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You are working hard to bring in new business. But the rejection is intense. Cold calls have a 4% closing rate in booking appointments, not on dials, but those to whom you speak. Mailings have a 0.5% success rate in getting respondents to call you. Maybe you will be lucky enough to catch them in the middle of a retirement decision. Building your business is hard work – unless you know a few secrets.
We know affluent financial planning/retirement clients are hard to find. They don’t respond to cold calls, dinner seminars or mailings. We also know they are unlikely to refer to you. Why? Because you didn’t do a good enough job?
No, because you don’t keep in frequent enough contact.
Clients want an ongoing relationship. They want to talk to you every three months. They didn’t sign up to be a transaction.
If you keep in contact every three months, you will position yourself to manage their assets – both protection and investment. You will have no competition. And if you are really good, you will get referrals. Referrals are 35% more likely to do business with you, unlikely to make you compete for their business and will earn 25% more revenue per loan than any other marketing method. But you probably have asked for referrals without result. It has been frustrating, hasn’t it?
Now we have Linked-In
Across Linked-In, 51% of users are affluent (a far higher percentage than for Facebook). They also average 930 connections. Linked-In has 53% more engagement efficacy than any other social media channel. The best part is you can view all of the contacts for every Linked-In relationship you have. But unfortunately, many of the connection requests you get are those just clicking without knowing who you are.
Here are five steps you can use to turn those connections into business.
1. Start calling your clients every three months. Before you call your clients, connect on Linked-In.
2. When your client accepts the connection, filter their connections. You can filter for location, years of work experience and title or position. In other words, you can filter for the affluent.
3. When you phone your clients every three months, identify four of their connections and ask how well they know their Linked-In buddies. Chances are they know only 50%, the rest are blind connections.
4. Connect with the referrals using a personal message referencing your mutual friend. This will drive your connection rate from 35% to 85%.
5. Once the referral connection is accepted, send a message asking to talk on the phone to find out more about them using a referred lead script.
How my client doubled his business
One of my one-on-one coaching clients, Matt, spent $10,000 in mailings trying to originate new business. Of his 200 clients, he segmented them into 15% As, 35% Bs and 50% Cs. He personally called the As every three months and gave the Cs to his colleagues.
Before the calls, he would connect with his clients using Linked-In. Of those, 70% were already Linked-In members, so that was easy. But on the call, he would do an economic update and his best guess as to where the economy was headed. He found out that 38% had more assets or wanted to update their life insurance. For those not yet ready, he asked about the four Linked-In contacts they had. He asked how well the client knew them and if they would be willing to send a note of introduction. All agreed.
After connecting with the referral on Linked-In, he asked to chat on the phone for 10 minutes to get to know them better. Few refused. Matt then put each referral into the three-month call rotation and doubled his business without spending a dime on advertising.
Dr. Kerry Johnson is a frequent speaker at financial planning conferences around the world on topics like “How to Read Your Clients Mind” and “How to Increase Your Business By 80% in 8 Weeks.” He is the author of nine books including best sellers, Mastering the Game, and his newest book, New Mindset, New Results. To book him to speak at your next event or ask about his one on one coaching program, Peak Performance Coaching: How to increase your business by 80% in 8 weeks, call 714 368 3650 or visit www.KerryJohnson.com. He will also provide you with a free copy of his three-month-call script.
Read more articles by Kerry Johnson
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
