Client Attraction Action

Sailing Through Turbulent Waters

January 23rd, 2008

It’s treacherous out there. And scary headlines don’t help. Are we heading for a repeat of 1929? Are we in an earth-shaking bear market?

Your clients may be calling with troubling questions - questions that are at odds: One may ask, Why aren’t we buying now? Another challenges, Shouldn’t we be selling? Still, others argue for or against staying the course.

Times like these are not for the faint of heart. The solution we talk about today may provide safe passage for your financial advisory practice.

We could call it Practice Insulation.

It may be something you’ll want to think about as you plan your marketing to make a difference in2008. Here’s why: It protects your practice from turbulent financial waters and makes competition irrelevant, to boot.

To make this remedy real we begin with an example from a client (We’ll call him Matt):

When he came to us, Matt had started a new financial services business - new in the sense of a being only a year old and new because he blasted away from other businesses in his field to open up “untapped marketing space.”

Matt’s background is this: As Vice President of a national firm, he designed and copyrighted a system that took the company from $80 million in 2001 to more than $250 million in 2003. Two years later he left the company to start his own firm and took several top producers with him.

Matt’s Practice Insulation Has Three Differentiators:

1. One Stop Shopping

He collected a team to cover everything his clients need from medical planning and income stream needs to IRA needs, death probate documents, and Ethical Wills, to 401k rollovers and asset protection, and more. Simply, his firm coordinates legal (by an attorney) and non-legal
needs — financial services along with custom estate planning “in a unique package.”

2. One Fee For Life

What’s more his firm also offers knowledge and resources for a lifetime at a one-time reasonable cost. This includes free reviews once every 12-18 months along with free planning anytime. When a spouse dies, the remaining spouse has help and a plan and so do the children when the second spouse dies.

3. Endless Questions

And there’s another added service: The firm gets paid by lifetime service contracts and through transactions. But planning is free to everyone. Anyone with a particular question gets an answer quickly even those without a lifetime contract.

A couple comes to a seminar and, subsequently, meets with a financial advisor. They get answers and may bring in their children and grandchildren for the same help and assurance. Various generations of the family, then, become clients.

With Uncontested Marketing Space
Competition Vanishes

Matt’s uncontested marketing space comes from:

- Coordinated services that traditionally are separate,

- Attracted prospects into the sales funnel by providing free (and continuing to offer for free) consultations that others charge for to answer important questions, and

- Broadcast his differentiation through consistent marketing.

Three Key Questions Can Point To
Your Uncontested Marketing Space:

1. How completely can you solve the broad range of deep, troubling concerns your prospects and clients have?

2. What services can you add that will help to cement prospects and clients to your practice?

3. What can you provide free or as part of your package that others charge for?

Is “uncontested marketing space” in your marketing plan for 2008? You can differentiate through services that are geared to your target market. Then, let your differentiation shine through clear, focused marketing communications.

Yours for great marketing in ‘08!

Free access to our “7 Client-Attraction Secrets of Highly Successful Financial Advisors” is at http://www.marketingplanfinancialadvisor.com

Entry Filed under: Financial Lead Generation, Marketing Maestros, Financial Advisor Marketing Plan