This case study is based on the situation of a client of the Covenant Group. Names and details have been changed to preserve client privacy.

Henry, a successful but somewhat dissatisfied advisor, and I had been working to take his business to a new level. We started with a written statement of the vision he had for his practice for the next five to 10 years — a clear picture in his mind of how big he wanted to become and the “rainmaker” role Henry wanted to play.

From there, we developed a strategy that articulated how he was going to realize that vision, building upon Henry’s value proposition — the unique capabilities he wanted to offer to his chosen market of business owners, senior executives, professionals and their families, as well as retirees.

In our previous session, we agreed that while the emphasis in Henry’s practice would be on internal marketing — directed at existing clients and centres of influence — there would be some external brand-building promotion as well. Henry’s assignment was to choose the specific marketing activities he felt were appropriate for his desired markets, organize them on a calendar and commit to a budget for their implementation.

“This is excellent work!” I congratulated Henry. “You have chosen eight promotional activities, four of them directed at your existing top clients in an effort to obtain introductions to others like themselves. You have proposed periodic reviews of clients’ situations, client appreciation events, educational seminars and a ‘Help a Friend’ program.

“On top of that,” I continued, “you are instituting an ‘Introduce Me to Your Other Professional Advisors’ campaign among all your clients, to develop additional centres of influence in the legal and accounting communities. You have backed all that up with a multi-faceted approach to public and media relations.”

I went on to point out that the effort was underpinned by a revamped Web site, capabilities brochure and a regular e-mail newsletter.

“A number of activities are constantly in motion, such as your newsletter and your PR and media campaigns,” I noted. “You plan to have periodic reviews with four or five of your top clients every month and, hopefully, one or two centre-of-influence meetings monthly. The client appreciation events and seminars are scattered throughout the year so no one will feel they are constantly being bombarded with marketing messages.

“This is a well-thought-out plan, and the budget is within the amount you said you were willing to spend on marketing. You must feel good about this.”

“I do!” Henry said. “For the first time, I feel I have a complete, multi-level program to attract quality prospects to my business at a fair cost. Best of all, most of the ‘heavy lifting,’ so to speak, can be done by other people.

“My team will really enjoy organizing the client events and semi-nars,” Henry continued. “They can also set up the periodic reviews and manage the ‘Help a Friend’ and ‘Introduce Me’ programs. We are outsourcing the capabilities brochure, Web site upgrade and newsletter. I know it won’t work out exactly like this, but it almost seems as if all I have to do is be there for the client and COI meetings, events and seminars, media and PR activities. You know, the Frank Sinatra thing — ‘I don’t move pianos; I just show up and sing’!”

“Sounds great, Henry,” I said. “It seems to me that now all you have to worry about is managing the flood of new opportunities your marketing is going to create.”

“Yeah, having too many prospects would be a real problem,” Henry said mockingly.

“It could be,” I responded, “if you miss some good ones or spend too much time with people who are not going to take your business in the direction you spelled out in your vision. You could end up with a lot of activity that won’t get you where you want to go — unless you have a system for managing your sales pipeline effectively and efficiently. That means knowing who goes in, how long they stay there, how many go in versus how many come out as profile clients, what happens along the way, and so on. Do you have such a pipeline management system?”

@page_break@“Not a formal one,” Henry conceded. “We’ve always just sort of known who was where in our process and what had to be done next. It seemed to work all right.”

“How many candidates do you typically have in your pipeline, Henry?” I asked.

“Oh, I guess there are normally 20 to 25 people at various stages,” he answered.

“That’s similar to most advisors,” I offered. “But the most successful advisors with whom we work have many more — often, 200 to 300. Here’s another question: how long do people typically stay in your pipeline — that is, until they become clients or one of you decides to opt out of the relationship? I know you have prospects you have been working on for a long time, but what’s the average?”

“Probably, a couple of months,” Henry replied.

“Again, that’s a common range among many advisors; however, top advisors typically have people in their pipelines for up to two or three years, and not because they are sitting on so-called ‘china eggs that will never hatch.’ These are bona fide, high-calibre prospects with whom they expect to do business.”

Henry sighed: “I can’t imagine how I would get that many people into my pipeline and keep track of them for that long.”

“That’s because you are thinking like the old Henry,” I suggested. “The new Henry has a marketing program in place to attract qualified people into his pipeline. Let’s consider for a moment who actually goes in.

“First,” I went on, “there are a number of your existing clients who have additional needs you already know about — other assets, expanded insurance coverage, updated planning, and so on. These people should go into your pipeline to be managed like any other prospect. In addition, as you conduct your periodic reviews, you will uncover further needs — and those clients go into the pipeline. Your periodic reviews should also yield a number of qualified introductions and referrals — they go in, as do the new people you meet through your seminars, centres of influence, client events, PR activities, and so on. You also have the people who are already ‘works in progress,’ with whom discussions are not yet completed.”

The challenge, I told Henry, was going to be managing those relationships over time so that the business would flow steadily and almost automatically.

“You won’t get to a couple of hundred or more top-notch prospects in your pipeline overnight,” I said. “But if you have a process that continually deepens and strengthens those relationships over time, and a system for keeping track of where everyone is in the process, you’ll reach that objective.”

“So, what should that process and system look like?” Henry asked.

“That’s up to you, Henry.” I answered. “What do you want the potential client’s experience to be like? Let’s take the example of a referral from a centre of influence. How is the first contact made? What do you say or do to gain their initial confidence? What material do you provide at that time? How often will you ‘touch’ them? How will you do that? What tools, activities and events will you use? What is your ‘offer’ going to be to them as they progress from qualified prospect to client? How will you know what has been done with them and what’s next?

“These steps,” I went on, “should all be outlined in a process that can be consistently applied whenever a new client candidate comes along. You’ll need some sort of a CRM system to keep track. It won’t work perfectly every time. In some situations, you will skip right through to solving their problems. However, in many cases, the better-qualified prospects will be very busy people who need time to appreciate fully your capabilities and build the confidence they need to trust you with their affairs.

“So,” I asked Henry, “what’s your sales process? It’s not the words you use to ‘close’ a sale; it’s the logical sequence of interactions that help both you and your potential client decide if you should work together.Does this all make sense?”

“Of course, it does,” Henry agreed. “My next job is to lay out that process by putting myself in the shoes of a prospect and say how I would like to be treated as my relationship with a financial advisor evolved.”

“I couldn’t have said it better, Henry!” IE



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George Hartman is a coach and
facilitator with the Covenant Group in Toronto. He can be reached at george@covenantgroup.com.