Let’s face it: the rubber really hits the road when marketing delivers sales opportunity.
A full calendar of prospects and current client reviews is the primary driving force that creates sustained momentum and a consistently healthy bank balance. It also drives your professional mission to actually help more people – instead of wasting hours looking for more people to help. Each of the following ideas have been used with great success by my audiences and coaching groups over the last few years.
1. Use Facebook for marketing. Take a “selfie” with your clients and their documented financial plan/strategy and encourage them to write a post with this key phrase: “Just completed an amazing comprehensive strategy/plan with our advisor (insert name). He/she has brought harmony, focus, clarity and control to our financial future and we cannot recommend him/her more highly. If you haven’t been getting the service you deserve and have felt neglected by your current advisor, spend 30 minutes with (insert name) exchanging some ideas. You’ll be thrilled you did!”
Ask your client to TAG YOU IN. Watch the comments and jump all over the emerging opportunities.
2. Go take a picture of a smoker grill at Home Depot. Email your clients the pic. “I picked up 10 smokers for my clients for summer barbeque fun. Put me in the room with four couples in the next four weeks and I’ll not only deliver your gift, but also sponsor a smoker party – you get to invite six couples and I bring the meats and salads. And, a recipe book for each guest!”
If you are paranoid about compliance issues or blowing out the “gift giving” rules of your state, have a metal plate with your name and logo riveted to the smoker. That makes it an advertising piece.
3. Sponsor a gourmet evening for charity. Your top client opens their (big) home. You bring the students from the local catering school to handle delicious appetizers. A local wine distributor rep handles the wine tasting. Guests bring a trunk-load of non-perishable food items for the local food bank so the event generates a meaningful donation. Give away an estate directory, financial book or DVD at the beginning of the evening, and mingle your way to a record month thereafter.
4. Partner with professional associations to give away a Financial Resources Toolkit at their next professional development day/study group/chapter meeting. Where else can you meet 15-25 Vets, Cardiologists, or Dentists in one room at the same time?
Captivate their imagination with disturbing and intriguing science and math, hand them the right value-adding planning tools and watch your calendar overflow with opportunity. And, WOW them with your 15-minute, “handover speech” of the exact items that will encourage every one of them to want to meet with you without delay – regardless of any current relationship they may have with an agent/advisor.
5. Turning golf days into pay days. Your local club averages over 3,000 golfers of perfect financial profile at their corporate/charitable golf days each year. Take action during winter to own this marketing space in spring. Partner with the club pro shop staff and sponsor a golf bag giveaway at the 19th hole of these events. Here’s the sign to place on the bag in the pro shop (with a stack of your business cards):
FREE GOLF BAG GIVEAWAY
For your next corporate or charitable golf event held at this club. Take a card and speak to me about your dates and other arrangements.
6. Getting your neighborhood to seek your advice. From food bank drives to Halloween pumpkin carving competitions – it’s all available to you today to have 50 families right on your block seeking you out. Movie nights for adults using MDRT and other recommended movies like, “The Ultimate Gift,” or Tom Hegna’s “Don’t Worry, Retire Happy!” also bring area families into your home under low-anxiety circumstances. Are you doing something like this?
7. Run a Family & Friends Campaign. Okay so DON’T gather their investment assets if you are nervous about having to apologize to Uncle Harry if the market tanks! But you should certainly play the “moral obligation” card with everyone you care about to ensure they have covered the risks in their life and built some guarantees into their retirement plan. Use this email text to get in front of them:
Uncle Harry, there’s something I’ve been wanting to run by you for quite some time, but was reluctant to make you feel uncomfortable in any way. (This will arouse some curiosity.) As you might already realize, I do some pretty important work for my clients. I help them gain a high level of confidence, clarity, and control over their personal finances.
Obviously, this type of work is very personal and confidential. I just want to make sure that whatever advice you are currently getting is as complete and of the highest caliber possible. Would you be open to sitting down with me at some point to for a complimentary assessment of your situation? I promise that no other members of our family will become privy to our conversation.
8. Run a Senior/Elder Planning Week. Here’s the email to send all 35- to 50-year-old clients:
America faces an unprecedented “demographic Tsunami” as our aging population retires and potentially becomes a financial burden on their children through ineffective or misaligned planning.
We are passionate about our responsibility to meet with the parents of ALL of our current clients in order to check the expiry date on their financial plan. Put us in the room with your Mom and Dad during our upcoming Seniors Planning Week, where they will discover:
– How to build a guaranteed “paycheck and playcheck” to beyond their statistical life expectancy
– How to take longevity risk off the table and ensure that they have the necessary accessible funding for long term care eventualities
– Why only LIFE INSURANCE companies are equipped to firewall your assets from the potentially destructive forces of stock market volatility
– What to do to ensure a harmonious transition of your assets within your family using our Estate Directory and the advice that goes with this critical tool
– When to hold a Family Meeting and why this discussion is essential to the financial well-being of your loved ones and unity among your siblings and children.
Please contact the representative who sent you this invitation to book time with him or her between (insert date of Seniors Week). There’s nothing for sale at the first consultation, so they have nothing to lose by getting together with our skilled specialists to exchange some ideas.
Attach with this communication:
– A Sample/Specimen Financial Plan
– Estate Directory
– Link to a Calculator from LifeHappens.org and link to their videos
– Checklists and Agendas for Family Meetings
As you navigate your way down the wintery road to greater production success, don’t forget to pack any of the above eight sets of “jumper cables” to ensure you arrive intact and charged up at your destination.
- 8 strategies to jump-start your 2016 sales - February 10, 2016