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By Chuck Jones There's good news and bad news from the selling front. The bad news is that the old methods of selling—telephone calls, going door to door, direct mail and others—are obsolete. The good news is that there are new, better, more effective ways to sell your products and services. But of course, there have always been new and better ways to sell ever since the invention of money. If you think about it, even telephone calls and junk mail were new selling methods once. But you can't make money writing a sales book without claiming to have a new way to sell.
Effort-less Marketing for Financial Advisors by Steve Moeller, has been circulating in business bookstores for a couple of years. In it the author tells us, "Massive, random [sales] activity is too much effort! In the past, you could survive—and maybe make a decent living—with traditional mass marketing techniques. Today, random prospecting, such as cold calling, is becoming less and less rewarding. To prosper in this new era, advisors must focus their energies on high payoff niches." Moeller writes that he has developed five steps to make any advisor's practice "super profitable." Those five steps are:
As broad as these steps seem, they encompass quite a bit of practical sales advice, which Moeller presents in the book. If you're looking for someone to tell you how to make money, Moeller will do it. For example, he answers the following age-old question: In which consumer market are you likely to make the most money? The mass market, the affluent or the super affluent? The mass market, Moeller writes, represents nearly 97 percent of U.S. households, and families make an average $61,000 per year. Even though the number of prospects are there, "odds are you'll spend lots of time hunting for ideal clients in this segment," he writes. In contrast, the super affluent make up 0.1 percent of households, but the average annual income is $11.6 million. "This segment is excellent, but mostly locked up," he writes. The affluent, however, make up 3 percent of households and the average annual income is $1.6 million. "You can't go wrong with this segment. Wealth is highly concentrated." Moeller spells everything out. In a chapter on niche markets, he identifies those markets in which there is money to be made. He writes about the top segments in the affluent market, the institutional market, the self-employed, key corporate employees, entrepreneurs, retirees, and so on. He also tells you which personality types to avoid and which make the best clients.
The book also presents quite a bit of marketing theory, but Moeller makes it interesting. For instance, there's a chart, one of many, that breaks sales markets into three phases: product-centered, sales-centered and client-centered. Under the "Product" heading, a product-centered salesman says, "Ours is the only one." A sales-centered salesman says, "Ours will outperform" and "We have a product for everyone." The client-centered salesman says, "Ours comes with value-added service." "Do you recognize today's market?" the chart asks the reader. Moeller also performs a service that many will find helpful: He clearly marks the difference between marketing and selling. ". . . Marketing is everything that happens before advisors come face to face with a prospect. . . . Selling, on the other hand, is the act of persuading prospects to want what you are offering." Everybody got that now? Between the theory and the advice are many illustrative stories. Moeller is a natural storyteller and knows how to bring a point to sharpness by telling an interesting tale. Here's one: "In 1981, the 'rookie of the year' in my office built his business by mass-mailing postcards to upscale neighborhoods. His simple mailer featured a tax-free bond fund and tear-off reply card prospects could mail back to request more information. The flood of bounce-back cards generated from this marketing tactic laid the foundation of my colleague's early success. "Almost 15 years later, a financial advisor in the same city used exactly the same mailer and a similar mailing list. But the postcard bombed! He made zero sales and collected only a few unqualified leads. Most telling, six angry prospects demanded to be taken off his mailing list. "What happened? Why do many marketing tactics fail today after having worked extremely well in the past?" To find out, you’ve got to read this book.
Open Book
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