in Beijing. Would you like to know what other people in your situation are doing to cut taxes?
Yes.
Great. Our financial services firm has community service appointments on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons as a service to the community. At those meetings we show you what other people like yourself are doing to significantly cut their taxes. Would you like to see how your neighbors do it?

Notice that our professional in the above dialogue resists talking about himself and his firm and his services. He accomplishes his objective (appointment setting) by focusing on the prospect and offering something important to the prospect. Because if you offer something to prospects that they believe have value for them or have importance for them, they are happy to set an appointment.

In the last post, I discussed the only three things that determine how much money you earn.

• The quality of the prospects you speak to
• The number of prospects you speak to
• The quality of your presentation

This post is part two which focuses on getting enough inquiries--getting more prospects to talk with.

For most people involved in sales, the solution to more prospects is one word: MORE. If you use direct mail to get responses of interested prospects, then instead of sending 500, send 5000. If you make money from 500, then you make 10x as much from 5000. I've heard all types of foolish responses to this suggestion to gain more prospects. Here's two of the most foolish:

1. But I don't have enough time to follow up on all of those responses! Well then send only as many as fits in the time you have or hire someone to help you and leverage their time to make more money
2. But I don't have the money to send 5000. Well then borrow it! That's what Intel and IBM and ATT do. They borrow money from people to build plants, hire people, etc. If you have a winning formula (i.e. you make money from 500 mail pieces), then it wont matter if you borrow money on your credit card at 21% because you will quickly pay it back from profit.

In other words, stop being a wimp and think BIG. If you want to have more prospects, to make more money, then once you have a marketing method that works, just expand it. Put your hand into your pocket, take out some money and INVEST in your business.

A more advanced problem is when you simply cannot increase your marketing because your cost per prospect will rise. Here's an example. If you advertise on Google using pay per click marketing, you will get so many responses from an advertisement (keyword) for "annuities in Memphis" if you are willing to spend $4 per response. But if you want to triple your responses, you may need to bid more per prospect. You may need to spend an average of $7 per response to get more prospects because you are in competition with other advertisers for the same or similar keyword.

If your marketing model won't handle a higher cost per prospect, then you need a second marketing method. You need to uncover a second way to generate more prospects at the $4 per lead or change your model (e.g. charge your prospects more) to justify the $7 per lead price.

Next post, we address the issue of a higher prospect conversion ratio.

You don’t need a global search to increase your business. There are just three things on which to focus:

• The quality of the prospects you speak to
  
• The number of prospects you speak to
  
• The quality of your presentation

Let’s take these in order over three posts.

The quality of the prospects you speak to is a direct function of HOW you prospect.
Be sure that your prospecting system only generates appointments with interested and qualified people. Here's the comparison of two prospecting systems. One produces good quality prospects, the other produces people who make you tired and hate your profession.

If you cold call for appointments, you generate low quality prospects because in many instances, you are convincing the prospect to see you. You may be "twisting his arm" to some degree to get the appointment. Is it any wonder that 30% of the time, the prospect is not home when they agreed or they are not interested?

What would happen if instead, you placed an advertisement offering a free booklet about a particular topic in which you had expertise. Those people that called from the advertisement for that booklet would be self-motivated. That's the type of prospect you want--people who take initiative and take action.

A new real estate agent asked me how to market. I had her write a booklet "Ten Mistakes to Avoid When you Sell Your Million Dollar Home." We ran the ad in the food section of the Wednesday paper, the day that has all of the food coupons. The ad was $250. The agent got 62 calls for her booklet.

How long would it have taken to locate 62 interested and motivated people by cold calling? What will be the quality of the conversation after the prospect gets the booklet and then gets called by the agent?

See the difference in how your prospecting system determines the type of prospects you develop and how easy they will be to close? So your prospecting MUST be based on the following model—you offer an item to people who meet your criteria (e.g. by age, income, profession, zip code, etc) and you ONLY contact those people who want your item. That item can be

• a booklet or free report
  
• a seminar presentation
  
• a free quotation
  
• a free analysis

Then, when you contact the prospect, you contact them because they requested something of you. You are not asking for their business, you are contacting them to determine how you can serve them. This places you in the power position and starts the relationship on the right foot with the right prospect.

Next post, I'll discuss how to gain high numbers of inquiries from these quality prospects.

Some financial professionals use prospecting methods that produce the wrong prospects (i.e.; bad sales leads). I define a wrong prospect as someone who is not really interested, not qualified or hard to deal with. In essence, someone who wastes your precious time and, if they do become a client, they consume so much of your time that you wish they weren't a client.

You generate these prospects by using unfocused mass marketing models. For example, if you call a list of people over age 65 attempting to obtain long-term care appointments, you are generating the wrong prospects. You have no idea if these people are interested or qualified. So you waste a lot of time cold calling and then meeting people who are not qualified or interested. I call this being a “sales laborer.” You waste large amounts of time on non-revenue-generating activities.

With such prospecting, you begin the relationship by giving the power and control to the prospect. You asked them for an appointment. They can accept or decline and they have the control. You come after them. Wouldn’t you rather they come after you?

Wouldn’t it be smarter if you only met with the interested qualified prospects and spent more of your time in a sales presentation? Wouldn’t it be better if you attracted these interested people to you and practiced as a “sales professional.” Here’s the secret to attracting qualified prospects and interested prospects: set up your marketing so that prospects must indicate their interest before you ever make personal contact. Let them ask for your contact!

Rather than cold call your list, send a well-written, direct response mailer. Even if you get a 1% response to 1,000 items mailed, that’s 10 interested people who took action. They contacted you and requested something of you. You start off in control of the relationship.

When you call them, you qualify them and eliminate half. You get 5 appointments. These are the same 5 appointments you would have gotten with the cold calling, but look how much easier this was. Instead of talking with 1000 people, you talked to 10 people. Instead of meeting with 10 people, you met with 5. You saved maybe 25 hours of your time and spent $500 on postage and mailing. (In other words, had you cold called, you valued your time at $20 an hour for the mailing cost you saved. Is that all you’re worth--$20 an hour)?

Because you now know that you can get more appointments by sending more mailers, you will not be so desperate for every appointment. You can qualify people well and weed out those that have a low probability of becoming a client. You spend your time meeting with the most promising prospects and your close ratio rises because you meet with more qualified prospects.

Or what if you ran an advertisement in the local senior magazine or on the Internet, “Avoid Mistakes in Buying Long-Term Care--Get the Free Guide for Seniors.” You then have a few prospects to call who are interested and motivated. You have saved your time and limited the prospects you deal with to those who take initiative. These are the types of people you want as clients. You do not want people who must always be convinced, which is the type of prospect that is generated with unfocused, mass marketing. Sales laborers spend time with prospects that need convincing. Sales professionals spend time in sales presentations with interested, motivated prospects who take the first step.

Or what about inserting a flyer in the daily newspaper for your next LTC seminar “90% of Seniors Have Inadequate Health Protection.” In our tests, 10,000 inserted flyers (for about $500) generates 25 people to a seminar. You give a presentation to 25 motivated people at one time and then have individual appointments. Seminars make super-efficient use of your time (you give the same presentation at once to 25 or more people) and super effective use of your time (you are speaking to motivated prospects). People who attend seminars are very motivated as they need to place the activity on their schedule, get ready and drive to your location.

If cost is the hang-up to pursuing smart marketing as illustrated above, consider that you almost insure that your income will not increase because you waste your selling time on prospecting. Even if you have no money available for marketing, take a $500 loan from your credit card. Not only can you make a many-times return on your investment, but you’ll be motivated to earn and pay off this advance before your credit card statement arrives.

If you, in fact want to be a big producer, a fast method is to invest money into your business, not your time. Your time must be devoted to sales activities and nothing else. It’s the model used by the most successful companies in existence today—invest money up front and grow large and profitable quickly. Invest the money so that your time can be used for appointments with qualified prospects. As a great teacher once said, “You need to put wood in the fireplace first before it gives off any heat.”

If you’ve been tired of prospecting, got burnt out and feel that good prospects are scarce, see how the following principals can be easily applied at Insurance Leads.

How to Work Your Leads for Super Profits


Sales Lead Generation
Make an offer to your prospect that matches their agenda. Whether you use email, direct mail, newspaper advertising, it doesn’t matter. The goal is to put something in front of our prospect that matches their concern and not your concern. Here’s an example. If you want to have a prospect respond for your offer for mutual fund selection, you don’t send a mailing “Get my mutual fund selection system for only $99.” Such an offer is about YOUR agenda. Here’s the offer that matches their agenda, “Six Tactics that Financial Institutions Don’t Want You to Know About Selecting the Right Mutual Funds on Your Own—Get your free copy now.”

Sales Lead Generation Follow Up
Once your prospect responds (requests the free booklet or report), you send it. DO NOT contact the prospect until you have delivered the promised item. Print your photo, your name, credentials on the front cover and have your biography (well written to illustrate your expertise) in the back. Make sure you have plenty of unbiased non-sales content in the report. If you send an item that is effectively a sales pitch, the prospect won’t want to talk with you. People don’t want to talk with sales people. That’s why the item must be 100% informative, educational and add value to the prospect’s agenda.

After you send the item, you contact the prospect (whether it be by phone or a follow up mail piece). Let’s say it’s by phone and your objective is to sell something on the phone or sell an appointment. For example, you sell mutual funds and you want to meet this prospect. Your call is about their concerns and the only way you will know their concerns is to ask. So the goal of this call is not to state how brilliant you are or how great your mutual fund choices are. The goal is to find the prospect’s hot button that will motivate them to action.

Once you’ve identified the prospect’s hot button, you ask them how important it would be to solve this issue—what’s the payoff. When they tell you, ask them to explain further. In other words, get them to “taste” the payoff. Now here’s where mediocre sellers screw this up. They blurt out “well I can help you with that!!!” Now, you’re just another sales person, drooling at the thought that you have a motivated prospect. But the master does not volunteer a solution. The master asks “would you like to see how other people like yourself solve this problem?” Because people are addicted voyeurs, they will absolutely want to find out how others solve their financial dilemmas. You can then volunteer to meet and show them examples of other person’s solutions.
You have now maintained your position as a consultant and not a sales person. You have controlled your urge to talk about what you want to sell and you have remained focused on the prospect’s objective. You now have a lead that’s a real prospect. You can now see why most lead systems don’t work Let’s explore what you’re probably doing now to generate and follow up on leads.

Sales Lead Generation and Followup Failures to Avoid
First, the lead probably did not respond to anything. They are merely a name that supposedly meets some criteria. This is not a sales lead, it’s a suspect. REAL leads are people that respond to some marketing effort. They raise their hand (i.e. respond) and indicate interest. So if you don’t have a strong marketing message up front to get prospects to indicate interest, you’re already sunk

Next, you probably call that prospect to solicit an appointment. But you’ve got no credibility with them. You have failed to establish your expertise. You must first show the prospect why you’re credible. And there is no better credibility than to be an author (or to have printed materials personalized with your name and photo and the prospect assumes you’re the author).

Last, you probably contact prospects and tell them about your “stuff.” You don’t ask them enough questions or even seem to care about them. Since they responded to your marketing, you assume they are a buyer so you jump into your pitch. You immediately establish yourself as another hack they don’t want to talk to.

Is it now clear why it takes 200 leads to make one or two sales?

If you sell a financial product or service, you can see how these lead generation principals are applied in a simple system by Javelin Marketing at http://www.wealthyproducer.com/selfrunning.html

Some people in sales think a sales lead is a name from a list. That’s not correct. A name from a list is not a sales lead--it’s a suspect, a total stranger and it does not matter if they meet some criteria (e.g. age, occupation, net worth). A true sales lead meets your criteria AND has expressed interest in what you offer. Specifically, the lead has responded to an email, a print ad, a piece of direct mail, etc. A true marketer and sales professional only contacts prospects that have first expressed interest.

Now that you have a qualified lead, how do you turn it into a sale? Here's what we teach the financial advisor clients of Javelin Marketing.

You don’t call the lead and say, “I’m following up…..” EVERY sales person says this and the phrase has now become synonymous with “get ready for my sales pitch.” Your prospect automatically gets defensive (no one likes to be sold) and your chance of a sale is close to zero. Rather, call the lead and say “Bob, you returned a card expressing your interest in having more…..better…(fill in the blank), what motivated you to do that?” The only words that should come out of your mouth are the benefits your lead desires. Your first task is to engage your lead, not to talk about your product.

Next, you don’t say “we have” or “my company offers” as these phrases are synonymous with “get ready for my pitch.” Again, these will make your lead defensive. You do say, “I don’t know if I can help you…may I ask you a few questions about your (business/heath/investments, fill in the blank)?” You disarm the defensiveness of the prospect by stating you don’t know if you can help.

Next, you ask intelligent questions about what’s important to HIM. The best thing you can do here is forget about the features and benefits of your product because your lead does not care. He cares only about what’s important to him. So to really listen, you need to forget your spiel. As your prospect reveals answers to your questions, you ask deeper questions to reveal their emotional desires. Questions like:

Why is that important to you?
If you could have that, how would it impact you?
If you don’t solve that, what’s the long term cost to you?
How does that make you feel?
Are you satisfied with that?

Since people buy emotionally, you must get them to reveal what motivates them emotionally. Until you do, do not proceed to your next step (to set an appointment, ask for the credit card, close the deal) as you will fail. Too many sellers ask the prospect for the order too early and they get objections. First, get your prospect to reveal what motivates him emotionally and then you ask if he would be interested in a solution to that problem/opportunity. Only when he says yes, do you proceed to the next step.

“Bob, if there were a solution to that problem, what would that be worth to you? So if you could have the solution for only 10% of that amount, you would want to know about it? Great, then (set an appointment, ask for the credit card, close the deal).”

Sellers tell me they are client focused or customer focused but it’s not true. They are product focused and my-agenda focused. If your personal mission or company mission is to really help someone, then it becomes easy to turn leads into sales. Because your objective changes from “getting” prospects to buy your product to “finding” prospects who want what your product offers. You can only determine that by asking questions. And when you encounter someone that does not have an interest in your product, you move on.

The key to turning a lead into a sale is to leave your agenda to the end of the conversation and get your lead to reveal his emotional agenda first. Then you have the relatively simple process of showing your prospect how your product fits his agenda (rather than convincing the prospect why they should have interest in your agenda).

The following press releases have appeared about Javelin Marketing providing annuity leads to annuity producers and insurance agents doing business with the following field marketing organizations:

Sunderland Group selects Javelin Marketing
http://www.prlog.org/10075454-sunderland-group-recommends-javelin-marketing-seniorleads-system-to-its-annuity-producers.html

Senior Market sales Recommends Javelin Marketing
http://www.prlog.org/10079583-senior-market-sales-recommends-javelin-marketing-seniorleads-system-to-its-annuity-producers.html

Kortright Partners Recommends Javelin Marketing's SeniorLeads(tm) Program
http://www.1888pressrelease.com/kortright-partners-llc-recommends-javelin-marketing-seniorle-pr-e1le515n6.html

Ohlson Group Recommends Javelin Marketing's SeniorLeads(tm) Program
http://www.pressrelease365.com/pr/business/marketing/ohlson-group-recommends-javelin-marketing-2478.htm

For more information contact Ilene Hirsch (ihirsch@javelinmarketing) or Brandon Skaggs (bskaggs@javelinmarketing) at 866-452-8354

There is no reason for a prospect to choose you. No reason that is unless you look better or superior than their other choices. You can easily differentiate yourself with info-documents. Steve Van Yoder, author of "Get Slightly Famous" says:

“Free info-documents that address your target market are effective marketing tools when they offer quick, concise solutions to common problems, challenges and concerns.”

That's the method we use at Javelin Marketing to have the financial advisor stand out. We have them send the prospect a well-written booklet on a topic that the prospect has requested. The booklet is prepared with the financial advisor's name, photo and credentials on the front cover. When the prospect receives the booklet, the advisor gains instant credibility and stature in the prospect's eyes (note that the booklet clearly discloses that the booklet was written by Javelin Marketing and is thereby compliant with FINRA rules on published materials).

The advisor using credibility-gaining tools before ever speaking to the prospect has a significant differentiation advantage and is far more likely to have a new client.

Financial services professionals tell us that finding new business is their #1 challenge. But it's crazy. Each day, tens of thousands of people send checks to Fidelity, to Vanguard, to USAA and other financial services companies that don't even have a sales force. So there is no shortage of prospects; its that life insurance agents, annuity agents, financial advisors, stockbrokers--they mostly chase after prospects rather than pull them in, as the large companies do.

You don't need a large budget. You simply need to offer "info documents" like the large players do. For example, check out the Sunday newspaper. You will likely see some big ads offering booklets like "Three Ways to Have a Worry Free Retirement" or 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Rolling Your IRA." Fidelity, Merrill Lynch and others get thousands of calls from motivated and interested prospects. Why do you chase prospects rather than have the same method of having prospects call you?

You don't need to have thousands of dollars to advertise in the Sunday newspaper. You can use the Internet for very low cost.

Here's how we do it at Javelin Marketing
http://www.wealthyproducer.com/selfrunning.html

In recent weeks, three insurance FMOs (field marketing organizations) have chosen Javelin Marketing to assist their insurance agents, annuity producers and LTC producers with insurance leads , annuity leads and long term care leads. A research study by Javelin Marketing found that the #1 challenge of insurance and financial producers is finding new clients. Javelin Marketing created the SeniorLeads(tm) service to solve this problem.

(full survey at http://www.javelinmarketing.com/company/survey-results.html)

The Internet-based SeniorLeads service provides three benefits to annuity agents and insurance agents:

The consumers must take the initiative to log onto the Internet, find the advertisement, and divulge their personal information. So the consumers are already identified as interested and motivated.

Before speaking to the consumer, the annuity agent, insurance agent or financial advisor sends a booklet (supplied by Javelin Marketing) branded for the producer, which establishes the producer's credibility.

The producer is coached to success with pre-recorded scripts and twice weekly coaching to gain maximum success from the program. Comments from advisors using the system are located at http://www.insurance-lead.ws/letters.html.