Blog

Social Capital And The Most Important Story You Will Ever Tell…

As a Financial Advisor, you may not be aware of the most important asset you have available to you.  It’s Social Capital.

The way to understand Social Capital is by thinking about your relationships with your best quality clients.  They trust you with their financial assets.  But do they trust you enough to bring you into their circle by warmly introducing you to the quality people they know, people who are just like them?                                                                                                                      

That’s Social Capital. It leverages your relationships with your best quality clients into warm, personally introduced and endorsed appointments with their quality friends and colleagues.

Social Capital introductions bear no resemblance to standard referrals.  These are high quality introductions from your best quality clients, your best Centers Of Influence. 

So, how do you acquire Social Capital?

The most important marketing story you will ever tell... It’s driven by having a compelling  Remarkable  Marketing Story  (see post – The Bad News. Your Marketing Story May Suck!) that subtly addresses your clients’ Worldview of Financial Advisors and the Financial Industry –  that they are Darth Vader’s working for the Evil Empire.  (see Darth Vader post)

A compelling  Remarkable Marketing Story is what  moves your best quality clients to share your story with their quality circle of friends and colleagues.  It opens the door to consistent high quality personal introductions and high quality appointments on an ongoing basis.

ASKING YOUR BEST CLIENTS FOR PERMISSION TO DISCUSS PERSONAL INTRODUCTIONS IS VERY COMFORTABLE

Almost all of your best clients will give you permission.

These clients have made you their Financial Advisor – they have taken a leap of faith with you. At the same time you feel privileged and grateful because over time you have earned their trust. You protect and nurture it.

When you have your clients’ trust they will give you permission to talk about warm personal introductions, their most important asset. Different from referrals, open permission removes the discomfort and fear of asking – it’s the key to a personal introduction and endorsement. It’s the reward for earning their trust.

Client Centric Business Consulting
 Innovative, Simple, Cost Effective

“The 5 Minute Call” – Create Client Introducers Now

The 5 Minute Call is a simple phone call to the clients you’d like to duplicate, your quality best clients. On this call, most of these clients will agree to meet with you to discuss introducing you to their qualified friends and colleagues… to become Client Introducers.

An Advocate is person who publicly supports or recommends a particular person, cause or policy

This  “call” has a huge impact on business growth because the way you currently conduct business –  freely giving your knowledge and your time – is framed in a new and effect way.

You are conducting your business as you always have – you are simply framing it differently.  It builds a construct for growth  where clients will want to reciprocate and advocate for you. 

Freely giving makes your clients feel good about themselves and about you. As marketing guru, Seth Godin says, “What people want is the extra, emotional bonus they get when they associate with something or someone who makes them feel good. And when people feel good, they are open because they realize you’re a giver, not a taker.”

The world responds to givers.  Because of the way you frame your giving your clients and prospects experience something different about you… something that sets your service and you apart from the rest.

The 5 Minute Call is an essential tool in transforming your best qualified clients into Client Introducers.

If You Want More Quality Appointments, Develop A Remarkable Marketing Story

If you are an Advisor you undoubtedly have a group of best clients. Clients who are friendly, appreciative and cooperative. And they generate great revenue.

Wouldn’t business be easier, more profitable and more fun if these clients regularly and personally introduced you to their qualified friends and colleagues?

Advisors come to us wondering why these best clients will sometimes give a referral name but are not making quality personal introductions. When we ask how many first appointments they’ve had with quality friends of their best clients over the last year or two, the answer generally is “very few”.

The very first thing we look at is their story. Because for starters, if their story isn’t “remarkable”, it really isn’t worth talking about.

A remarkable story is about who you are, not what you do. It’s not about your facts and figures. That’s just the same old talk and it doesn’t stick.

We’ve spoken with countless Financial Advisors whose stories are basically all the same; how their firm is different, where they went to school, the degrees they’ve earned, how great their numbers are, their charitable work, their families. There is nothing about their story that clients feel in their gut.

When you have the right Remarkable Marketing Story, your clients will respond to you far differently. We have found that as soon as an Advisor moves away from their old (read: tedious) marketing story to an effective client centric story – one that has meaning to the listener – everything begins to shift. Their qualified activity goes way up, their confidence goes up, and their revenue upticks.

Developing an effective Remarkable Marketing Story is a deliberate process that shows you understand your market and how to address their predominant worldview… a well documented general distrust of the entire industry, including advisors. (See Darth Vader Post) That’s why puffery works against you.

If your story is not authentic (and you don’t live it every day), your clients and prospects will not be fooled. But when it’s done well, it’s what will make your clients dedicated advocates who want to tell everyone about you. Because they see you as remarkable.

So, ask yourself this question. Do you have a lot of quality warm prospect meetings and first appointments warmly introduced to you by your best clients? If not, take a good, hard look at your story.

Client Centric Business Consulting
Great Marketing Stories

The Bad News – Your Marketing Story May Suck!

Wondering why your quality best clients are not personally introducing you to their quality best friends and colleagues? Wondering why you have so few brand new, warm quality first appointments?

It’s probably because your “Marketing Story” is not worth talking about.

It’s not remarkable!

However, we’ve talked with countless Financial Advisors and for the most part, their marketing stories are basically the same. Their focus is on how their firm is different, where they went to school, the degrees they’ve earned, how great their numbers are, their charitable work, family, et al.  

Quality best clients and prospects don’t see this kind of story as remarkable.

As soon as you move away from your old marketing story to a new more Remarkable Marketing Story, everything changes… because your story is perceived as remarkable. Not only will your clients respond to you, they will also talk about you to their friends and colleagues. You have become more remarkable and quality activity goes way up… consistently.

Developing an effective, more Remarkable Marketing Story is a simple and effective process that shows you understand your market and their predominant Worldview…  distrust of Advisors and the Industry (See Darth Vader Post). Any form of puffery or selling will literally and figuratively slam the door.

Think about it.  If you don’t have a schedule that’s consistently filled with quality prospect meetings and first appointments that are warm and personally introduced to you by your best quality clients, your story probably sucks.

Financial Advisors need an authentic story....

A Great Marketing Story – It’s About Them, Not You

Most people don’t fully trust the Financial Industry or Financial Advisors. (See our “People Don’t Trust You”  post)  This is their Worldview, a bias that focuses on bad experiences, bad news. It makes it extremely difficult for Financial Advisors to get quality prospects and clients to listen and open up.  And yet, most Financial Advisors have received little training to recognize and effectively address this bias.

Successfully addressing this Worldview begins when you craft a Remarkable Marketing Story.  A Remarkable Marketing Story is very different from a garden variety Marketing Story. It is told in a way that focuses on and addresses what’s important to your prospects and your clients – not you. It effectively addresses biases and puts you in sync with your quality best clients and quality prospects.A Great Marketing Story – It’s About Them, Not You

It’s not about your numbers, facts and figures. And it’s not telling them what you think they want to hear. That will just shut them down, they won’t listen.                   

When it’s right you are a standout. When it isn’t, you’re invisible.