 Issues limiting your business development efforts may include lack of time in pressing for new business, lack of focus, lack of investment, or fear! What’s your biggest issue?
New client acquisition is not easy. For example, “In 2017, Merrill Lynch only attracted about 7,000 net new households, with the average broker opening fewer than one account on a net basis. Merrill raised brokers’ growth targets in 2019 and 2020 but modified the 2020 plan in June to acknowledge the effects of the outbreak of COVID-19 on broker prospecting. The new account requirement was lowered to three households from four and remains at the lower level for the 2021 plan.[1]” Too often, advisors do not even have a formal written prospect list, and/or it’s not updated regularly. It’s great if it’s in your CRM but if it’s not in your face, out of sight is often out of mind. If it’s in digital form, and it should be, you should have a paper copy of your top prospects on a list, on your desk, and you should be contacting 5 to 10 every week and spending at least 20% to 25% of your time on prospecting if you expect to grow your business. That includes the time you spend with clients figuring out how you are going to let them know that their family, friends, and colleagues are missing out by not working with you. This article discusses how to build that prospect list from generating leads to getting potential clients to meet with you. What Is a Prospect?
The key factor that defines a prospect is a potential client who you are communicating with on a regular basis. Where To Focus Business Development Efforts There are more than twenty business development approaches for building your prospect list. We all get offers every day from marketing organizations offering us solutions to provide leads. Included are various social media approaches where you reach out to individuals you don’t know to connect. You send cold messages, pay for advertisements, post articles and comments, etc., all to garner leads and/or help build brand recognition. Organizations also sell lead lists. Companies offer ways to build lead funnels using emails for mass marketing (boiling the ocean as I call it) and other forms of impersonal marketing approaches. Such approaches are indiscriminate, untargeted mass marketing in an industry based on relationships. Since the most essential aspects of your business are based on human-to-human interaction, your content and approaches should also be human-to-human. Mass marketing approaches are not what our industry nor your practice really needs. These methods add to “digital pollution.” “Human Centered Communications[2]” states, “2.4 billion emails are being sent every single second.” Further, “half of it is pure spam. That’s on top of the 4.5 billion spam text messages sent every year.” “This pollution costs us time and money. For example, the cybersecurity industry is projected to grow to a $173 billion industry by 2026, up more than 50% from 2020.” “…the professional worker receives an average of 120 emails per day.” They also report, “A HubSpot survey found that just 3% of us trust salespeople, barely edging out stockbrokers, lobbyists, and politicians. The indiscriminate, untargeted, and impersonal sending of mass marketing content puts all of us in the industry in a bad light and contributes to the waste of our most precious resources, time, and attention. These mass marketing approaches can keep your name in front of prospects and clients but whether they answer questions or is of value is questionable. There are better ways for you to market based on human-to-human interaction. That’s where your focus must be. My top six approaches are based on human-to-human interactions. Each approach must be used in a genuine, sincere, and honest manner. Regardless of your sincerity, knowledge, experience, competence, and more, however, “The secret of success of every person who has ever been successful lies in the fact that she/he formed the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do.[3]” He[4] also stated that the things failures don’t like to do are the same things that no one likes to do! Successful people do it anyway. Every one of these approaches requires a process, an action plan, and consistent execution!
There are other good approaches including networking, speaking at public forums, volunteering, joining service organizations, and publishing articles in well placed publications. Building Your Prospect List It’s worth noting that the best predictor of new clients in the next 12 months is often the number of new clients you attracted in the last 12 months. If that number was low or very low, one of several things is likely true:
The point is simple, even if your history is not perfect, having formal business development processes, and executing with excellence will enable you to build a significant prospect list. That list will preferably be fifty or more people with whom you regularly communicate and who are willing to receive your communications. If you are a newer financial advisor, a list of a hundred prospects is recommended. Getting Prospects into The Pipeline This is the most challenging element of business development efforts so significant and consistent efforts are musts. Moving prospects through the pipeline can be frustrating because you and your prospects have different senses of urgency. Prospects have many things on their plates while you are more narrowly focused. Patience is a virtue and keeping at it is a must if you are going to convert that prospect to a client. Almost every advisor I have spoken to for decades has said, “If I can get them into the chair, I can close them.” In today’s competitive world, great planning, care, time, and consistent execution will result in a good share of conversions…and you must believe that and keep focus. Using the approaches above to get prospects into your pipeline, each approach needs a “Value Trigger,” something you can offer the person or group they will want to receive. For example,
Find out from your clients what It would take to interest them in meeting with you if they were not yet a client and identify prospects that have similar interests and concerns. Perhaps it could be a group of their friends, relatives, or colleagues. Try diverse kinds of events like Sunday brunches for prospect couples you personally invite. Four or five prospective couples would be moderate cost and effective. In a talk or in other appropriate situations, ask provocative questions, “out of curiosity,” e.g., “I’m curious, do you know exactly how much money it's going to take for you to comfortably retire and remain comfortably retired? If you get a no, you can make an offer. “Would you like me to sit with you and help you figure it out with the answer to that question?” In Summary
David I. Leo David Leo is Founder of Street Smart Research Group LLC. He is an author, speaker, coach, consultant, and trainer to financial professionals. David is an experienced business manager who works solely with Financial Advisors, Planners and firms who want to organize, structure & grow their businesses by attracting, servicing, and retaining affluent clients. David had a 30-year career at IBM including as a Business Process Reengineering Consultant and Engagement Manager for the Financial Services Industry. He also spent seven years at UBS/PaineWebber working directly with Financial Advisors to assist them in productivity growth. David received a Bachelor of Science degree in Commerce and Engineering from Drexel University and an MBA from New York University. If you would like additional details or have any questions about his articles or an interest in coaching schedule a free 45 Minute Strategy Session @ https://calendly.com/davidileo or contact him @ [email protected]. Call 212-598-4229 (Office) or 917-379-1249 (Cell) and visit @ www.CoachDavidLeo.com. Comments are closed.
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