Monday, March 28, 2011

HOOKS and BENEFITS in your Financial Advisor Elevator Speech


While helping a client today with his elevator speech, it dawned on me that this topic would make a great blog post.  We could all use help explaining succinctly what it is we do for our clients. Our "elevator pitch" or "30 Second Commercial" is one of the best ways of explaining our worth to non clients and can help us obtain better referrals to our ideal clients.

Follow this link here to a Step by Step Exercise to Write your 30 Commercial. You can improve your elevator speech by working on it. Don't sound like all the other advisors out there.   Dare to be different!  

Instead of starting off with "My name is Steven and I'm a financial advisor" we should use a HOOK to get the listener's attention, otherwise the audience may tune out or not hear what we're saying.

Here are some lead in phrases or HOOKS to start off your 30 Second Commercial:
Imagine your life with…
Did you know that…?
Now you can have…
Do you want more X in your life?
Does your business need…?
The secret of X…
Have you joined the X revolution?
Get rid of (problem) once and for all…
Here's a quick way to (solve a problem)…

Perhaps the biggest mistake we can make is explaining FEATURES versus telling BENEFITS.  Learn to use benefits in your 30 second commercial so as to explain the end result of working with you.

Here are some common finance-related benefits for advisors to use in an elevator pitch:
  • Achieve prosperity
  • Free up time to do other things
  • Simplify life - go from complicated to easy
  • Find peace of mind - no more worry
  • Retire early
  • Live a stress free retirement
  • Achieve goals more quickly
  • Invest intelligently
  • Live the good life
  • Clarify lifetime goals
  • Build a dream home
  • Improve future potential
  • Replace income
  • Achieve lifetime goals
  • Find financial freedom
  • Live a beachside retirement
  • Obtain clarity of financial direction
  • Plan for a carefree, wealthy retirement
  • Prepare for life's emergencies
  • Take care of loved ones
  • Work less, have more fun
  • Leave a legacy
  • Find a financial solution
  • Discover financial wellness

Suzanne Muusers

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Lead Generation for Financial Advisors


There you sit, staring at the wall wondering "How do I generate more leads?" You don't need to be a genius to know that the success of any business depends upon prospecting for new clients. Without active prospecting your pipeline can stall and stop producing results. This notion applies to any business no matter whether you've been around five months or five years. We all need activities that generate leads. 

Proper planning can help any advisor attract the type of clients that work best for his/her practice. It all starts with a business plan that details your five year vision, strategies for achieving the vision, the goals that will motivate you to keep going, and the marketing activities that will get you there.

Sounds great, except – What should you be actually DOING day in and day out? What are the activities that generate leads?

LEADS, LEADS, LEADS…
Lead generation is a numbers game - You have to get in front of as many people as possible, according to the strategy in your business plan.  This means creating an enticing offer, a client attraction device, and a way to move prospects down the relationship funnel. It means getting out of the office and meeting with new people. It means leveraging the relationships you already have. It means constant action and meaningful follow up. It means NEW strategies, actions, public speaking, events, social media, and good old hard work using your noggin.

In case you think I'm talking about brand new advisors, I am NOT. I hear from advisors every week who have become somewhat comfortable in their ways. They may have grown their business by referrals, or cold calling, or seminars, but now they are coasting and they want to grow again. It's tough to get back out there once you've become accustomed to having business come to you. Times have changed. What worked in the past may not work now. You may need to get with the times and try something new.

If you need help creating a weekly action plan and growth strategy, please review my program 90 Days to New Clients. I provide you the tools to get focused on the essential activities to grow your practice. The program includes a 13 week motivational course that will challenge you and keep you on the move.



Suzanne Muusers
Entrepreneur and Business Coach

Monday, March 7, 2011

How to Make Advertising Work – Advertise Your Highest Price Point


If you know me you know that I don't care much for advertising as a marketing tactic. Advertising, no matter if it's print, TV, or radio, can be very expensive, has a limited shelf life, and many times a long lead time. What I like least about advertising is that it is so expensive with print ads running thousands of dollars with hit and miss results.

In a former life as a gift shop mogul, I chose to advertise in several tourist publications. At that time one of my specialties was a very unique product – a mother-of-pearl antique gambling counter – once used like a poker chip to gamble with in China in the 1700-1800's by the British aristocracy.  Set in 14K and 18k gold to be worn as pendants, these antiques ranged in price from $500 to $5000. I featured this product in print advertisements and lo and behold they sold very well. I developed a reputation for having a great selection.  My advertising investment certainly paid off.

Then, in a not so brilliant move, I chose to feature a different line of merchandise in my advertising which retailed for hundreds, not thousands. What I found was that I still had the same response rate, only sales were a small fraction of what they were before.

As a financial advisor, what does this mean to you?

Advisors are not advertising something tangible. Planners and investment managers should focus on the offer and the end benefits consumers would enjoy by hiring an expert. One way to make print advertising work would be to make your advertisement "visual" by using images that portray retirement if the consumer hires you as their advisor. Then, combine the ad with "advertorial" in an article on the same page.   

If an advertisement is combined with an article written by the advisor that is targeted to the unique challenges the target clients face, then Credibility Marketing will be working in his favor. The advertisement focuses on the highest price point (advice and money management) and brings the consumer visually to the place they'd be if they hired the advisor. The credibility demonstrated in the article backs up the entire message.

To make this tactic even better, select a publication targeted to the advisors ideal client and fine tune the message. In other words, to make advertising work, get creative, speak to benefits, advertise your highest price point, and target, target, target.


Suzanne Muusers
Business Coach for Financial Advisors