Is Your Business Slow?

The financial advisor explained, “I don’t get it.  I used to get 60 people to my seminar and I am doing the exact same thing and now I’m lucky to get 15 people.  I guess seminars don’t work anymore.”

This type of incorrect thinking is common.  The commonly known definition of lunacy is “doing the same thing and expecting to get a different result.”  The new definition of lunacy is “doing the same thing when the environment has changed and expecting to get the same result.”  You won’t get the same result when your prospects think differently, act differently and have their attention in new areas.

It’s a different world than three years ago.  Before the bear market and liquidity crisis of 2008, your prospects lived in a different reality.  My hat’s off to you that you found a way to successfully market and sell in that old environment, which was difficult enough.  But to think that the same tactics will still work, well, that’s lunacy!  The environment is different and your tactics must be different.

Let’s recreate your financial services marketing for current times.  A great marketing and sales program for any financial advisor or insurance agent is the result of accurately defining your prospects’ current concerns.  Their current concerns are:

• I am afraid of losing money
• I am afraid I will die when fanatics gas my neighborhood mall
• I am afraid that the world will never be normal again
• I am afraid that I will never be able to retire
• I am afraid I will get laid off
• I am afraid I will have to support my kids/grandkids

Therefore, when you send the same old “Prepare for a Successful Retirement” seminar invitation and you get three calls, don’t be surprised.  The title needs to be:

“How to Protect What You’ve got and Still Retire Before Old Age”
--the new reality of the stock market—who can you trust?
--mutual funds that have increased in value in the last 36 months
--troubled times—is the rising price of gold an opportunity for you?
--how to re-inflate your dreams for a great college education for your children
--three things to check again to make sure your family is protected against the worst

You’ve got to address CURRENT investor concerns and when you do, the will respond.

Here’s how to keep the pulse of your prospect’s concerns so that you can keep your marketing current:

1.    Listen to your clients—the questions they ask and concerns they have are the same as other like them (same age, situations, etc)
2.    Watch the nightly news and read the daily newspaper.  People are incredibly influenced by the press.  What they see and hear is what they focus upon
3.    Run your own focus group with your target market: put an ad in the paper “Free dinner at Fish House Restaurant to participate in a focus group—people age xx to xx, household income $xxx,xxx.  Provide your opinions re current concerns and financial issues for local financial firm research.

You must focus on a moving target as the public is always influenced by the latest constantly-changing events, so you must know what they’re thinking. If you don’t listen to your marketplace, they won’t listen to you.  And please don't assume you know what they think as we are often incorrect.  The best way to know--ask them.