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

Everyone wants these benefits:
• To have more income
• To pay less tax
• To protect their assets
• To provide financial security for their family if their income is interrupted
• To maintain their financial and physical independence in retirement

Products and service you offer provide these benefits:

• You have products that provide more income than bank accounts (bonds, bond funds, mortgage funds, bank loan funds, annuities)
• You have products that reduce income taxes (annuities, tax free bonds and funds)
• You have products or services that help people protect their assets (any product with a guarantee, estate planning advice)
• You offer life and disability insurance in the event the wage earner is disabled or dies
• You provide long term care and health insurance to maintain physical and financial independence when illness strikes

Your prospects have desires and you have the solutions. It’s a perfect match.

So why is it that you have a chronic shortage of new business, you spend much of your time prospecting and you need to persuade people to do business with you. You have a constant need to find people who you can interest in your offerings. Obviously, there is a disconnect between what they want and what you provide.

These are three possibilities that cause the disconnect:

1. Prospects don’t trust your products to perform
2. Prospects don’t trust you
3. Your communication is inconsistent with what the prospect needs to hear such that prospects don't realize that you can provide what they want

In all three cases, the issue is you. The issue is that you communicate your service so that you either leave the prospect with a lack of trust, a lack of understanding or a cloudy perception of how you can help. Fortunately, there is a solution.

Your communication is so riveted to your agenda, that the prospect neither trusts you or understands how your agenda coincides with their agenda. Sure, you say you’re “client centered” but I will prove that’s not so.

Have you ever sent a product brochure to a prospect or done a mailing campaign that featured a product and its benefits? This is being product centered (not client centered). Any type of sales or product information screams “MY AGENDA.” But people are not interested in your agenda. Not surprisingly, they are interested in their agenda.

Here’s the difference. If Mrs Smith receives a seminar invitation titled “All About Annuities—how to save taxes and gain safety,” it is obvious this is your agenda is to sell annuities. I understand that you think this is her agenda because the annuity is a tool that heps her get what she wants. Surgery is also a tool that helps you get what you want (good health), but do you have a desire for surgery? You want the payoff—you don’t want involvement with the means, the tool or the service that produce the payoff.

Similarly, Mrs. Smith does not want your annuity and she will not attend your ANNUITY SEMINAR BECAUSE:

a. She is not interested in your sales pitch
b. She does not want to feel pressured
c. She is not interested in what a sales person says.

She is interested in insight, not merely product information. She does not want an annuity (she doesn’t even know what it is)

Now let’s suppose you send a different invitation. This one is titled “Six Ways Retirees Can Cut Taxes Now.” The invitation lists these topics to be discussed:

• How to reduce or eliminate tax on social security income
• The two asserts held by many retirees that can be double taxed (and how to avoid it)
• Why some retirees pay excess taxes by having the wrong investment in their IRA
• How it’s possible to get an 8% payout on your principal without risk to capital
• The government’s offer to subsidize the cost of heath protection yet few retirees use
• How to be sure that your spouse or children have the financial resources to make them secure when you’re gone

Every one of the above topics can include use of an annuity but annuities are not mentioned because buying an annuity is not part of the prospect’s agenda. If you want prospects to attend a seminar or respond to any marketing offer, your offer must be 100% about their agenda and 0% about your agenda. Notice that every topic above is about the payoff and does not mention the means to get the payoff.

When you are truly client-centered, you stop marketing products, you focus on your prospect’s emotional desires and you speak about your products only at the end of the interaction because they are unimportant to the buyer. Like the contractor who builds an addition to your house, you could care less what tools he uses. You only care that the addition is beautiful, adds value to your property and gives you enjoyment. You don’t want to know what type of lumber is used for the studs, whether the sheet rock is ½” or 5/8” or that the carpenter uses Craftsmen hand tools. Had the contractor focused on his tools in his sales presentation, there would have been no sale.

Are you ready to sell more by dropping your focus on your "tools" and focus on the prospect's agenda?

Post provided by Javelin Marketing

Think about Tiger Woods. If he practices just his putting and gets really great, does that assure him of a win? To be a great golfer, it won’t help him to rank a “10” in putting but only a “7” in drives, fairway shots and chip shots. To be great, he must be strong all around and would be a far better golfer if he ranked 8.5 in all phases of the game. And that’s what he does—ha practices all phases of his game but is not #1 in any single skill. In fact—he ranks only 27th in the PGA in drives but his overall game is so good, it allows him to be a world ranked champion.

Advisers need to take a lesson. I see them focus on one aspect of their game, mostly prospecting. But they do little to:
· Improve their sales skills (most have never had formal sales training)
· Telephone appointment setting skills
· Marketing skills (oral and written communication that has prospects act)
· Referral skills (so that they get clients to bring them new business)
· Client retention skills (so that clients generate a lifetime stream of income)

For success with less work, you must have a balanced game and bring all parts of your business along in balance. What good is it if you have the tenacity to cold call all day but your phone presentation is lousy? You waste most of your time because your tenacity is offset by your lack of phone skills. Or what if you have 5 appointments a day but only close 2 as clients because your sales skills are mediocre? If all parts of your business don’t support the other, much of your effort, even in the areas where you rank a “10,” are wasted.

The balanced approach to building a profitable business

These are the 5 key areas of a profitable easy-to-run business
1. Prospecting
2. Appointment setting
3. Sales—how to conduct a prospect interview
4. Drip Marketing (e.g. newsletter for monthly client/prospect contact and client retention)
5. Referrals from clients

Now let’s see what you’re missing in each of these areas.

Prospecting—your prospecting must have people call you in response to mail, advertising or seminar invitations. If you chase the prospect rather than they contact you, your prospecting is all wrong and you have a fabulous opportunity to learn how to change that (and save a lot of time).

Appointment Setting—in our study of 500 advisers, the most successful asked the prospect at least 8 questions and the call lasted for more than 5 minutes. The least successful advisers rushed to set an appointment before understanding the prospect motivations and were often shot down. You can learn winning phone appointment-setting skills.

Sales—most advisers don’t know the definition of sales. Sales is “asking the prospect appropriate questions so that they see the solution for themselves.” It’s not about talking or spouting features and benefits or convincing. It’s about asking the right questions. The good news—you can retrain yourself in about 2 days and soon have prospects asking to buy.

Drip Marketing—if you don’t stay in contact every 30 days with a newsletter with clients and prospects, they forget you and you will lose business. You must have a drip marketing system that operates without your attention

Referrals—if 50% of your new business does not come from referrals, it’s because you have no system. You cannot wait for clients to bring you business because “you’re a nice person.”

Additional posts in this blog will focus on each of these activities in detail and how to do them.

Post provided by Javelin Marketing

In most cases the correct thing to do is give up. What, you gasp, “but my mentor told me that persistence is everything and to get six no’s before I give up and to…” This type of persistence is needed by poor advisors with lousy marketing plans chasing poor prospects. Wealthy successful advisors do not chase prospects. Their time is too valuable (as your time should be).

Why doesn’t the prospect want your product? Odds are, they were unqualified or uninterested from the beginning. Did they express initial interest? In other words, did they under their own power come to a seminar, respond to a direct mail offer, or call from an ad, television or radio commercial? If they did not make the first move and “raise their hand” indicating interest, then why are you bothering them in the first place? Wealthy producers only talk to people who have expressed interest.

Why doesn’t the prospect want your product? Because it’s not suitable for them. You ascertain this in the first five minutes of conversation, usually on the phone before you meet them. Wealthy producers always qualify people on the phone as to interest and suitability before meeting. The wealthy producer’s time is so valuable, he does not have time to meet with unsuitable prospects. When a wealthy producer ascertains that the prospect is unsuitable/uninterested for his product, he thanks the prospect for their time and withdraws because he can use that time to meet with a prospect that is suitable.

Why doesn’t the prospect want your product? Because you have poor sales skills. I don’t mean you are not good at explaining your product’s features and benefits. I don’t mean that you are not good at convincing people and pushing them to action. I mean you are not good at asking questions. Selling, when done by a master, is about asking questions. In fact, a master can sell his product to anyone by doing very little speaking and simply asking appropriate questions. Selling, when mastered, is the asking of appropriate questions so that the prospect sees the correct solution for himself. If you spend most prospect meetings doing the talking, that’s not selling, that’s talking at the prospect.

Why doesn’t your prospect want your product? Because you are focused on your agenda, not their agenda. They sense immediately that your goal is to sell your stuff, not to help them. Sure, you tell yourself that if they buy your stuff, that’s helping them. That may be, but you have taken this for granted for so long, you forget that some people may not benefit by your stuff. But you keep pushing away and the prospect is turned off by the sales person.

Why doesn’t your prospect want your product? Because they have no reason to trust you. They already have distrust in the financial services industry due to major brokerage houses selling stocks with no future, insurance companies churning policies, mutual fund companies giving preference to large customers and CEOs of major corporations confusing the shareholders money with their own. Since you are part of the financial services industry, they don’t trust you either. What could you do to gain trust?

• Have you done anything to show that you’re a professional and not another huckster wanting to get into their pocket?
• Have you set up a website with information about you, your background, your licensing and unbiased information about insurance and investments?
• Have you obtained credentials that prove your expertise in your field?
• Have you educated yourself in your competitor’s products and the entire product category so that you are able to help the prospect with pros and cons rather than just pushing your product?

Professional sales people hear a lot of “yes',” Here’s why

• They only talk to prospect who have expressed interest
• They qualify the prospect as suitable in a few minutes
• They realize that people don’t trust the industry so they have obtained credentials, set up a website, developed a nice brochure to prove their credibility and stability
• They are focused on the prospect’s agenda and not the sale of their stuff

Posted by Javelin Marketing

Do you like to be sold?

Notice that when you see a sales pitch coming, your muscles tense up a bit and you put on your “armor” so as not to be convinced of something you don’t want. Your prospects do the same. Everything you’ve been taught by product companies—about spouting features and benefits screams SALES PITCH and insures that your prospects will resist.

We created a self-study program on selling, and the most frequent question we got was “where’s the section on handling objections?” The only reason a sales person gets objections is because he attempts to sell what the prospect does not want. Of course the prospect will object! Do they object when you offer what they want?

How many times have you shown your prospect the mutual fund brochure or the insurance brochure? In fact, how many times have you mailed it before meeting? If you want to be any more certain of raising your prospect’s resistance, keep sending them product and sales literature. Not only do they resist when you start off in this fashion, they have no interest in your agenda. If you want to get their attention, send an item that addresses their agenda.

In the next few minutes you can learn to stop selling and get the prospect to buy.
The fastest way to get your prospect’s attention is to communicate to them about issues important to them. Their desires (their agenda) are their foremost concern. Here are some common foremost financial concerns:

--To have more income
--To pay less tax
--To have financial independence in retirement
--To protect themselves and family members from financial catastrophes

People are very eager to have these desires satisfied. Wait a minute....don’t you offer products and services that satisfy these desires? Then how come people are resistant when you attempt to sell? Because you have put the cart before the horse. You fail to get their attention before you alienate them by discussing your products and services.

First, get their attention. If you mail items or place an ad, here’s the message:

Concord Retiree increases income by 20% and pays 30% less
tax
(without accountant’s help)

It’s true, John M. retired two years ago and was comfortably living on his retirement income but worried about future increases in his living costs like health care and
utilities. Would his money last? His accountant had no suggestions but John was
able to uncover three simple changes that

Reduced the tax he pays on his social security income
Offset the tax he pays on his pension income
Boosted his interest income to secure his future

Maybe you can benefit from items that John uncovered. Learn what John M. did.
Call and get your free copy of the booklet “Three Ways Retirees Can Cut Taxes
and Enjoy More Income.”

Call 800-xxx-xxxx and get your copy

Notice that the above communication doe not mention any financial product. It does not offer any teaser rate. It addresses only the issues of concern to most every retiree—running out of money.

So when does you product come into the picture? AFTER you have presented the ideas that match your prospect’s agenda. AFTER you have won their trust as a person with solutions and made friends. The last part of the sales conversation is about the specific tools you use, AFTER the prospect has expressed interest in your help because you have gained trust.

In your mind, the prospect’s desires are fulfilled by your financial product. This is so obvious to you that you forget it’s not obvious to the prospect. So when you discuss your product too early, the prospect thinks, “what does this have to do with my concerns?” It’s only after you have fully flushed out the prospect’s concerns can you ask, “If I could help you with that, would you want to know more about it?”

You then explain the solutions in general (no product mention) and confirm with the prospect that your conceptual solution is on target. “Would you like me to recommend the specific solution that will best fulfill what we have agreed on?” Then, when the prospect expresses interest in your recommendation (i.e. he trusts your suggestion), you can show your product.
Put the horse (the prospects agenda) before the cart (your agenda—the sale of your product or service) and your journey with prospects will be more enjoyable and lucrative.

Post provided by Javelin Marketing

Here are six ways to keep your compliance department happy and still grow your business.

Seminars

You could do seminars with little hassle if you use your firms approved materials. However, I often hear from many reps that these materials get poor results but you can get good results even from even poor materials. Just make sure the other variables work well.

Invite people age 60+. These are the people who have time and are motivated to learn what they can about their uncertain financial future. This audience will produce your largest crowds.
If the invitation is lousy, send more. Usually, a good invitation will draw a 1% response. If the invitation only gets ½% response, then send twice as many.

Hold your seminar during daylight hours as many seniors resist going out at night.

Maximize appointments by making sure people have a good time. People are much more motivated to make an appointment with you if they like you rather than if you give a great talk on asset allocation. The easiest way to get people to like you in a short period is to entertain them: tell jokes, do magic tricks, turn your seminar into a Jeopardy game. If attendees have a good time, they will like you and are far more likely to accept your invitation to meet. (If you doubt this, then how come entertainers are besieged by adoring fans wherever they go and our culture pays entertainers the highest salaries)?

Makes sure you close appointments at the seminar. There is nothing worse than a good presentation ruined by what most advisors do—wait to the next day and “beg for appointments.”

Let others market for you

Although most producers get an inadequate number of client referrals, top producers get 50% of their new business from client and professional referrals. Stop relying on what someone told you about getting referrals. Listen to people that get a ton of referrals and follow their advice—not the advice of someone who works in the marketing department. Most of what you’ve been told about referrals is wrong. Do the research.

Get on the Internet and do a search on the key phrase “client referrals financial advisors.” As to professional referrals, your best sources are NOT CPAs and attorneys. Your best referral source is others in the financial services business that don’t compete with you. I recently met an insurance agent earning over $1 million annually. His best source of referrals is a fee-based money manager in his town. That money manager does no work on a commission basis and does not deal with insurance. Over a two year period, the agent earned $1 million in commission from the money manager’s referrals.

Lead systems

Subscribe to a service where they do the marketing and generate responses from interested investors. Then, you buy these insurance leads or investor leads and contact the respondents. Such services as SeniorLeads and Wiseradvisor do this.

Get education that other advisors don’t have

Attend a course on Advanced IRA Distribution Planning. Advisors learn three questions they can ask any affluent IRA owner that will virtually insure they become the prospect’s new advisor. These are three questions that 99% of financial advisors and CPAs cannot answer.

Here’s another example. An advisor used stocks and bonds to build portfolios. He made sure to know more than most other advisors about mutual funds and would quickly gain clients by asking:

1. Are you aware how to find out about the hidden slippage costs in your mutual fund?
2. What percent of your annual tax bill is caused by the tax generated by your mutual funds?3. Did you know that John Bogle, Chairman Emeritus of Vanguard funds calculated that the largest fund families have costs of 2% to 3% annually before considering slippage costs and tax impact. Do you know how high a price you are paying?

So get educated and make sure you learn how to turn that education into a competitive advantage (knowledge is not power, applied knowledge is power).

Get a coach

Top performers in any industry have coaches. You have blind spots and limiting beliefs that cap your success—we all do. Top performers don’t want their success stopped by hidden “devils.” So they get a coach who can show them a view from outside themselves and where they can break through hidden barriers for exceptional performance. A little work on you goes a long way and your compliance department will be okay with that.

Learn how to sell

Most financial advisors don’t even know what selling is. Over 2/3 have never had formal sales training and believe that “experience” is the way to learn to sell. They have an undeveloped view that selling is convincing or persuading or illustrating features and benefits. In working with top advisors here’s what I see selling as, “the asking of appropriate questions so that the prospect sees the solutions for themselves.” Selling is the mastery of asking questions. Questions are the only legitimate and most powerful tool for directing the thoughts of another person. (Most mediocre performers in our business think that talking at the prospect is the best way to direct the prospect’s thoughts). If you want to direct your prospect’s thinking in an appropriate way, learn to ask powerful questions and your prospect will close themselves. You’ll gather more assets and have a higher success ratio converting prospects to clients.

So you can whine about all the ways that compliance keeps you from doing business or focus on the part of the glass that's half full.

Potential prospects are more readily drawn to financial advisors with financial credentials and financial designations. In a poll of retirees asked what was most important to them in a new advisor, “specialized training” and “a credential evidencing specialized training” ranked 2 and 3 respectively out of 8 choices.

First, a financial designation implies that you think enough about what you do to get some extra training or experience, i.e. you are serious and committed to your own profession. Would you rather get your tax problems solved by Joe Bean, Accountant, or Joe Bean, CPA? You may not even know what the qualifications are to become a CPA but you automatically assume that the professional with a financial designation has raised themselves to a higher level of expertise, expertise you want for your benefit. You also assume that this individual is committed to their profession.

Compare this to the average person in financial services who has no financial credential. Can we assume that they are just interested in the next sale, in making a living and have little commitment to their “profession?”

Secondly, in financial services, the public has come to see people in the industry as sales people. Financial services has never become a profession because most people in the industry are not professionals. Before you get insulted, let me give you one definition of a professional. A professional is committed solely to the prospect’s agenda. When you go to your doctor, he is committed to making you well. He has no agenda to sell you drugs, medical devices or a surgical procedure. The same is true of CPAs and attorneys—they are committed to your agenda. But people in financial sales always have their own agenda—to sell a product or service and the public knows it. Therefore, a financial designation helps separate you from the sea of salespeople and to appear as a professional.

Third, the public assumes that the credentialing organization provides oversight of your activities and that you operate at a higher standard than your un-credentialed competitors. In the public’s eyes, not only have you met some initial standards for the financial designation, but you have kept your record clean. This is true. The CFP® Board, the state Board of Accountancy, the State Bar association regularly censures or defrocks illegitimate members holding their designation. This gives the public a high comfort level in dealing with financially credentialed professionals. Would you rather go to any plastic surgeon or a “board certified” plastic surgeon (even though your don’t know the board or how a physician gets to be board certified).

Fourth, maintaining a financial designation requires continuing education in every field. The public would rather use the services of someone who is up to date than someone who may have gotten their license 20 years ago and now has outdated expertise.

Fifth, the designation turns an unknown (you) into a known. No one knows if Joe Bean, financial professional is a good and honest guy. He is an unknown. And if you want to see prospects procrastinate, just give them uncertainty. The more certainty you add about yourself, the faster prospects commit. A financial designation is a method of adding certainty, solidity and making people feel more comfortable dealing with you. And since people make their decisions emotionally, you want them to feel comfortable.

One important caution—do not get bogus financial credentials. There are plenty around that have no substance, do not have proctored exams and are a false front to give psuedo-credibility where none is due. For example, I received a fax about the Certified Retirement Planner designation in order to “put an end to the embarrassment of presenting yourself as an insurance agent…in less than 30 days, you can become a Certified Retirement Planner , doubling your income almost immediately.”

You can bet that there is no substance to this program, no rigor, no proctored exam, no CE requirements, no State Insurance CE, no recognition by the CFP(r) Board or The American College. In fact, use of this designation may even be illegal in many states. So get a legitimate financial credential that illustrates your expertise.

Financial Advisors Earn More

The tremendous benefit that accrues from status as a true financial advisor is that you have no agenda, no product to sell, and no objective other than to do what’s right for the prospect and the prospect can sense that. Because prospects do sense the difference between a financial sales person and financial advisor (no matter what term you use to describe yourself), financial advisors gather more assets per client and have longer term, far more lucrative client relationships. And, at the end of their career, financial advisors have a practice to sell—their client relationships have value.

Few people make the transition from sales person to advisor. Consider these figures: there are approximately one million people in the U.S. with a securities or insurance license. There are approximately 78,000 people entitled to use either the CFP® or ChFC® credential. That’s not to say that only people with one of these credentials is practicing as a true financial advisor (or that some with these credentials are product sales people and not advisors), but those that are serious about their financial advisor status do pursue one of these designations because they know that these designations are the best chance of quickly communicating their status as an advisor to the public. In short, about 8% of people with a license to sell financial or insurance products have made the effort to “brand” themselves as a financial advisor.

So the first step in the transition from sales person to advisor is to get educated—whether by enrolling in one of the recognized designation programs or through self study. You cannot advise if you don’t have adequate knowledge. Does this take a consistent effort to study each week over an 18 month period? Yes. Do most people make the effort? No. Do the people who make the effort get rewarded? Yes—the CFP® Board reports that financial planners with the CFP® designation earn 50% more than non-CFP financial planners. So if you struggle to earn more, knowing more is the first step to your goal.

Specialty Knowledge Attracts More Business

Of course, the CFP® and ChFC® credentials are indications of a fundamental and general knowledge base. But depending on your business, you should get specialty credentials. For example, if you do have a product specialty, such as long-term care insurance, then get one of the long-term care credentials like Certification in Long-Term Care (CLTC) or Long-Term Care Professional (LTCP). If you specialize in working with seniors, then you want to get the Certified Retirement Financial Advisor™ (CRFA) credential or Chartered Advisor for Senior Living™ (CASL). If you focus on estate planning, then consider the Accredited Estate Planner designation.

The important aspect of credentials is that they not only provide knowledge that allows you to deliver value, they have marketing value in attracting new clients. The more you specialize, the more attractive you become to potential clients.

Continual Learning is Mandatory

Once you earn a credential or reach your goal, you’re not done. You need to invest about 200 hours annually in self continuing education. I know that most credentials require 40 or so hours a year of continuing education but this is insufficient. Not only do you forget what you know, and must spend time staying current, you need to continually add to your knowledge base. Since your prospects and clients are getting more knowledgeable in financial matters, the value you add will diminish if they keep growing and you don’t.






Professionals Charge Fees

You must become a registered investment advisor so that you can charge fees for investment advice (check with your State about any licensing requirements if you want to charge fees for insurance or estate planning advice). Even if you work primarily on a commission basis, why are you doing analysis or preparing recommendations for free? That’s insane and no other professional does it. All you’ve got to sell is your time and your insight and giving it away for free is no different than Home Depot having customers take whatever they want off the shelf—no charge. You do not have a legitimate business when you give away your primary asset for free.

Now some advisors are stopped by the prospect of becoming an RIA because they think it’s difficult. Yes, your State may require you to pass the FINRA series 7 and 66 exam. But passing exams is the minimal mark of a professional as passing of an exam is not a mark of competence. Take initiative and take a review course if necessary. But don’t wait for someone to push you because it won’t happen. No product company, insurance company or broker dealer will call you up and say “I’m calling to tell you, you need to be an RIA and collect fees.” It won’t happen because there may be nothing in it for them.

This is an age of self learning. There are dozens of articles that have appeared in the industry press covering RIA status. There’s no shortage of information—you just need to go get it. Many agents will simply be able to use the RIA of their broker dealer or insurance company to charge fees, but either way, charging fees is essential to professional status and to survival in this business.

In fact, the only way you can provide full and complete service is to charge fees. For example, when doing a financial plan, would it not be a good idea to review your client’s P&C coverage? Most planners don’t since they don’t sell P&C insurance. This lack of attention leaves the client exposed. If you charge fees, you get compensated for complete caretaking of your client.


Form a Network With Other Professionals

You need to affiliate with other professionals because you cannot know everything. Those that have the CFP® or ChFC® credential use other professionals more, not less. They realize how much there is to the tax, estate planning, employee benefits and financing issues that they don’t know. But they know enough to be the quarterback for their clients and call in those professionals when needed. So stop going it alone. That’s not how professionals bring value to their clients. If you need a heart operation, does your family doctor say, “no problem, I’ll do it,” or does he bring in a specialist?

If you don’t make the most of every client relationship by filling all their needs either yourself or through your network of professionals, another advisor will and take your business away from you. If you don’t upgrade your knowledge and the value of your service, the public won’t need you because they are rapidly increasing their financial knowledge and will soon have no value for someone who simply has product knowledge.

About 3 years into his career in financial services career, Bill recognized a “hidden truth” that allowed him to triple his business, from $320,000 to $1 million in 4 years. Here’s what he noticed. He was more motivated to avoid pain that to obtain pleasure. When he became a branch manager, he noticed that every other rep in the office behaved the same way. Most reps will produce just to the level that avoids their pain. See if this is also true for you.

If pleasure were a strong motivator, you would have no problem going to the gym, no problem earning $1 million a year and no problem achieving your goals. But pleasure is not a strong motivator for you. It’s the avoidance of pain that motivates you: by pain, I mean psychological pain.

When you look deep enough, you see the psychological pains you seek to avoid: avoiding poverty, protecting your children from harm and hardship and avoiding angry calls from clients. You will do most anything to avoid pain. So face that truth and then let’s see how to use it to your advantage. You may not like the fact that pain is a stronger motivator than pleasure. However, accept it and embrace this fact for extraordinary power.

If pain is the item that best motivates you, why not intentionally inflict pain to get what you want? If you want more clients, schedule a seminar, call the location you will use, reserve the room for one date next month and send them a $250 deposit. You will be motivated to get the room full, master your presentation and use the best technique for closing appointments right at the seminar. Why? Because you will work hard to avoid losing the $250 deposit and to avoid embarrassment. You will find yourself motivated to avoid the negative outcome, the pain. Another way to say this is that you are better at reacting than proacting. If we were all masters at proacting (rather than reacting), there would millions of Bill Gates and Warren Buffets. So set up your circumstances to do what you do well—react.

If you have a goal to join three associations (e.g. the local estate planning council, the industry association you want to court, the chamber of commerce) you can best assure that outcome by pushing yourself into a corner with significant painful consequences. Call each association and tell them you want to sponsor the lunch at the next meeting. When faced with a forthcoming lunch bill for several hundred dollars, you will be sure to make the most of your contacts at that association.

If you have a goal to increase your productivity (e.g. make 120 contacts next month rather than your budgeted 100) tell your branch manager to advance you $2000 for marketing. Make him the deal that if you do not increase your documented activity by at least 20% over budget (or over last year), you will pay him back $4,000.

If you have a goal to meet three CPAs in your town next month, then have your assistant call three from the phone book to tell the CPAs that you have the ability to refer clients through the year. (This is true whether you have realized it or not because you probably meet more new prospects and obtain more new clients than they do). Have your assistant set a date and time for you to take each to lunch. It sounds like this: “Mr. CPA? My name is Joe Johnson. I am calling from the office of Tom Stewart at ABC Securities. He is seeking a CPA that he can refer his clients to. Can he take you to lunch next Wednesday to see if you would like to work with the types of clients he has?” Once you have the appointment in your calendar, you will prepare for it and keep it. Of course, one of your agenda’s at the lunch, in addition to learning about the types of clients that CPA can best serve, is to determine if he has the types of clients you can best serve.

Here’s another idea to get business coming at you. Run advertisements that offer a fee booklet. The reader of the ad calls to request a copy. All you have to do is react and send it. The negative consequence of losing the money spent on the ad motivates me to follow up with a call. You will have set up the game to be the victim of my self-created circumstances.

Look a your business. List the ways in which you obtain clients. Ways such as :
Client Referrals
Professional Referrals
Seminars
Cold calling
Networking

In what ways can you set up a game that burdens you with painful outcomes if you do not react? In what ways can you set a system to react like the examples explained above?

There’s no revenue in continuing to believe that your income will rise by becoming more motivated, more inspired or by rising to the top of Maslow’s hierarchy. Rather, confront the hidden truth—most of your actions are reactions and serve avoidance of pain. Set up some painful consequences to get yourself moving to higher revenue.

Why buy someone else’s stock? Can you trust their management’s intelligence, ethics and honest financial reporting? Will you see them on the nightly news, behind bars after they’ve used the shareholder’s money as a personal piggy bank? The person you most trust is yourself, so why not create your own stock? In fact, you already have; it’s the equity in your business and this article shows you how to make that stock the best equity investment you have ever owned. Being a financial advisor or insurance professional is the best possible business with infinite leverage.

Would you consider annual returns of 200% to 900% fairly attractive? Microsoft would kill to get these returns which are easy for you. Here’s how to get those kind of mafia-sized returns while being totally honest, completely legal, and serving your clients:

Step One: Invest $2,000 to do a seminar and earn $20,000+ in commissions; a 900% return. (if these numbers do not reflect your experience with seminars you simply need to market them correctly so hire a consultant or buy a system). I know hundreds of advisors who have done this regularly throughout their career. One well-executed seminar raises $1 million of new money (when done correctly!) Depending on the mix of your business, how much you earn will vary from one million of assets, but it’s conservative to say that those assets are worth at least 2 % to you or $20,000. Doubt that you can do that well? It is indeed very possible so get on Google and find the right seminar system and get going.

Step Two: Invest $35,000 to hire an assistant to increase your income by $150,000; a 300% return. If you don’t have an assistant, you need to hire one. If you already have a service assistant, it’s time to hire a sales assistant. Already have two assistants? How can you profitably employ a third -- to arrange appointments for you with CPAs, attorneys or other referral sources? To get you speaking engagements at local companies or organizations? To call and book appointments for you?

The only barrier to how large you grow your business is your insistence on keeping it small. The only difference between Ray Kroc and the McDonald brothers was that Ray Kroc had the vision of thousands of locations and the McDonald brothers could envision only a regional group of outlets. The McDonald brothers sold out to Ray for $1 million each. Ray took their business and turned it into billions and billions. How big is your vision?

How large (or small) are you willing to go? Every time you think you could increase your business if only you had time to do “x,” it’s time to hire some help and do “x.” Scared? You should be—that’s the sign that you’re onto something meaningful. If you don’t get scared about your business at least annually, you’re not growing at the rate you could.

Step Three: Invest $500 in an annuity ad, gross $5,000: a 900% return. We've have shown thousands of advisors how to run compelling small ads in local publications and offer a booklet about a specific topic. The well-written booklet convinces the prospect that you are an expert so that when you call them you’re not a sales person, you’re an expert. The result is a 20% appointment ratio.
Here are the numbers:
• 2 ads in that each cost $250 in 2 senior publications=$500• Calls received 20-30• Appointments made 4-6 (20% of callers)• Sales made 2-3 annuities at $50,000 each
You will actually make far more than the $5,000 of commission indicated in the previous paragraph but let’s use that figure and the 900% return as the conservative assumption or worst case. This lead system has now been converted to the Internet and is even easier to implement.

Why invest in stocks when you already are the 100% shareholder in the most lucrative company you can find?

They Specialize

They have a target market and they won’t waiver. They turn down business that does not fit their niche and they don’t prospect outside of their niche. They understand that “birds of a feather flock together” and they use that to their advantage to dominate a well-defined niche. They specialize in a type of person or particular type of solution and become supreme experts in that one niche.

They Have The Right Business Model

Top producers have researched or observed a target market and have gained enough market information to construct a business model consistent with success. Many financial advisors have the wrong business model such as believing that they can drive their client acquisition based on networking, or providing information rather than insight or by being a nice person. The average producer does not have a target market (they do business with anyone) and therefore, can never construct a winning business model.

They Are Sales Professionals

Selling is a skill. It does not evolve from being in the business for twenty years and repeating the same mistakes for two decades. It is developed through training one self (books, tapes, modeling others) or formal classes (Dale Carnegie, Sandler Institute, etc). Every top producer has studied the science of communication and influence, i.e. selling. They do not take this skill for granted or simply wing it, as many average producers do. They understand, as explained in earlier posts in this blog, that selling has nothing to do with persuading or convincing, educating. Selling is enrolling prospects in their vision and a conversation that must be learned.

Top Producer Marketing is on Autopilot

Top producers don’t worry on the first of each month, “where will my gross come from this month.” They have a business with staff that works a marketing model to continually generate new business. They never abandon the model but keep refining it to be better and better. This super-refined marketing model then becomes a barrier to entry so that other advisors can never catch them. The average producer uses a poorly developed marketing approach and as soon as it doesn’t work, abandons it and goes looking for the next Holy Grail. They spend their career always looking for the easy road to riches rather than develop and use a consistent approach month after month.

They Have a Business

Top producers understand that they run a business. A business has a CEO, staff and functional specialists. They recognize their personal talents and devote their day to using those specific high-value talents. Average producers resist hiring staff, try and do everything themselves, never discover what they do really well, and spend a career with most of each day inefficiently used being jack of all trades. They never develop a business. At best, they have a practice, much like a doctor or lawyer, which requires them to be in the office to generate revenue.

Top Producers Have Prospects Come to Them

There is no way to gain trust of high net worth clients by chasing them. Affluent clients respect people who are referred, who write books, appear in articles and travel in the right circles. They won’t respond to an advisor who believes in the motto, “Don’t give up until you hear no six times.” As Tom Stanley puts it in his book Marketing to the Affluent, top producers know how to surface in the middle of the convoy of high net worth individuals, thereby being noticed by their prospects, no chasing involved.

An average producer can begin transforming their businesses with any one of the above approaches of large producers. For example, by selecting a target market or product/service specialty, just doing that one thing, will increase business by producing focus.

Or hiring an assistant. One cannot begin to be creative when the whole day is spent on administrivia. An assistant allows the professional to not only free up their day, but also free up their mind.

Or for some, the best place to start is taking sales training. How many appointments do you have that get away? It takes no more work to get a “yes” than it does a “no.” Knowing how to sell has fantastic leverage.

Start with any of these tactics of top producers, just start.

Many financial advisors would like more and better clients. But their client prospecting is often wasted and misplaced. Here are three concepts that can help you attract more and better clients:


Make yourself scarce

We live in a culture where people want what they cannot have. In order for people to want you, you must make yourself scarce. That means you only deal with people who fit your profile (yes, turn away business). In all financial marketing you do, communicate that you only deal with a certain segment of people.


Here’s an example. Bob, a 10-year financial advisor, only deals with people age 60 and over. His firm is called Senior Alliance. His business card says “Retiree Investment Management.” He does not deal with people under 60. If his client says, “Can you help my son—he’s 48 and he has some money,” he declines and refers the son to a colleague. By being so picky, his clients refer him to others as “He’s a specialist in dealing with people like us.” No client wants to go to a generalist. They want a specialist. What do you specialize in? If you come up short with an answer, then you cannot attract clients as a generalist and need to select a focus.


Another example is the financial advisor who specializes in an industry, For example, an advisor who only prospects chemical engineers. He becomes known in that circle, writes a columns for the engineers’ magazine and becomes an invited speaker at conventions. I know a guy who sold hundreds of life insurance polices to United Airlines pilots by visiting their layover facility at major airports. He gave talks to a group of pilots as they were waiting for their next flight.
Be different. Every time you open an account, it’s because you offer something different than the client’s current advisor. Yet most financial advisors look alike—many do the same activities, offer the same products and services and are indistinguishable from the next financial advisor. Why should the prospect deal with you?

You distinguish yourself from others by crafting your business differently. One way is to focus on a certain niche as described above and making yourself scarce. Another way is to run your business differently. For example, if most financial advisors recommend mutual funds, then you recommend stocks (and have a well researched argument with evidence as to why stocks would be better). If other financial advisors offer bond funds for fixed income, you offer individual bonds (and have a good presentation as to why individual bonds would be better). If other financial advisors have no system for selecting stocks, then you specialize in quantitative systems like the Dow Dividend Strategy, Value Line or CANSLIM (as documented by William O’Neill in How to Make Money in Stocks). Show people why “guessing” about stocks is no way to invest and why a structured system brings all-important discipline to the process. If other financial advisors raise money for third party money managers, you be the money manager (if you use a structured system, the time it takes to manage portfolios is negligible as the system does the work).

If every one in your office sells growth stocks, then specialize in precious metals or whatever interests you. Team up with the other financial advisors in your office and split commissions. They are not talking to their clients about metals and this business will be lost. It would be smart for both of you to split commissions and have him introduce you to his clients (other brokers will bring you business if they you are not competing with them, that you specialize in an area they don’t know about—metals, options, 401k, etc).

Write
In our culture, people who write are considered experts. If your name is in the newspaper or on the spine of a book, you will stand out from other advisors. You do not need to write a word. Many firms and others have an article service and ghost writing service to make you an author overnight (be sure and comply with the FINRA disclosures on ghost writing).

Think of the difference when you can give a prospect a copy of your book. Do you think he is more inclined to open an account with you? What about sending information to a referral and you include in the envelope two articles from the daily newspaper in which you are interviewed and one article you authored. Have you increased the probability of that prospect becoming a client?

As you implement your marketing, ask yourself each week how you are being different and distinguishing yourself from every other broker in town. Why will prospects leave their current advisor to join you?

We don’t do what we’re told. It starts at a young age, and we continue to resist doing what others tell us to do. So it’s no wonder baby boomers are sick of being told and continue to resist saving for retirement.

This problem won’t be solved by greater tax incentives. It will also not be solved with more financial education. Financial education assumes ignorance but is there a baby boomer that does not already know they don’t save enough? If you're committed to educating babay boomers please know that if you educate people, you will never earn more than a school teacher. People don't need to be educated, they need to be motivated and not 1 in 10 financial advisors know how to do that.

The basic problems we have not solved as financial advisors are:

1. We tell people to save for retirement by having less fun today.
2. We try to have people realize the importance of retirement planning by telling them, yet realization is a self-generated activity (i.e. baby boomers won't learn by being told).

We can fix both of these problems if we communiate the right message in the right way.

First, let’s stop telling baby boomers to save for retirement at the cost of less fun today. They won't do it. Rather than taking money from consumption, we need to be smarter, and show boomers these solutions:

a. How to make use of dead equity in their homes—so few people realize that home equity has no return. Their home will appreciate the same amount whether they put the equity to work or not. (Hopefully, you still have clients with home equity)
b. How to reallocate assets for greater returns—most people are under-invested because they don’t watch their investments or have an unstructured plan. As a result, they don’t get the return they should.
c. How to restructure debt for greater cash flow—people have high rate credit card debt and automobile debt rather than low cost deductible mortgage debt. Yet, to a large extent, financial advisors focus on managing assets, not the debt of their clients.

Baby Boomers will be happy to save for retirement if they can do so painlessly—without giving up the BMW and exotic vacation. If you want to get a crowd at a retirement planning seminar, start with the title “How to Plan a Comfortable Retirement without Giving up Your BMW or Exotic Vacation.” Since we have already programmed boomers to believe they won’t have enough and they will need to sacrifice today, we will need to yell the new message that they can still have their fun.

Next, WE need to get it. No matter how much we tell people what to do, they rarely do it. But if they realize what to do and believe it’s their idea, they do it. People have such self-realizations when they need to think for themselves and you can initiate that by asking them questions.

Here’s how that sounds:

Advisor: Bob, what’s your plan for retirement?

Bob: I don’t know…

Advisor: How come you don’t have a plan?

Bob: I already spend too much—where would I get the funds for a retirement plan?

Advisor: I don’t know—what places are possible?

Bob: Sure—I could cut out lots of things, but that’s not what I really want to do.

Advisor: Like what?

Bob: I have a late model BMW. I could drive a Chevy, but who wants that?

Advisor: It sounds like you’ve been pre-programmed to believe that preparing for retirement means you need to sacrifice today. Is that correct?

Bob: Yes, but isn’t that true?

Advisor: No. Let me ask you—do you have any credit card debt or debt on your car?

Bob: Sure I do.

Advisor: If I could hypothetically show you how to save $300 a month on that debt, would you be willing to put that into a retirement fund?

Bob: I won’t have to give up anything?

Advisor: Nothing.

Bob: Yes, please show me.

Notice that in the above dialog, our brilliant financial advisor avoids doing what most advisors do—telling the prospect what action to take. Instead, the advisor only asks questions and the prospect has their own realization.

If we could control our own excessive talking and telling, and teach ourselves to enlighten through our questions, we may just be able to save 78 million people from financial disaster.

Prospecting the high net worth prospects, the person with a million dollar portfolio or the one that buys million dollar (or multi million dollar life policies) can require different tactics than prospecting the “mass affluent” market (i.e. those with less than $1 million of investment assets).

I say “can” require different tactics because there are two equal-size wealth markets—the half who have accumulated significant assets but do not think of themselves as rich and those that have similar financial circumstances yet do think of themselves as wealthy.

According to a study by the Spectrem Group, there are 107,023,917 households in the United States. Of that number 3,737,000 have investable assets in excess of $1 million. On a national basis, that means that 3.49% of the households have a million in liquid funds, even though the average would exceed 6% in more affluent communities like Nassau County, San Jose or West Palm Beach.


Strategies for prospecting the down-home wealthy

The first half of the high net worth market comprises the “millionaire” next door as described by Dr. Tom Stanley, “The real American millionaire is John Doe, age 57, who has been married for 32 years to the same woman, owns a highly productive small or medium-sized business, has two children, and works 10-14 hours a day, six days a week.” You can picture this guy—a real “Sam Walton type,” driving his older pick up truck and sill living in the same 3 bedroom 2 bath home even though his net worth is $5 million. These people have created their wealth by starting businesses or investing in real estate and still behave like “salt of the earth” people.

This fellow responds to the same type of marketing as the buyer from the mass affluent market: general seminars, direct mail and advertising. There is nothing different you need to do to reach these folks if you are already prospecting the middle market. In fact, there is little you can do to isolate these folks as they live in middle-income neighborhoods and they are inconspicuous as they don’t buy luxury cars or rent the presidents suite when taking a cruise. Because multi-millionaires are fewer in number, a seminar that attracts 50 people will only have 3-5 attendees that are multi-millionaires from the high net worth segment.

This group is heavily populated by real estate owners and small business owners. Therefore, one way to isolate these folks is to obtain a list of residential rental property owners or commercial property owners and of business owners with fewer than 50 employees. (Any list broker can help you). Not only can you contact them individually, there may be property-owner associations or business owner associations that can become a prospecting platform (for talks or getting published in their magazine).

Mass marketing techniques, however, will not work on the other high net worth group, the Armani-suit wearing crowd. These people do not respond to the same tactics that work with the mass affluent and need to be met through introduction, social or professional circles. They live in rich neighborhoods, drive late model luxury cars, belong to ”the club” and may be immersed in their self-importance.

Strategies for prospecting the wealthy

You meet them on their turf. Dick Heckman joined the best country club in Palm Springs, played golf 3 times a week at 2 pm and met wealthy business owners and retired and large shareholders of major companies. Never having more than 62 clients, he became one of the wealthiest financial producers in the US.

Each year, when the opera in your city has the annual gala, you buy a table for $2500 and bring your best clients (a nice treat for them). You will get noticed. The following week, if you are not called to volunteer on one of the opera committees, make the call and volunteer yourself. The committee will be populated with usually wealthy older patrons of the arts. You make friends, get invited to heir parties and leverage each contact to the next.

You dominate an industry. One planner I know has realized that franchise owners are wealthy folks. So he found out that they had a local association at which he could give a talk. He called each franchise owner individually and set a time to meet. He did not call them to get immediate business, but rather called them with a soft sell approach, “I understand you are a successful franchise owner. I am building a financial planning firm that assists franchise owners. Could I interview you about the greatest challenges that franchise owners face?” He has written an article on pension plans, for their newsletter, specifically addressing the franchise owner situation.

You focus on money in motion. Money is in motion during the following events:
Death—do you prospect estate attorneys?
Employment termination—one successful advisor contacted an outplacement firm. He offered his 2-hour class, “How to manage your money between jobs” to the outplacement firm’s clients—executives that had been laid off. These executives need to rollover some hefty 401k balances—who do you think gets hired?
Sale of a business—do you prospect business brokers?
Sale of Real Estate—do you prospect commercial real estate brokers?

You develop a specialty that wealthy people seek. A financial advisor, in order to fill a room with wealthy real estate owners, secured a list of people that owned at least $1 million of real estate. He sent a seminar invitation entitled “Estate Planning for Owners of Residential Income Property.” He had 58 millionaires in the room.

You cultivate relationships with people that can introduce you to their wealthy clients. These are called host-beneficiary relationships. You find a host that has relationships you want and you become the beneficiary of those relationships. Think beyond CPAs and attorneys.

What about the owner of the Mercedes dealership? Might he be interested in inviting his best clients to lunch and a talk (by you) on “Maximizing the Tax Benefits from Business Use of Luxury Cars, Boats and Vacation Properties.” Would the commercial real estate broker like to have you write a booklet or give a talk to his prospects, “How to Use a Capital Gains Elimination Trust to Avoid Capital Gains Taxes?” (I always start a discussion of charitable remainder trusts calling them “capital gains eliminations trusts” so that people listen before they prejudge). What other hosts can you think of that have wealthy clients where you can be the beneficiary?


What do the wealthy want?

Seventy percent of high net worth Americans feel that preserving wealth is their most important goal, according to a survey released by the Lincoln Financial Group of Philadelphia. Right behind preserving wealth was avoiding excessive taxes, listed by 59% of the affluent group as a “very important” goal. In fact, avoiding excessive taxes was ranked higher than accumulating additional wealth. Yet, surprisingly, less than a third of the affluent said that they feel that they have adequately protected their assets from excessive taxes, according to the survey.

The number one income-consuming category among the affluent is income taxes. Yet financial advisors have done a poor job in developing ways to help the high net worth crowd. Many do not have expertise in the more powerful income tax saving vehicles:
412i plans
VEBAs
Private insurance companies (see
Defined benefit plans
This is the type of expertise to develop.

Incredible as it may sound, most financial advisors or other sales professionals
do not understand the business they are in. Here’s my evidence.

Have you noticed that many financial advisors enroll in the CFP(r) program, the CFA program or other programs to improve their knowledge of the finance arena? When they have time, they read books like “One Up on Wall Street” or “Stocks for the Long Run” or other books about gaining some mastery in the market. While all of this education is useful (and your competence is essential), devoting large amounts of effort and time to improving your financial knowledge won’t significantly increase your business. Most financial advisors know most of what they need in order to serve most clients well (if they don't they shouldn't be in the business). I'm not saying that technical competence is not important but technical competence should be a given and is a misplaced focus of business growth.

The critical aspect of our business is managing clients, not managing portfolios. The person who told you that financial advising was about managing investments played a cruel joke on you. That college advisor who urged you to major in finance to best prepare for financial advising was off the mark. You would have been far better off with a degree in psychology or communications. Because the determinant of your success is your facility in managing clients and their expectations (psychology) and powerfully attracting new clients through seminars, mail, advertising, etc. (communication) and enrolling them in their vision (sales). In a moment I will define what I mean by psychology and communication.

Now that I’ve brightened your day with the notion you’re efforts have been misplaced, how can you change focus? Rather than spending time with any more finance books or pursuing finance credentials, divert that effort to the arena of psychology and communication. For our purposes, let’s define psychology as the investigation of what makes people buy. You won’t find this topic covered in college. You will find this topic covered in a number of sales classes and books on sales. Yet the number of financial advisors and other professionals who sell and have been through formal sales training is incredibly small (formal sales training is not the training received at securities firms). So, either enroll in the Dale Carnegie Sales training, Sandler Institute or other formal sales class in your town or get a copy of “Spin Selling” and the “Spin Selling Fieldbook.” Either of these endeavors will provide a very significant increase in your ability and success in opening new accounts.

As to communication, they also do not teach in college the type of communication you want to master. You need to write letters that make people call, to write ads that make the phone ring and to write mail pieces that fill your mail box with response cards. Thus, you need a quick education in writing copy. You can get it from any of these books (the more you study, the better):

The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy
Cash Copy by Jeffery Lant
Words That Bring You Riches by Ted Nicholas

The content of these books will violate everything you know about using English but the application will get you results. You will learn to communicate in a manner so that more prospects come to you.

If you’re skeptical about my recommendations, let me share the following with you.

I know a very well educated and well trained financial advisor (advanced business degrees) who knows a LOT about the financial markets. Yet the most significant element in his becoming a million-dollar producer was the sales training he took at the beginning of my career. He realized he knew nothing about selling and that having lots of knowledge about financial markets would not pay his bills. The sales training taught him to have effective sales conversations, which he learned were very different than a typical conversation.

Here’s another example. Do you know someone in the business and you feel that you know three times what they know about managing portfolios? Yet their gross commissions and fees are three times what you earn? That’s likely because he is a better communicator than you. That person has mastered the sales conversation and mastered the communication of prospecting.

Put those finance books on the back shelf and devote your professional improvement to those areas that will quickly impact your business growth.

Some financial advisors and insurance agents use prospecting methods that produce the wrong prospects. 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 types of annuity prospects by using unfocused mass marketing models. For example, if you cold call a list of people over age 65 attempting to obtain annuity leads, 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. Wouldn’t it be smarter if you only met with the interested qualified annuity buyers?

If you have been cold calling, please face the truth--cold calling is a substitution of your labor for capital. In other words, you got into the financial services business undercapitalized (you came in with no money to invest) so instead, you trade your time for capital. This is purely insane. You cannot grow a business without capital. Did Microsoft? Did Intel? You must not devalue your time or you will settle into that rut and struggle your entire career, always cold calling. If you work for a large firm, they are happy to have you do this as they pay you commissions. Having you waste your time is okay with them.

The central focus in efficient prospecting is this: you offer something of value to masses so that the few people who are interested identify themselves. Then, you only talk to the interested and qualified prospects. There's not problem if you want to use the phone for prospecting, but get a $10/hour telemarketer to do it, not you! Then, when the telemarketer makes 100 calls and finally finds one interested person, you get on the phone and close the appointment or make the sale. If you want to be closing sales all day, get 5 telemarketers.

Here's another alternative. Rather than cold call, send a well written mailer (more on writing great direct mail in another article). Even if you get a 1% response to 1,000 mailed, that’s 10 interested annuity leads who took action. When you call them, you qualify them and eliminate half. You get five appointments. These are the same five appointments you would have gotten with the cold calling, but look how much easier this was. Instead of talking with 1,000 people, you talked to 10 people. Instead of meeting with 10 people, you met with five. 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?).

Or what if you ran an advertisement in the local senior magazine “Annuity Owner Mistakes” You then have a few annuity leads to call who are interested and motivated. You have saved your time and limited the annuity 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.

Or what about inserting a flyer in the daily newspaper for your next annuity seminar “How to Reduce Retirement Income Taxes.” In our tests, 20,000 inserted flyers (for about $1,000) generates about 50 annuity prospects to an annuity seminar. You give a presentation to 50 motivated people at one time and then have individual appointments. Annuity seminars make super efficient and super effective use of your time (you are speaking to motivated annuity prospects).

If you’re tired of prospecting, feel burned out and feel that good prospects are scarce, shift your prospecting methods to have qualified prospects contact you and renew your career.

How would you like to control your prospect’s thoughts?

You can control their thoughts and have your prospects to see solutions for themselves with appropriate questions. And you’ll make more sales. Before you learn how to do that, would you take two seconds and think about how your mother looked the last time you saw her?

With this simple question, I can make you form a mental picture. I can control your thoughts and that illustrates the power of questions as a mind control tool. You can consistently direct your prospect’s mental activity in the same way and have him reach the right conclusions on his own. This technique works only when the solution is in the prospect’s best interest so it won’t work as a manipulative process.

In a minute, I’ll show you an example. But first, consider the benefits:

• No more convincing or persuading
• No more objections (people can’t object to their own solutions)
• No more resistance to your recommendations

Let’s take an example of an insurance agent selling long term care insurance. Assume the insurance agent has already completed basic fact finding questions and has decided that long term care insurance would be beneficial and important for the prospect. Here’s how to get your prospect to see that solution himself:

Agent: What are your plans when your health changes?

Prospect: What do you mean?

Agent: You know that as people age their health declines. So as you age, what are your plans when your health changes?

Prospect: I never really thought about that seriously. I have good health insurance and I assume that’s adequate preparation.

Agent: Health insurance of course provides for you when you have an illness that they can cure in a few days in the hospital, but what happens if your health changes such that you can’t go shopping, you can’t take care of the house and you can’t walk up stairs?

Prospect: Well I certainly don’t want my children to have to take care of me

Agent: So what solutions do you think are available to you?

Prospect: I’m not really sure. I know people go to nursing homes but I could barely afford that

Agent: What other solutions do you think are available to you?

Prospect: There’s insurance, isn’t there?

Agent: Do you think you should consider that is one of the alternatives?

Prospect: Yes, but I don’t know anything about and I’m sure it’s expensive and I couldn’t afford it.

Agent: How much do you think it costs?

Prospect: Jeez, I have no idea, what, maybe $500 a month?

Agent: What if you could get insurance to allow you to stay in your home and have help come and assist you and could get that for $250 a month--would that seem to be reasonable solution?

Prospect: Is that really available?

Agent: If it were, would you want to know about it?

Prospect: Sure. I don’t want my children to take care of me and if I can’t take care of myself, what other choice do I have?

Agent: How would you pay for that?

Prospect: I have some investments from which I don’t take all the income.

Agent: For example?

Prospect: I have an annuity and I reinvest and I also have a mutual fund that I reinvest.

Agent: How much a month are you reinvesting?

Prospect: It’s over $1000 a month.

Agent: So if the insurance turned out to be a good solution, you know you can pay for it?

Prospect:—yes, if it’s about $250 a month

In the above conversation, the insurance agent did nothing but ask questions and the sale is about complete. Most salespeople talk too much and that makes selling hard. In fact, the more you tell, the less you sell. Selling is easy when you succumb to the new definition of selling: “The asking of appropriate questions so that your prospect sees the solutions for themselves.”
The payoffs to selling by asking questions are enormous. Questions increase your sales in five ways:

1. They direct your prospect’s thoughts. When you speak, your prospect’s mind wanders, he thinks up objections, he questions the validity of your facts, he questions your credibility and he may even think about what to have for dinner. But when you ask a question, you get laser-focused attention. We have been continuously trained to answer questions as accurately and completely as possible, starting from the first grade. Correctly answering questions is even the basis for most television game shows. So when you ask questions, you take advantage of your prospect’s training to provide their full attention and best answer.

2. Questions allow you to find out the necessary facts (ethically important for any advisor and legally important for securities licensees to comply with the “know your client” rule)

3. Emotional questions allow you to determine the “emotional facts” (your prospect’s likes/dislikes). If you don’t know how your prospect feels, you cannot make a recommendation that feels “right.”

4. Questions increase your stature and credibility in the prospect’s eyes (the fastest indicator of a person’s intelligence and caring are the questions they ask)

5. Questions allow you to maintain control of the conversation (the person asking the question controls the conversation, while the person answering has lost control).

You were taught to sell by some product-crazed insurance company and to talk about the features and benefits of the product but American’s hate to be talked at. In fact, we have an aversion to being told, or worse, being “told what to do.” Prospects become naturally resistant when being told. We self-reliant Americans find it preferable to discover things in our own. So why not allow your prospects to do that and help more people have what they want? And in the process, make more sales and get rich. That would be great, wouldn’t it?

Get Lazy and Get Rich? Sounds like a paradox?

Most of the financial advisors I observe work too hard, work too many hours and sweat too much over getting new clients. It’s time you get lazy and get rich. You do this by establishing your marketing so that people contact you and your job is to react. You also do this by delegating and have others do the work.

Most of us resist some simple truths about ourselves that could make us a lot more money:

1. We are lazy. Wouldn’t you rather be laying on a beach right now? There’s big money in admitting laziness as I explain in a minute
2. We are reactive rather than proactive. Would you rather answer the phone and open an account or cold call to open an account? We are great at reacting. We are very good at answering the phone, responding to inquiries and taking orders. We are lousy at proacting as evidenced by the dozens of books teaching brokers how to overcome the fear and drudgery of cold calling. There are many great order takers and few great (proactive) salespeople.
3. We are good at doing the same things over and over. Notice that in companies, 5% of the people have jobs in management—the people who need to create their own day and determine on their own where to focus for results. The other 95% of the employees are people who are told what to do and then do it over and over, day after day—the bank teller, the customer service person, the auto laborer. Most of the population can do these repetitive routine tasks well but few can invent their own daily work activities without direction.

Most likely, you have set up your business to require all of the actions that you do not do well or don’t want to do: work hard, proact, and do different things everyday. In other words, you require yourself to fight the above list of inclinations and that makes each day hard. You have established a significant headwind and each day is a struggle. But it can be different. Let's see how to plan each day to make it easy.

Here’s how to make a lot of money by capitalizing on being lazy, being reactive and doing the same things over and over.

You must set up all of your marketing to react. You get people to call you by:

1. Send a lot of the right mail to the right people. Yes, direct mail works but not for most financial advisors. It’s because their firm and the financial advisors have taken zero time to study what makes direct mail work. Advertising firms are of no help here. Direct mail is a science. Invest 40 hours of study and you can get a 2% response whenever you mail. Send 1000 pieces a week and have 20 targeted, qualified people contacting you. I know financial advisors that use direct mail to get responses and fill up seminar rooms year after year or fill their appointment calendars.
2. Advertising works. You can earn $10,000 toi $20,000 monthly from small ads costing you less than $1000 per month. The ads have people contact you and you just respond (thet trick is writing compelling ads and that means you need to study copy writing).
3. Have your clients send you referrals. You do that by telling the new client that you will work hard for them and fulfill what they demand of you, but in return, they must refer people to you. You then, after proving yourself, have them introduce you to referrals by either them calling the referral, introducing you in person or sending a letter. If you leave out the above two steps, asking for referrals won’t work
4. Getting and giving referrals to your peers. Financial advisors are the most nearsighted group of professionals when it comes to getting business from their peers. Notice that doctors refer to each other like crazy. And the smart ones are money machines from doing so. Yet brokers will meet a client interested in establishing a 401k for their business and then scurry around to learn what they can so they can put together a half-baked proposal. Rather, they should find the person in their firm who is the 401k master and split the business! Let others do the work for you. Refer like crazy and spend your time on the few items at which you are expert. If you refer, you will be referred to (if you are known for an area of expertise).

Time to get lazy, react and do business.