Will you marry me?

 by Tony Vidler.

I have no idea what the actual statistics would be, but I am willing to wager that the success rate of popping the question "will you marry me?" onto a prospective partner who you have not yet dated is probably pretty low.  

If you've dated for a bit, the odds get a bit better, though only marginally so.  If you've been engaged for a while and everyone knows what the end game is, then the odds are pretty good that you will get a "yes" to "will you marry me?".

How does this apply to financial advice?  Well...the biggest problem with financial adviser marketing is the tendency to pop the "will you marry me" question to people who haven't decided yet whether they want to spend a Saturday night with you. 

This lies at the heart of dealing with a common adviser question: "How can I make my marketing more effective?"

Before answering this question though it is important to understand a more fundamental question: What is the difference between marketing and selling?

Many advisers seem to think that these are one and the same thing.  Or, if pressed a little further, "marketing" is often confused with "advertising".   Marketing does include advertising... as it also includes having a clear value proposition, understanding the target market, the branding of the individual and the branding of the business entity, and a number of other things.

Thinking bigger picture though; marketing is really about creating opportunities to gain a client or some new business.  Selling is the process of converting that opportunity into an actual piece of business that your accountant can see.

To answer the question posed at the outset then, one has to understand that while there may be many components that go into creating really effective marketing, the underlying question that the adviser is really asking is "how can I create more opportunities to engage with people who would be willing to take the actions I would recommend"?

The part that really matters in this underlying question is "opportunities to engage with people".  THAT is the piece that you must concentrate upon to create "more effective" marketing.  This revelation is the point where advisers often say "aha, I get it" and their marketing efforts lift as they begin to focus upon creating new opportunities to generate future new business.  It makes sense to them that if they are able to attract attention, and engage with people, then they begin to establish a relationship of trust. Surely having done this the prospective client will take my advice and work with me?

It is at this point though that the bulk of such marketing efforts fall down in a heap.

The reason?  Lack of patience and understanding of the engagement process.  It's akin to having a couple of Saturday night dates and then wondering why the dream date doesn't want to marry you yet.  A lot of adviser businesses at this point are creating a lot of Saturday night dates....but there's no follow through.  It's just lifting the initial activity level really.

Engagement (in this business sense) is really about inter-acting with people on a regular basis in a way that they feel comfortable with until they decide they want to be with you.  Your marketing purpose is to get, and then hold, their attention and build their level of interest in what you have to offer in the way of valuable advice and solutions.  At some point in the engagement process you - or more likely some other event unrelated to your marketing and positioning - will trigger "desire" on their part to act.

That is when the marketing process is finished, and selling begins.  Although, if your marketing and engagement process is done well, the reality is that there is very little selling involved. 

The necessary level of trust and credibility in you as the right adviser has already been established.  The rest is process and technical competency being applied to the clients' need.  

The reality for a financial adviser business though is that engagement is forever.  The actual marriage part - your client buying you or your solution at some point - is actually just a moment in time.  It is a purchase. A transaction.  A fait accompli....if the engagement was a fulfilling one.

Engagement with clients, for the successful advice business, is long term.  Once you have them as clients, then the engagement and ongoing interaction becomes even more important, as they can add significant value to your business if you can move them from supporting you to the point where they are advocates for your business.

To make your marketing more effective - to get better results for your business - stop asking the marriage question.  It's not about the big moment and the big "sale".  Build systems and processes to engage people in a way they feel comfortable with, and share information and insights, and help them help themselves.....and they will want to take it further!

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WOMBAT is the word!

 by Tony Vidler.

A couple of recent conversations reminded me that there is one single thing that is continually forgotten, or under-utilized, in the marketing efforts of professional advisers - TESTIMONIALS!

You may well ask what this has to do with a Wombat - you may even wonder what the heck a Wombat is.  Humor me for a few moments though, and all will become clear I hope.

In literal terms a Wombat is a native Australian animal, renowned for its tough, resilient, plodding approach to life.  Even their metabolism is remarkably slow - some 8-14 days to digest their food.  Slow and steady is their way.  In colloquial terms the acronym WOMBAT is often used to describe a human that is rather useless really - a Waste Of Money Breath And Time. 

That observation has nothing to do with anything really, but is perhaps a useful or amusing piece of nonsense - you may know a wombat or two, and now have a useful label for them that is not openly offensive. I know some wombats for sure.

From a sales and marketing perspective though WOMBAT stands for Word Of Mouth Beats Any Thing.

Word of mouth advertising is the best there is.  Referrals and endorsement from happy customers, who advocate for you to other potential customers, produce the best new customers.  Cost of acquisition for the new client is generally one of the lowest of any marketing methods.  Ease of business in terms of gaining rapport and establishing trust is superb.  Your expertise and value is largely accepted by the potential customer before you even meet.

Everyone knows this of course, but few generate enough referrals to be able to rely upon them as the primary constant source of new business.   There are a number of reasons why that is the case, not least of which is the reluctance for professionals to beg their clients for the names of others.  That is something which nobody feels good about - especially your customers.  The extremely basic concept often touted is to ASK!  Ask and all shall be delivered!  Well...it IS true that if you ask often enough, you'll get something from enough people, so that it is sort of effective I suppose.  Truth be told this method usually results in obtaining little more than a list of the client's B-list acquaintances, and they are barely qualified at this point (if at all).  The result is effectively a new list of cold-calling candidates for you, and a nervous new client wondering what the heck they have just done. Brilliant.

Let's face it, it is poor form and a bad look (especially early in a business relationship) to put somebody on the spot and bluntly ask them for a bunch of names.  Do you really expect that someone who is still only beginning to trust you will deliver your next wave of super clients?  Just because you asked the magic question do not expect your new client to open his contacts list and electronically transport his entire social network to your I-phone, with the ringing endorsement that everyone they know should place their faith in you. The chances of that are nearly as good as playing Lotto.  You'll perhaps win plenty of small prizes if you play this game often enough, but you'll still be losing money overall and missing out on the big money.

Word of mouth though is where it is at.  Constant streams of referrals from satisfied customers ARE possible.  However, like the wombat you have to be prepared to plod along, and understand the slow metabolism at work here.  

You do have to be referrable to begin with of course.  That is, be someone professionally who is easy to trust, and easy to recommend because of your expertise, enjoyable manner of doing business and interacting with customers, and because there is a bit of a WOW factor in the customer's mind.  You do things that exceed their expectations, and impress them enough that they are confident to share their positive stories with others.  And people actually like telling others about their good experiences, so give them the chance to do so by being a good experience.

Clients also have to know that you actually want new clients.  Now that sounds really basic, but it is amazing how many customers believe you are successful, and busy - too busy in fact to take on anyone new.  Incorporate the message into your entire marketing and client engagement process that your business depends upon doing such a good job that clients introduce new clients.  And you have to keep reminding people that this is still the case.  It should be part of your marketing process that you are continually conveying this message.

There is a huge difference too between asking for referrals, and asking to be recommended.  The first is usually an uneasy process, the second is usually a comfortable process for the clients.  Asking to be recommended might not generate new leads immediately, it is a bit more passive than that.  It is however the road to repeated referrals from satisfied clients.  It is where clients become advocates for you and your business.

One of the simplest methods of all for generating awareness is to actually ask a question that invites criticism.  Of course you have to comfortable enough and confident enough in your relationship with the client that you are prepared to take that risk, because the last thing you can afford to do when asking the question is defend a position.  Whatever the clients answer is, is valid to them. Their perception is the reality of the relationship.

The little chat, and key question, that is often very effective in opening the recommendation discussion and positioning for it is:

"You know that we enjoy working with you and you are exactly the type of client we are focused upon helping, but I am a little worried that we might not be quite up to the mark in your view.  You see, clients that are really happy with us and think we are doing a good job generally refer others to us - that's actually how our business grows; through word of mouth from satisfied clients.  I am not aware of us being recommended by you to others, which makes me think we haven't got it quite right.  Can I ask what we need to do that would make you happy to recommend others to us?"

The objective here is to actually find out what you need to do in order to become referable.  then you have to be prepared to act upon that feedback - if it is reasonable & fair.  If it isn't reasonable, you were probably having the talk with the wrong sort of client to begin with, and probably don't want more clients like that. You do only want to ask those who can refer you to the right sort of clients for your firm.

Ideally what you also want from this chat is endorsement from the client.  That may come in a number of forms - perhaps they are comfortable with you being allowed to refer to them as one of the clients of your firm.  No details of their business with you of course, but a simple acknowledgement that you provide advice to them and they are comfortable with others knowing that.  In itself, that is powerful to other prospective clients, particularly if the endorsements are from well known people or businesses.   

Testimonials are gold.  Brief and to the point (50 words or less are best) - about why they think you are excellent, and hopefully why you WOW'd them.  Put the testimonials on your website, your brochures, and any marketing material you can.  Put them everywhere it makes sense, and where other potential customers can find them.  If you find yourself in a situation where you have a delighted customer for some reason, definitely ask them for a testimonial while they are delighted.

These days many potential customers will check you out before even meeting you.  Give them something positive and powerful to check.  Google rules!  So feed Google....Customers gain confidence from realizing others have positive experiences with you.  It takes away some of the risk for them in deciding to engage you.

Naturally I follow my own advice in this respect, and gather testimonials from happy clients and business colleagues.  You would not believe how many people refer to the Testimonials page when they meet with me.  Seriously - more than half refer to it at first meeting.  They have not necessarily read everything, in fact mostly they are looking at the names of the people who provided the testimonials and forming a view on that basis alone.

The key to a successful and perpetual stream of the right sort of new clients is to be referable, ensure people know that you rely upon it, exceed client's basic expectations, and seek their testimonials.  It is about generating Word Of Mouth.  It really does Beat Anything Else.

http://www.strictlybiz.co.nz/testimonials


Like this?  Then share it with others...or visit www.strictlybiz.co.nz for loads more useful and interesting information.