By Maggie Leyes

Inspiration, strategies, sales techniques and new ideas don’t have to be learned in a dry, classroom setting or from a book; this year’s Convention and Career Conference in Kansas City, Mo., proved that. Wisdom and advice came from all corners of the convention center—from the keynote speakers on the main stage to the authors, educators and industry experts in the breakout sessions. Attendees walked away with a wealth of information designed to help them reenergize their careers.

Keynote speaker and author Bill Bachrach started his main-stage presentation as many good speakers do—with a story. He took the crowd back to the day he completed the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii. (For neophytes, that’s a 26.2 mile run, a 2.4 mile swim and a 112 mile bike ride done in one day.) His father gave him an effusive greeting once he passed the finish line. “That was incredible!” Bachrach’s father told him, and quickly continued: “Did you see the guy with one leg who finished half an hour ago? He ‘erupted’ across the finish line, took his leg off and the crowd went wild. It was amazing.” Upon hearing this story, your first thought is that Bachrach’s father was giving him the “good-but-you-could-have-done-better,” backhanded compliment. But that’s not how Bachrach chose to view it. Instead, he followed his father’s lead and celebrated this disabled athlete’s amazing accomplishment. “I told myself, ‘Don’t compare yourself to anyone else.’ This race was to challenge myself. My thought was: If I can finish this race, what else may I be able to do?” he said. Bachrach’s object lesson: Don’t compare yourself. Contemplate your true potential and maximize what you are capable of. Find out what you can do with the talents you have. The trusted advisor Bachrach then introduced what he calls his financial road map, a large colorful sheet that he admits looks a bit like the Chutes and Ladders board game. What it is, however, is a visual tool to use with clients to get them to focus on what is truly important in their financial lives. By using this mapping technique, Bachrach said, you build high-trust clients.

But what exactly does that mean for your business? Bachrach posed this question to the audience: “When someone trusts you, what is it that they do?” After a pause, he answered his own question: “They say, ‘OK!’ So, my question is: Who are sales techniques for if those who trust you say OK and follow your advice? Sales techniques are to get people who don’t trust you to buy from you anyway. Life’s too short to do business with people who don’t trust you.”

He then laid out four of the five conversations of his financial road map that help advisors build high-trust clients in the first interview:

The values conversation: Ask your prospect this question: “What’s important about money to you?” Remember, the prospect always has the right answer.

The goals conversation: Be sure to ask the prospect not only, “What is your goal?” but, “By when?” And again, be specific. That means getting the prospect to commit not only to the year, but to the month and the day as well. That way he knows you will hold him accountable.

The money conversation: This is a factfinding summary, not a comprehensive analysis—that is done after the prospect hires you.

The commitment to hire me conversation: This is Bachrach’s no-follow-up system. By asking your prospect for his commitment in the first interview, it allows you to move on if he doesn’t hire you. Bachrach said that while persistence is important, it’s better to be sure during the first meeting that this is going to work.

We are all given a choice. When I choose to be positive, my day goes better. —Keith Harrell, keynote speaker, author of Attitude Is Everything

It’s all about emotions
Van Mueller, LUTCF, a registered representative with the William Marris Wisconsin Agency of New England Financial Service and Million Dollar Round Table member, knows how to whip a crowd up and motivate them to sell. In his Monday afternoon breakout session, How to Double, Triple and Yes, Even Quadruple the Sales of Variable Indexed and Fixed Annuities, he gave attendees the bottom line: People don’t want to hear about price or interest rates; they want us, as advisors, to discuss things that matter to them.

According to Mueller—and the ample statistics he pointed to—there is a crisis looming. People are living longer, and neither the government nor the Social Security system is set up to be able to care for the elderly for 20, 30 or 40 years. With this crisis, clients are asking themselves basic emotional questions such as, “Am I going to be OK?” and “Will I have enough money to survive?” Mueller told those in his session: “You are the only one who is positioned to talk to your clients about this. Do you think they shared their emotions with their banker or accountant lately?”

As advisors, you should begin the meeting with your prospects with an emotional factfinder—the formal factfinder comes later. You should ask your prospects the following questions: What do you want to happen when you die? What do you want to happen when you become disabled or retire? Do you want to lose your house?

These questions should be asked in an informal conversational manner. After your prospects have responded to these questions, Mueller said you should use this transitional sentence: That is not going to happen the way you have things set up now.

Then, instead of bombarding clients and prospects with pricing, interest rates and all the other stuff they don’t want to hear about, you should sell them on the benefits of life insurance and annuities and what they provide. These include:

•  Probate protection


•  Incontestability and privacy


•  Control “from the grave”


•  Creditor protection in many states


•  Medicaid versatility (Distribution is protected if it’s doled out as an income stream.)

You are the product
To increase production, you have to change. That was the advice of Lester W. Anderson, RFC, during his session, Power Positioning With Current Client/Prospect Psychology. That means you have to build systems to market you and not your products. To accomplish this task, you need to change—to break your old conditioning about who you are and what you do. According to Anderson, you shouldn’t try to change people’s reality or what they hold true. That is an uphill battle because it’s out of your control. What is in your control, however, is what they believe about you. This is key because, as Anderson quoted Theodore Levitt of Harvard Business Review, “The product will be judged in part by who offers it—not just who the vendor corporation is, but also who the corporation’s representative is.”

But image will only take you so far. You also need to firmly establish who your clientele is. You must select a target market and narrow it to a manageable size through demographics. For example, you could choose to market to single women who are 65 years or older. Why? Because many have time and money, and they tend to be loyal customers. Keep your target market to 500 or under, said Anderson. If it’s larger than that, make another cut, this time on a geographical basis to include single women, 65 years or older, who, for example, live in the western suburbs.

Remember, your word is who you are.

Then it’s time to develop a positioning statement. “A positioning statement should become the major tool to differentiate your product, service or company from competitors in such a manner that customers or prospects want to hear more,” said Anderson. It is only by clearly defining what you do, not who you are, and how that will help the prospect, that you can win his business. The statement should be succinct and easily understood. He suggested using power words that connote action and activity such as execute, enhance, maximize, convert and build.

So, it’s time to replace the way you introduce yourself to clients and prospects. Here are a few sample introductions.

For retirees: “I work to protect asset bases from the ravages of inflation and taxation while providing predictable income streams.”

For preretirees who are building wealth: “I implement investment strategies that can provide for lifestyle continuation after retirement.”

For young professionals: “I bring professional and timely execution to [specific market], which builds an asset base early.”

With these tried and true techniques, you are ready to approach your prospects and watch your sales soar.

Words of wisdom
The convention and conference speakers were full of witticisms and wisdom. And speaking of wisdom, don’t forget to mark your calendar for the 2004 NAIFA Convention and Career Conference, which takes place Sept. 11-15 in Las Vegas. See you there!

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