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How
Attractive are You to the Affluent?
By Derrick Kinney, President Palladium
Consulting, Inc.
As I have the opportunity to speak at
broker-dealer conferences across the country, one of the hottest topics right
now is how to help their advisors attract the affluent. One of the things I
find, though, is that while most advisors desire to do that, they are simply not
equipped to become the “advisor of choice” for the affluent. So how can you
become attractive to the affluent investor and have them searching you out? By
squarely putting yourself in the shoes of the affluent and seeing the world from
their perspective.
Cutting
through the Information Overload
Let’s think about your current client base
now. If you were to ask your top ten clients how many seminar invitations they
receive every week, what would they tell you - two, three, maybe five per week?
And that doesn’t even include the other marketing materials other advisors may
be sending them to try and get their business. When they’re at home, they see
the commercials of all the major financial companies and as they drive to work,
they’re hearing the radio ads for the hottest investment products. Your existing
affluent clients are being bombarded with this much information and more. But
luckily they’ve got you to help be their financial filter helping them make
sense of it all. It’s important to remember that your affluent prospects are
receiving all this and more. And current research shows that all this
information has caused many of them to suffer from paralysis of analysis. They
feel overwhelmed with many companies doing little to clearly differentiate
themselves as the right choice for them.
So what can you do to take advantage of
this opportunity? The cold, hard facts are that the affluent can buy a stock,
bond, mutual fund, insurance policy or an annuity from anyone these days. What
differentiates the product is you. If the structure of your current practice is
doing nothing more than appealing to the masses, you may not be fully making
yourself stand out from the crowd. The reality is that you need to be a
specialist in something. Think about it like this. If you had a serious medical
condition that needed to be evaluated, would you rather visit the general
practitioner or would you feel more confident meeting with the heart specialist?
I think the answer is obvious. But the point is that the affluent are looking
for investment specialists; those true advisors who can help cure them of their
financial ailments.
Letting
Your Affluent Light Shine
Let’s say you’re at your weekly Rotary
Club lunch or that high-end Country Club event and inevitably someone asks you
the question, “What do you do for a living?” And in that split second before you
respond, you’ve got a choice to make. You can either throw out the pat answer of
“Well, I’m a financial advisor.” Or you can choose to reply in a way that
attracts the affluent prospect and actually prompts them to start asking you
about what you do. How about using one of these power positioning statements:
I specialize in working with executives to help them
retire early.
Our firm focuses on clients that are a few years
from retirement or already retired.
My expertise is in helping retirees create a
consistent monthly income that they don’t outlive. |
You see, it’s all about perception. When
you tell someone you are a financial advisor, in their mind, that may mean to
them that you’re nothing more than a salesperson. They may think all you push is
life insurance. Because you never get a second chance at a first impression, you
need to say something that clearly articulates what makes you and your firm
unique in what you specialize doing for your clients. If you use your power
positioning phrase effectively, the person talking to you should reply, “Tell me
more about what you do.” And that’s your moment of opportunity. For those next
few seconds, they are now thinking that at long last, you may be the investment
specialist they’ve been looking for. The more use your power positioning
statement, the more quickly you will become defined as a specialist that
understands the needs of the affluent investor.
It’s
the Relationship & Not the Pocketbook that Matters
What truly separates those financial
professionals who make things happen in attracting the affluent and those
advisors who are continually left to wonder what happened is how they
communicate with the affluent prospect. By engaging prospective clients to talk
about their goals and dreams, you immediately set yourself apart from the
financial salespeople trying to make their case selling past performance or this
week’s hottest investment products. You see it’s all about the relationship you
forge with the affluent. Few people take the time to truly understand and
actively listen. As you meet with your affluent prospects, ask them these
questions:
u
What is the
#1 dream you have?
u
What do you
like to do on the weekends?
u
What are your
interests, hobbies?
u
If you could
have a day where you did only what you wanted, what would you do?
u
When you
retire, what are the most important things you want to accomplish?
Asking open-ended questions like these
causes your discussion with prospective clients to go to a deeper level and
begins to build the solid foundation of openness and trust it takes to succeed
long-term with the affluent. Remember, when you capture their hearts, you’ve
captured their wallets forever. But always put the relationship first.
Why the
Opportunity is Now
Seventy-six million baby boomers are now
marching toward retirement. That means there are a lot more people who will be
suffering from financial information overload in the near future. Taking the
steps now to position yourself as the “advisor of choice” for the affluent in
your local buying area is vital to your business staying successful for the
foreseeable future. By determining what makes you and your firm unique and how
you can add the most value to your clients, you will solidify your position as
the investment specialist the affluent can trust to help make their retirement
dreams come true.
Derrick Kinney is recognized as one of the nation's leading
authorities on helping financial professionals succeed with the affluent. He is
the author of the #1 Amazon bestseller Attract Your Ideal Clients
which has been named one of the Top 5 business books on CNN.com. The book
achieved the prestigious status as the #1 Sales & Marketing book, #1 Personal
Finance book and #1 Business & Investing book at the same time. Derrick's book
has been hailed as a "marketing masterpiece" that should be required reading for
every independent professional who wants to succeed with the affluent.
Derrick has been hailed as a "marketing guru" by Investment Advisor Magazine
and is interviewed regularly in national media including The Wall Street
Journal, Forbes, Newsweek, Smart Money, Entrepreneur,
Financial Advisor, CBS Marketwatch, Bloomberg Television
and numerous newspapers across the country.
Derrick is a popular speaker at broker-dealer and investment
conferences across the country.
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