JUMPSTART YOUR MARKETING-3

You know what…you’re probably right.

If you sometimes feel like the “juice isn’t worth the squeeze” when it comes to your marketing results…

The truth is you may be right. Yet, what’s also true is that too many times advisors give up just shy of the gold. 

I’ve seen it first hand and almost every time it boils down to this one obstacle. The single greatest obstacle to reaping the rewards of your marketing campaigns is the time that it takes to get started.

Too many campaigns fail because they never get off the ground; the rush of everyday business gets in the way of planning and execution.

A great way to overcome this reluctance is to begin with your current clients. This Jumpstart Your Marketing coaching series contains a handful of easy to implement client-oriented campaigns that could give your year end and 2016 business a quick boost.

Each of these strategies is simple, straightforward and has been proven to work by many successful advisors. In fact, as you review these strategies you may think that you have seen them before; and you’re probably right.

In my experience, most really good ideas have stood the test of time.

1. 90 day no contact campaign: There may be hidden opportunities in your current book of business – rollovers, accounts at other firms and referrals. As you’ve helped your top relationships navigate the turbulent markets, many of your less critical clients have been neglected.

Even if you’ve written some of these clients off as unproductive they may be worth a call. For many advisors, this campaign could be conducted by your marketing or sales assistant.

To get started, I suggest putting together a list of clients you have not contacted over the last 90 days. Divide this list into small groups that are based on the number of contacts you or your assistant could comfortably add to your daily activities.

Next, put together a short telephone script that will ensure productive calls. (If you’d like access to sample scripts feel free to let me know by commenting below and we’ll get them over to you). And finally, commit to this success habit until you have worked your way through your entire list.

2. Clean-up your orphan assets: No matter how hard you may have tried to steer your clients’ portfolios into products, services, account structures and strategies that fit your overall client management process, you may oversee random assets that don’t fit your business model.

To truly do a better job for your clients you need to clean up these orphan assets. At the same time, you are creating new business opportunities.

From adding assets to fee-based accounts to uncovering commissionable activities there are many ways you can give your business and an almost immediate boost.

I am NOT suggesting doing business just for the sake of doing business; never sacrifice your values and ethics. But your clients’ assets are your inventory and like any good business-person you need to keep control over your inventory.

We use a proven, five step approach to help you put this idea to work in your practice quickly.

This method of getting referrals is the most successful I’ve ever used.

3. Ask the advocacy question to gain referrals: This method of gathering referrals is the most successful I have ever used. Most often advisors use this technique during face-to-face client meetings, but it is easily adapted to the telephone.

By making just a couple advocacy-based phone calls each day you could add five to ten new referrals to your prospect database each week.

You are simply calling your most loyal clients, your advocates, and specifically mentioning the name(s) of someone they know personally, socially or professionally.

At the same time you are asking these advocates if the person you mention would be a good fit for your practice. By doing this you are showing your top relationships that you hold them in high regard; you want to their opinion.

The vast majority will go out of their way to help by either validating the referral you have suggested or offering an alternative.

Before you call, you will need to do some light research using directories, phone books or the internet. Study the neighborhoods, places of employment, civic organizations or social clubs in which your clients circulate.

The extra step of doing this advance homework pays big dividends because it increases the likelihood of a referral and removes the blank stare that often accompanies an open-ended referral request.

You may also want to take a look at this [Case Study] How To Increase Your AUM by 50% In Under 90 Days Without Cheesy Gimmicks.

4. The “call me” campaign: (By the way, the “call me” style campaign outlined below for annuities could be used in many different scenarios.)

As I speak with advisors about bright spots in their business, variable annuities with living benefits are often mentioned.

Now I know annuities don’t fit everyone’s practice, but for those of you who regularly utilize reputable annuities there may be an opportunity to leverage last year’s results.

Instead of allowing your clients to focus solely on the investment performance of their subaccounts, you could underscore their year-end income base.

I would simply make copies of your clients’ year-end statements and circle key numbers like market value, income base and death benefit. Then I would stick the statements in the mail with a note for your clients to call you to review the numbers you’ve circled. At that point, you can just wait for the phone to ring.

During your phone conversations simply take time to review the numbers you highlighted and make sure your clients understand how the living benefits have worked.

Not only is this good client service, it’s also an opportunity to appropriately add assets to existing annuity contracts.

And because this may be a real bright spot in an otherwise dismal year, you could seek referrals.

These 4 winning client campaigns can quite literally help you overcome the time barriers to getting quality marketing results.

They’re easy to implement which is why I’m sharing them with you, but please don’t make the mistake of discounting them because they’re simple.

There’s power in simplicity.

Again, if you’d like access to sample scripts I mentioned above feel free to let me know by commenting below and we’ll get them over to you.

Stay tuned for Jumpstart Your Marketing Part 2.

Be well!

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