I have heard richard Weylman speak at industry events and have read his earlier books, so when his most recent book, Opening Closed Doors: Keys to reaching hard-to-reach people, arrived, I put it on the top of my stack of books to read.

Weylman has always presented very practical ideas for selling, which is something that seems to have been lost in the shuffle in the paradigm shift in financial services away from “sales” to “relationship building” to “advice giving” to “life planning.” Selling, in fact, has become an obscenity in the minds of some industry spokespeople. Yet, for advisors who serve the middle market through to the ultra-affluent, enhancing sales skills is frequently high on their list of priorities.

So, I turned to Opening Closed Doors with interest. And there is value — but with a caveat. This text had first been published in 1994! Through the mergers and acquisitions in the publishing industry that have obviously led to McGraw-Hill owning the rights, Weylman’s earlier work, Endless Prospects: 301 tactics to reach hard-to-reach people, has been remarketed under a slightly different name and a shiny new cover.

I fought the urge to dismiss the book immediately and began to wonder if the advice Weylman proffered more than a decade ago has stood the test of time. I am happy to report that it has.

Opening Closed Doors begins by stating: “Although traditional segmentation by demographic or psychographic code gives you insight into market potential and is important for strategic planning, it does a poor job of allowing you to find and build relationships with prospects one-on-one. To market and prospect successfully, you must gain access to people based on how they relate to and interact with one another.”

This advice is followed by a list of tactics for how to implement that segmentation strategy. Tactic No. 1, for example, says: “Divide the market into people who have much in common.”

Jumping ahead to Tactic No. 4, we are told to: “Identify potential groups by the specific products and services your existing customers have purchased.”

And Tactic No. 8 recommends: “Ask your existing customers where you can or should grow.”

Tactic No. 11: “Use the Lifestyle Market Analyst to help identify lifestyle markets.”

(By the time I got to No. 11, I knew I had seen this material before. When there was no reference to the Internet as a source of market data, I flipped to the copyright page at the front of the book. I was disappointed although not too surprised to find that the text had been previously published.)

In addition to the qualifications that your target market be identifiable, have common interests and communication, markets must also be of sufficient size to warrant the attention. Weylman’s Tactic Nos. 15 through No. 21 are all about determining whether your niche market has potential.

Similarly, people make buying decisions based partly on the confidence they have in the salesperson. It is essential, therefore, to build credibility and trust. Tactic Nos. 49 to 56 counsel readers to treat people with respect, be genuine, underpromise and overdeliver, and respect confidentiality in order to demonstrate trustworthiness.

There are almost 40 tactics concerning networking — another best practice consistently employed by high-performing advisors — and a similar number that deal with systematically obtaining referrals, testimonials and working with centres of influence.

All told, they add up to 301 (surprise, surprise!) methodologies for identifying target markets and devising approaches to gain access on a favourable basis.

The book doesn’t really live up to its title in that it doesn’t reveal many “secrets” or “tricks” on how to create whiz-bang marketing messages that automatically open doors or make new best friends of high-profile prospects’ gatekeepers. It does, however, remind us of the need to be thoughtful in our mission to enter a new market, to align our marketing strategies and specific promotional tactics so they appeal to our ideal prospects, and to implement according to a plan that unfolds over an extended period of time. That was wise counsel in 1994, as it is 12 years later.

Note that the author has followed his own advice (Tactic No. 6: “Look for market niches where your products or services could do well”) and, consequently, Opening Closed Doors was not written specifically for the financial services industry. It is clear, however, that Weylman has employed his industry experience to emphasize key points.

@page_break@Substitute “client” for his use of the word “customer” and you’ll get value right away. IE