Prospecting, in six steps

If you share this advisor’s determination to make 2015 the year that you build prospecting momentum, here are six key steps to turn that commitment into reality:

– Step 1: Start with value

In a world in which investors are more discerning and have more options, it’s not enough to get in front of prospects. You have to present clearly differentiated value. That’s especially true if you’re targeting high net-worth clients, the market in which competition is the most intense.

By making a commitment to provide exceptional advice, not only will you make a better case to prospects, but client retention will rise and referrals will increase.

– Step 2: Make prospecting a priority

Given immediate demands from existing clients, it’s all too easy to allow your attention to shift away from developing new clients. But remember: even if your clients are happy and you bring up referrals in every meeting, that typically won’t result in enough new clients to bring dramatic growth to your business.

That’s why you need to carve out time in your calendar to focus on new clients. If you’re serious about attracting new clients, you need to reserve half an hour each morning and schedule 90-minute time blocks on two afternoons each week for this activity. (Research shows that 90 minutes is the optimum length of time to work on something before productivity fades.)

And don’t forget to add a section on prospecting status to your Monday morning team meetings. Review the top 20 prospects under development, with a view to identifying articles or newsworthy events that will create an opportunity to get in touch with someone on that list.

You will end up with six hours a week that are focused on attracting new clients. If you aren’t prepared to spend six hours a week on this activity, then you aren’t really serious about bringing new clients on board.

– Step 3: Decide on a time frame

If you want to know what you should be doing to best position yourself to attract new clients three years from now, my answer is very different from what I would say if asked how to attract new clients in the next 12 months. For advisors with patience and a mid-term time frame, there is incontrovertible evidence that the best route is to focus on becoming one of the go-to advisors within a defined client community.

This is not new advice. Any advisor who has been around for a while has heard talks and read articles on becoming a niche specialist. The sad fact is that most advisors lack the discipline to stick to a course of action that doesn’t provide short-term rewards; however, this discipline is what creates the opportunity for advisors who have the mental toughness and patience to persist without seeing an immediate payoff.

Note that shifting your focus to a niche doesn’t mean that you have to be a micro-specialist in orthodontists born in the 1960s. Advisors have built successful practices in broad niches such as medical professionals and retirees. And focusing on a niche doesn’t mean that you have to abandon your existing clients. Most advisors with specialties have made the transition gradually over a period of time.

One option is to split your efforts: employ the 30-minute daily prospecting time blocks for activity focused on generating clients in the near term; and use the two 90-minute afternoon time blocks each week for activity to position yourself for a mid-term payoff.

– Step 4: Build a pipeline

For advisors looking to attract clients today, it’s essential to invest the time and effort to build a pipeline of prospective clients with whom you communicate regularly.

Thirty years ago, advisors would meet with a prospect who had never worked with a financial advisor, and walk away with a clear sense of how successful they had been. Those meetings with prospects were events. The answer wasn’t always “yes,” of course; but at least the feedback tended to be fairly immediate.

Today, attracting new clients increasingly is a process that unfolds over weeks, months and, sometimes, years.

That means that a key determinant of the number of new clients you will land in the next 12 months is the number of prospects you are communicating with already.

One of the keys to building a pipeline of qualified prospects is having a communication catalyst – something of clear, concrete value that you provide to existing clients and that you can offer in conversations with people you know whom you’d like to begin communicating with.

For some advisors, this catalyst is a regular newsletter or video that they write themselves or get from their firm. In other instances, it’s articles or videos from fund companies. And in still other cases, it’s a monthly article from a credible third-party source such as the Wall Street Journal or Fortune magazine.

Even prospects who have been referred to you often will take time to decide. And regular communication while they’re deciding can tip the balance in your favour.

– Step 5: Stand out to prospects

Some advisors believe that when they land a meeting with a prospect, the war has been won. Given the increasing number of clients who solicit multiple referrals and interview multiple advisors, your first meeting is only the first step toward success.

The question becomes how to differentiate yourself and maximize your odds of success when talking to prospects.

The ability to tell a succinct, compelling story has never been more important. You can do everything else right, but not get the full payoff if you fail in this step.

– Step 6: Make it a habit

The final key to prospecting success is to make prospecting an automatic, instinctive part of your daily routine. Research shows that one of the best ways to build a prospecting habit is to start and end each day with simple questions.

At the beginning of each day, write down the answer to the question: “What am I going to do today to attract new clients?” And, before leaving each day, write down the answer to the questions: “What did I do today to attract new clients; and what did I learn from the experience?”

Incorporating these steps into your routine is a big commitment. But do it, and the odds are good that you’ll see more new clients and build prospecting momentum.

Dan Richards is CEO of Clientinsights (www.clientinsights.ca) in Toronto. For more of Dan’s columns and informative videos, visit www.investmentexecutive.com.

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