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When meeting with a new prospect, after asking the fact-finding questions you’ve been trained to ask and providing a path forward, you might still hear: “I’d like to think about it and get back to you,” or “Thank you, we’re looking at a couple of advisors and will be in touch”.
Very perplexing, especially when you did what you’ve always done. You discussed their goals, gathered facts, attempted to move to a next step – you did what you were trained to do. Yet your prospect remains indecisive about you. It doesn’t make sense. What’s going on here?
“The curse of mastery”
As an advisor, your basic instinct is to analyze facts, data, and information, then to create advice from it. You’re in an information-driven business; without it, you can’t deliver value.
You are an expert. Often called the “curse of mastery,” it’s easy for you to operate 100 percent at the intellectual and complex level, far from where your prospects need you to be. You process what they tell you and analyze their situation, operating from your “head” level but missing the “heart” and emotional level where they need you to be. This mis-match comes from your professional obligation to display your value by explaining the complexities of their situation, so the prospect feels you’re knowledgeable about the solutions appropriate for them. You almost become a human calculator, gathering inputs in order to create outputs. Losing a sale comes not from failing to educate your prospect on the complexities of their situation. It comes from failing to simplify their problem.
That’s what most discovery-based sales approaches completely miss.
What’s needed is a total mindset shift away from the analytical, information-based modes of selling to an empathy-based, trust-building approach, where you provide simplicity instead of complexity.
If that sounds counter-intuitive, it should. It defies the decades of assumptions espoused by the advisory industry. Simplicity often eludes those who wrestle with complexity every day.
When a prospect perceives your solution as complex, they become indecisive. Offering them deep clarity on their issues creates the simplification they need to say “Let’s move forward.”
Stop overcomplicating the solution
It’s time to make a shift. Stop educating your prospects, introducing them to complex ideas – as they’ll only want to go away and “think about it” – which creates a lost opportunity for you and them. Instead, build your sales process around your prospect’s problem, focusing on simplifying and crystallizing it to a level of clarity they could never have achieved on their own. In other words:
Simplicity and Clarity = Real Trust.
Complexity = Distrust.
You’ll need to be open to questioning and challenging everything you’re doing in your current sales process, to start seeing new results.
To learn more about this contrarian trust-based selling approach, order your complimentary book and confidential consultation below.
Ari Galper is the world’s number one authority on trust-based selling and is the most sought-after high-net worth/lead generation expert for financial advisors. His newest book, Trust In A Split Second has become an instant best-seller among financial advisors worldwide – you can get a Free copy of Ari’s book here and, when you click the “YES” button in the order form, you’ll also receive a complimentary “plug up the holes” lead generation consultation. Ari has been featured in CEO Magazine, Forbes, INC Magazine and the Financial Review. He is considered a contrarian in the financial services industry and in his book, everything you learned about selling will be turned upside down. No more chasing, no pressure, no closing.
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Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
