Get the 1st Appointment Right

Your goal for the first appointment is to get a second appointment. First, limit your first meeting to 60 minutes. This will keep you from talking too much. Use your time asfollows:

•First 5 minutes to establish rapport•The next 50 minutes to ask questions•The final 5 minutes to get a commitment for the next appointment.

Second, tell prospects to bring their tax return and investment statements so you can forget about wasting time fact-finding during the appointment.

•Use the appointment for emotional fact-finding. •Use this time to find out how prospects feel about their investments and financial situation. •Ask open-ended questions, such as I see you paid $50,000 in taxes. •Does that irritate you?•How do you feel about having 80% of your portfolio in equities?•Are you worried about the low rates you are getting?

Follow up feeling questions with impact questions:If I could show you how to reduce your taxes in half, how would that impact you?Here’s the point: financial advisors manage relationships—we don’t manage portfolios. Therefore, you must spend most of your time asking about how prospects feel and how changes would impact their lives. You need to know what’s important to them and sell to those issues. If you merely sell to ambiguous goals like “reduce taxes” or “increase income,” without the prospect understanding the impact in their life, you arelikely to hear at the end of the meeting, “I’ll think about it.”Also make sure you know what concerns your prospects by asking:

What questions or concerns would you like to discuss today?It’s as simple as that. And people will come right out and tell you. Carefully write down their hot buttons because you will refer to them often.

Third, don’t sell a “financial plan.” It’s okay if you do a financial plan, just don’t use those words. A financial plan an abstract term to prospects. They don’t want a plan—here’s what they want: To have sufficient funds to send their grandchildren to the best possible college To have financial independence in their later years To have an adequate return so they don’t consume principal

So please don’t end your interview with “I charge $900 to do a “financial plan.” End your interview with: “Mr. Smith, if knowing your grandchildren can go to the best possible schools, having the peace of mind knowing you won’t need to use principal and having financial security in your later years is important to you, I can provide that to you. I can put together the solutions for these issues and that will take 6 hours of time. My rate is $150 and hour. So if knowing your grandchildren can go to the best possible schools, having the peace of mind knowing you won’t need to use principal and having financial security in your later years is worth $900 to you, let’s meet again next Wednesday.”

Prospects can sink their teeth into benefits but they cannot grasp the value of a “financial plan.” You’ll end your first with a commitment that they are serious and eliminate the tire kickers. Because if they do have a problem with a few hundred dollars, you don’t want them as a client.

By the way, you must charge fees for your time if you want to be taken seriously. To charge fees, you need to become an RIA and you can find more details at www.registered-investment-advisor.com

What to Do at Second MeetingReview the concerns that your prospects had expressed at the first appointment. Be sure to repeat their words accurately. Next, un-sell their current investments.If you skip this step, you will have a harder time closing. Your prospects have a “loyalty” to their current investments, even if they perform poorly. You’ve heard the saying, “The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know.” You must show prospects why they should release their current investments before you present your recommendations.Most investors own mutual funds. Print a Morningstar report on each one. Show prospects how their fund compares to the market and similar funds. Ask if they think they should still keep that investment.

whether their advisor told them about high portfolio turnover and expenses. After you do this two or three times, their resistance to sever the relationship with their current advisor will disappear.Next, create an opening for your recommendations by picking up the sell pile.You: You’re probably wondering what we should do with all this cash.Prospects: Yeah, yeah, what are we going to do with it?You: Well, let me show you.You have their attention and they are ready to accept your recommendations.Show your recommendations and tie each one to a benefit that they said they wanted. Close with: If this makes sense to you, then here’s all we need to do…

Why You Lose Sales?

Presenting solutions too early

Not asking enough questions – shooting in the dark

Not asking feeling and impact questions

Guessing

Having a “product” agenda rather than a “client” agenda

Pick the Right Prospects

The right prospects are people who come to you because they made the first move. Realize that the way you prospect will determine how easy it is to close people. For example, prospects that attend a seminar from an invitation in the mail have made the first move. They actually put forth the effort by coming to the seminar. If you put an ad in the newspaper and they call for the free booklet, they made the first move. If you sent out some direct mail and they respond to it, they made the first move.

On the other hand, prospects you get by cold calling will be harder to close because you made the first move. They weren’t the ones who expressed the interest; you went after them.

You can’t be all things to all people, so don’t try. You can only work one target market for maximum success. If you want a higher closing ratio, you need to understand how prospects think. Pick a target market, focus on it, and you’ll find that your closing ratio goes up because you’ll become more masterful with the same group of people.

To see details on marketing systems that employ these strategies, see www.javelinmarketing.com