 By
Gregory B. Gagne, ChFC
One of our greatest challenges as insurance and
financial advisors is producing a steady flow of highly qualified
prospects. When I started in the business in 1992, I was trained
on the Al Granum “One Card System” for productivity.
My manager stressed to the newer reps the importance and necessity
of asking for referrals. However, it was the “asking”
for referrals that was hard for me to swallow. To me, asking was
like begging, and I never became proficient at asking for referrals.
Successful producers get many referrals. My failure
to become proficient in asking for referrals paved the way for the
practice-management methods I now use to receive referrals. I receive
referrals every week without asking for them! Implement the following
ideas to generate a consistent flow of “inward bound”
referrals for your practice.
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| Educate
your clients to think of you as the “CFO” of their
family. |
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Start the process
Review your book of business. With which clients do you enjoy working
the most? What common characteristics do they share? What clients
generate the most revenue for you and provide the most satisfaction
for you as an advisor? These are the clients you want to spend your
efforts replicating. Here’s how.
Action items
- Technology and practice management
- Website and market commentaries.
My firm has a website, which most of my clients access periodically
to hear an audio market report. This brief (under 5 minutes) quarterly
report tells them what is going on in the economy and in our firm,
giving them the ability to hear me and “get inside my head”
without having to make an appointment or call, and it serves as
a subtle commercial for my firm. (Check with your compliance department
concerning a website and the information you post.)
- Newsletters. Send
your clients and prospects a newsletter. Many firms offer this
service and are NASD-approved. All you need to do is provide your
picture and name, and the marketing firm will handle the rest.
(See advertisements in Advisor Today.)
- Birthdays. People
like to be remembered on their birthdays. A card signed by you
becomes even more meaningful when you add a sentence or two of
a personal nature. A brief telephone call is also a personal way
to acknowledge your client’s special day. Your clients will
remember your thoughtfulness and that is positive, free public
relations for you.
- Don’t make house calls. Use
your office. Do you drive from house to house or
business to business for your appointments? In football, baseball
or any other sport, is it better to play a home game or an away
game? Do you want clients to play on their turf or do you want
them to come to you on your turf? Your office is your opportunity
to make your intangible business tangible. Your clients can
see the office, the staff and other colleagues, and you can build
the image of a team of caring professionals. This cannot be accomplished
on clients’ turf. Interruptions are out of your control
on their turf. Have the meetings in your office, even if it is
a rented, professional office space. An invitation to your office
is one that your clients will rarely decline. They will come if
you ask.
- Have periodic reviews (more often
than annually). See your clients more often, and
they will have more reason to conduct new business with you and
think of you when speaking to their friends, relatives and colleagues.
They will lead you to new clients.
- Invest time and money in quality
staff. This is a difficult hurdle to clear. You
want to hire an assistant but may be waiting until you can “afford”
to do so. Don’t wait. You will only hit the ceiling and
never generate enough revenue to pull it off. Let’s make
this really clear. You generate your income seeing people—not
processing paperwork, not making calls to secure an appointment,
and certainly not going through the mail. You expect your clients
to invest in you. Make this investment in your business. This
is not to be treated as an expense. When your gut is telling you
to think about staffing up, get going. It is a risk of business
ownership.
- Write “we will/you will”
letters. Send a letter after each client meeting
or phone conference to outline the follow-up actions you will
take and those the client is expected to take. These letters should
be written in a bullet-point format and should be very easy to
understand.
- Personal touch and exceptional
service. Utilize the personal touch whenever possible.
People want to work with people who care and show feelings. With
modern technology, much of this has been lost, and most people
find it comforting and reassuring to have a truly personal connection
with their advisor.
- Use live phone answering instead
of voice mail. One of the many benefits of having
a staff (even if it’s just one person) is that a prospect
or client will reach a “real” person when calling
you. Avoid automated telephone answering except when absolutely
necessary.
- Send thank-you notes.
Send handwritten thank-you notes to your clients and prospects.
- Send anniversary flowers.
As part of your factfinding process, ask how many years your prospects
have been married. This is a wonderful way to talk about the topic
they really want to talk about—themselves, and it will help
your closing ratio greatly. Send flowers to your clients when
they achieve benchmark anniversaries, for example, 10, 20, 25
and 50 years. Send flowers for hospital stays as well. Other occasions
warranting flowers or a personal note might be retirement, moving
to a new home or leaving on a special vacation. The cards, calls
and notes that come into my office in response to these simple
gestures are overwhelming.
- Coaching concept.
Educate your clients to think of you as the “CFO”
of their family. Welcome your clients’ calls for advice
on a variety of issues. You want them to see you as their financial
coach, not as a salesperson trying to place a product. Let them
know how much you appreciate acting as their family’s “CFO”
while treating them as the “CEOs,” and make them understand
that they can rely on you as the objective person who gives direction
for their planning issues. This works very well.
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| Contact
your clients often so they will consider you their trusted
ally. |
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Reaching out is key
Make the effort to reach out to your clients,
and you will add the value that is missing in today’s culture.
Contact your clients often so that they will consider you their
trusted ally. If you use these techniques consistently, you will
“competitor-proof” your practice and receive highly
qualified referrals week after week. When a competitor calls a client
once a year or even less frequently, and you call, write, report
and educate that client month after month, the referrals will come.
Implement these action items, and you will convert your prospects
into clients and your clients into advocates.
Gregory B. Gagne, ChFC, is founder of Affinity
Investment Group, LLC. He is an MDRT member and president of NAIFA
New Hampshire. Contact him at 877-858-8156 or email greg@affinityinvestmentgroup.com.
April 2005
A Lesson
Twice Learned
Success
in a Small Town
The Give-Get
Ratio
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