Develop a mentoring system or a peer
group to develop each other’s business and create your own mastermind
group.
Plan to spend one day each quarter or four to five days per year working
with a peer group. For new advisors a mentoring system is critical to
the first four years in the business. Write a list of top advisors whom
you can develop a peer group with. They may be local or in other cities
across the country. With teleconferencing it is easy to develop a world
class network of advisors to share ideas, give feedback and build ideas
with.
Grant’s Tip: Be the ringleader on this idea. It will pay the most
dividend cheques you have ever seen. Start the group, schedule the calls
or meetings and develop and control the agenda. Then watch all the
answers you have been searching for in business suddenly appear. Not
only will your production go up, but your enjoyment of the business will
go sky high. Instead of listening to the negative attitudes of other
advisors, get with a successful group.
If you are in the developmental
phase of your business and learning everything seems a huge task,
work with a mentor or group of mentors who are willing to share
their time and expertise in helping you find your way. Success
leaves clues, and finding successful advisors in your area or your
company shouldn’t be that difficult. Approach them on a mentoring or
peer grouping basis and you will be sure to find that they are also
willing to learn and grow from the mastermind principle.
This strategy can be developed
in a couple of ways. First, form a peer group amongst associates
in the industry in different cities. Then have a scheduled
conference call each quarter and focus on a couple of topics and
invite a speaker to co-ordinate the call. For example wouldn’t you
like to know more about developing effective seminars. Organize a
conference call and ask a popular speaker in the financial industry
( call me for example ) to host a conference call dealing with
seminars. If the geography or time permits, hold the meetings face
to face and deal with the issues and topics of importance.
A second way to do peer
grouping is also a marketing idea. How about holding a meeting
for successful entrepreneurs on business issues and topics such as
marketing. Invite several successful CEO’s and business owners and
develop a success forum where they can meet on a regular basis and
share ideas. Some advisors have used this method successfully to
attract top business owners as clients. You are seen as the catalyst
for bringing insightful ideas while meeting other successful people
to learn from.
Do your homework and research numbers, bring it to the table of your
peer group.
-
Select the marketing weapons you will
use
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Create a guerilla marketing plan
-
Develop a guerilla marketing white
paper
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Decide the priority order of
launching your marketing
-
Decide in your firm who will be
responsible
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Develop the plan, execute and measure
This is your chance to do an
incredible amount of research and brainstorm an effective plan. Ask
yourself, doing this exercise, will it be worth it? Will you get great
sales and feedback and avoid mistakes? Gain Experience? Absolutely. This
is one major key to your plan so put this on the list of to do’s!
Your peer group will be able to guide your development and grow.
You can gain excellence by assembling this group together.
One final way of establishing a
peer group without doing all of the legwork. Call up your favorite
wholesaler and have them establish a peer group with their top
representatives. They have a chance to sit in and learn and at the
same time and gain valuable feedback to help their business. They
may even gain some referrals by finding out who your peer group is
and network with them. Also, each of the representatives invited get
a chance to possibly meet a new wholesaler and other top
representatives that they can learn from. Your wholesaler will be
delighted to be part of the process and may even cover costs such as
boardroom, printing notes and circulating them as well as lunch!
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.
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