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Having a team of professional behind you makes you look increasingly
valuable to a client with large investment , estate or tax problems.
I would set up a team of professionals that are currently not working with
several other financial planners so they can refer business to you and
build trust together. Also look for the best people , strive to find the
best and tell them that you only want the best for your clients. Build the
relationship by doing seminars and educational sessions for them – see
strategy # 14 in my book Guerrilla Marketing For Financial Advisors.
center of influence seminars. I would ask for their permission to publish
a list of your team – see team list and add their email and website links
to your website under your professional team.
Grant’s Tip: How do you find the best ? If you don’t get a copy of the
clients tax return and will, then at least have the name of their
accountant and lawyer on your database. If you don’t have this
information, get it. Ask your clients if their happy with their
accountant, lawyer, mortgage person, realtor, etc. If they are then get
the name and let them know that you will contact that professional because
you are always looking for great professionals on your team. Then you have
an opportunity to meet a new professional through your client. The
accountant will want to meet with you because they will not want to upset
their satisfied client, so you now have anew professional to meet. If you
client says they’re not happy with them, then you have a fantastic
referral opportunity to a professional on your team. Either way it is a
win-win.
You can also send out a letter to your clients as a questionnaire and let
them know that you are looking for their best interests in building a
great resource team to help them. If they have a great accountant or
lawyer etc., then you want to hear about them and possible add them to
your list. Eventually other professionals will hear about your team list
and will want to get on the list, especially if you print it and send it
to your clients as a resource.
Most advisors deal with a few professionals, but are frustrated sometimes
by the lack of referrals returned to them. So they either get discouraged
at sending out referrals or try to find a few more centers of influence. I
have found that a lot of advisors are either intimidated or frustrated
with this process. Those advisors usually have less than five people to
refer business to. Why not have a team of 10-20-30 people and have them
complete with the referrals you give out. Make it a rule of thumb that you
try to give out one referral per day. That can add up to a lot of
referrals in one year and only giving them to five people might not be
enough unless you have a partnership arrangement which is fully disclosed
to the client. Some top advisors pay for top clients tax returns as part
of their services and find an accountant who will give a bulk rate on tax
returns.
Look for marketers. Some accountants and centers of influence may like
marketing as much as you and you might find synergies in your marketing.
You will be more likely to get referrals back from a firm that understands
marketing and referrals. You can usually tell if they understand marketing
by their yellow page ad or other materials such as brochures.
Make sure you don’t give the center of influence your business card. They
think that they will sit back and hand out your business card and tell the
client, call this guy because he is a great financial advisor. The client
rarely calls. Instead tell them that if they have a referral for you to
call you with the clients name and number and let the clients know that I
will be calling them. That way the client gets contacted by us instead of
them handing out a business card. I have heard accountants say to me ,' I
handed out a lot of your business cards' did any of them call'? My
response is to scratch them off my list because I never give my business
cards to centers of influence. They must call me with the information.
Sometimes they will also call tow financial advisors to make sure they are
unbiased in their referrals. Remember to teach them how to refer business
to you.
Copyright 2003 By: Jay Conrad Levinson and Grant W. Hicks, C.I.M.,FCSI - Co-author of "Guerrilla
Marketing For Financial Advisors", Trafford Publishing 2003.
You may use these articles in your
marketing, newsletters and web sites as long as you retain the copyright
information at the bottom, including the link to our web
site and inform us where it is being used as well as sending us a copy of
the publication.
Always check with
your compliance office and or branch manager before implementing any
marketing idea. The information does not constitute a recommendation for
the sale or purchase of any securities or insurance. |
