The solution to finding new clients is not yelling louder. You are surrounded by hundreds of people that can use your skills. If they would just listen to you. BUT, they aren’t listening. By applying the 5Q™ process to your practice, you will be able to come up with a unique marketing magnet to effectively bring in the highest quality prospect in the most cost effective manner possible.

The 5Q™ process offers some real benefits no matter the experience or maturity of the professionalor their practice:

-Simplicity—It is easy to use and can be accomplished in as little as 15 minutes.
-Effective—It truly helps to quickly separate your message from those of your competitors and attracts the exact type of client you want for your business.
-Comprehensive—It is a tool that you can use in any number of marketing methods from direct mail to seminars to networking.
-Flexible—It works with any type of practice—whether estate planning, college-funding, 401(k) rollover—whatever the business or type of client you are seeking. 5Q™ will
work to get that client in your door.
-Engaging—By its very nature, it fosters a team spirit between you, your team and your client base.
-Inexpensive—You can either do it yourself for free or many organizations now have consultants trained and certified in the 5Q™ process. Some of these organizations offer
their help to you for free as a way to introduce you to other various offers.

If you would like a Free copy of the my white paper where I will walk you through creating your own killer marketing message using the 5Q™ process… Simply email me at mikekaselnak@5Qgroup.com.

Using the 5Q process to create Your Own Tailor Made Marketing Message is Guaranteed to Immediately Add Jet Fuel to Your Marketing. You’ll Be Able to Start Creating Clients From Places You Never Dreamed of! Oh, and by the way, your referrals will go through the roof!

Why NOT being better than your competition can fill your calendar
The 5 Key Marketing strategies of the nation’s top Advertisers… and how you can use them to grow your business
Why showing clients how smart you are actually torpedoes your business
How to give your marketing message the edge that cuts through a client’s busy day and gets them to take action

You can get your free copy by telling me where to email it to the right of this column. Courtesy of me!

If you are good with a guitar or can carry a tune (or this even works better if you are the lousiest singer in the world!). Record a video singing Happy Birthday to your client and then send it to your client via email on their birthday.

I guarantee you that they will pass it along several times! I know one professional doing this has said that they have received more referrals since starting this special practice than they got in their entire career before doing it!

Being a bad singer actually helps the video get passed along… and if you can swallow your pride and laugh at yourself, you’ve just identified yourself as an advisor they can trust. Think about it… and then do it!

The biggest mistake most advisors make in marketing is focusing on the wrong place first. When marketing, most advisors go after new people first while ignoring the diamonds they have in their own back yard. We’ll talk about prospecting next week…right now; let’s talk about guaranteed new business:

Here’s a simple way to generate new business fast and continually:

1.  First do an assessment of your marketing—If you do not know these numbers, I guarantee you that your marketing sucks.

1. How well are you doing?
2. How many clients do you have?
3. How many did you bring on last year
4. What was their average case size?
5. How many sources did they come from? (Referrals, seminars, lead generations, etc.)
6. How many clients did you lose last year?

2.  Begin with your clients—Marketing costs money. Your clients are your best source for finding new money quickly. Find a new product or concept that you have never shown your clients…it may be a tax saving device or a new way to generate income…whatever…schedule an appointment with all your clients and review the concept. You’ll be surprised at how much it generates.

3.  Retention—Doing #2 will automatically help with your retention. Many advisors I’ve talked to tell me that they do not have a problem with retention. When we look closer at their practices, what we find is that many clients have not left them BUT they have brought on a different advisor to handle new money…that is one step from losing a client totally.

4.  Update your CRM or Database—Almost every advisor I see making less than $100,000 does not have a good database…and they don’t realize that if not the problem, it certainly is a symptom of the problem. They are not treating their business like a business. Get a good data base, whether ACT or Goldmine or whatever and USE IT! A great database is like a money machine! (We’ll talk about that in future emails)…If you have a database, do you?:

1. Add notes about not just financial but personal things that you can utilize in the future to build rapport?
2. Enter all future call backs and meetings so that nothing gets dropped?
3. Have a field for employment status? This allows you to target market…retirees, pre-retirees, people that work at a particular employer, teachers, nurses, etc.
4. Update client objectives? This again allows you to target market or generate new business by adjusting portfolios to new products that match any changes in investment objectives.
5. Update the kinds of investments your clients have? Again target marketing. If there is a change in interest rates, the economy or something in the news, you can rapidly get hold of the right people to assist with their portfolio adjustments.
6. Ask about investments they hold elsewhere? Oh my gosh, the least asked question that can yield huge amounts of new money.
7. Do you send out handwritten “Call Me” notes on a regular basis to get clients that want communication to effectively raise their hand?
8. Do you monitor those special dates for you clients so that you can schedule special meetings? 70 ½…62…65…These are dates when their benefits and incomes can change drastically. Change is a catalyst for more change. Take advantage of it!

Next week will spend more time on prospecting for new clients…AFTER you get your house in order with a system to mine the diamonds that are in your backyard right now.

So we actually have to take someone that is skeptical and help them towards wanting to talk to you. How?

First, we have to realize the old sales adage:

They don’t care how much you know…until they know how much you care.

How do we show that we care? How do we show our friends or family that we care? We contact them right? Well the easiest way to contact them is with a phone call right? But you can only make 20 or 30 calls an hour and you can only make that many because you are going to get the answering machine most of the time.

Plus by the end of the day you are going to be sick and tired of calling and you’ll be ready for the funny farm by the end of the week.

What’s the alternative? Very focused…Very personal direct mail. If you do it right, you can have a conversation with 1000’s of people in just one week. Try that with phone calls!

How do you do it right?

1. Make it sound personal—send a targeted message to the prospect or client. If they are retired make sure the message has something to do with retirement issues. Or make it even better by targeting even more precisely…address it to the woman and make it about retirement issues for women…Or make it better yet by targeting even further…address it to the woman who retired from a teaching job…IF YOU GET IT DOWN THIS FAR…YOU’LL BLOW THE DOORS OFF YOUR PREVIOUS LEAD GENERATION!
2. Make it look personal—send your message in a manner that ensures them that you care about them as an individual…send it handwritten. It takes time and effort to write a handwritten note…when you spend time and effort on someone they know that you care.
3. Get it Read—The best message in the world is worthless if nobody hears it. You must make sure that your direct mail gets read. There is only one way that I know that guarantees your direct mail will be read. 100% of handwritten notes get read. There is something magical about a handwritten note, you can’t throw it without first reading it.

When you follow the 3 suggestions above, you are going to see huge returns on investment as Bruce E. did last month.

There are two kinds of people that advisors are interested in…clients and prospects. You need to understand how both of them think in order to create a trusting relationship.

Fortunately, they both want to be treated almost identically. So if you understand what they are thinking, you are well on your way to a greater number of referrals and clients.

A recent study confirms Seniors wants

A recent Forrester research study found that Retirees want 3 things from a relationship with their financial professional:

1. They want to understand vs. being told what to do. They want an advisor that will take the time to ensure they fully understand something before being asked to sign on the dotted line.
2. They want to feel confident that the advisor is there for them and is going to put their concerns and needs ahead of the advisors.
3. Frequency of Contact—You need to contact them frequently. A CEG Worldwide showed the optimum number of contacts to be about 2 a month. That is with phone, mail or in person. Obviously, most clients don’t want to meet one-on-one monthly so most of the contacts should be via mail and phone.

Many advisors wonder what they could possible talk to their clients about 2 times a month. The first thing you should keep in mind is that the contact does not and should not be about their money. If the only thing you talk about is their money then they are going to assume the only thing you care about is their money. The CEG Worldwide study showed that the contact should mostly be about non-financial things.

Non-financial! What the heck is that all about? It’s about showing that you care about them as individuals. That you care more about them then just their money. Many advisors think this is unprofessional. I guarantee you, it is TRULY professional.

Whenever we work with a professional, a doctor for instance, we want to make sure that they care about us. We assume that they are professional or they wouldn’t have a license, what we don’t know is if they care about us.

One of the easiest ways to demonstrate that you care about someone is with contact. When you first started dating and liked someone, how often did you want to see them? If you love your wife or child, how often do you want to physically touch them? Contact is something we all crave from those that care about us.

Referrals will follow

When you look at the practice of a top producer, a producer that has a lot of money under management, you will see a producer that knows the value of contact. Contact:

• Lowers the clients likelihood to become upset or dissatisfied—making the advisor’s practice much more time efficient. It takes much less time to contact someone with 10 friendly contacts than to handle just one complaint.
• Increases your client’s likelihood of giving you additional money
• Increase the likelihood that your clients will give you referrals
• Increases the likelihood that the children of your clients will keep the assets with you at your client’s death

Contact is one of the easiest things we can do to grow our practices and sadly, one of the most ignored. Do it. Do it now. Set up a contact schedule for your clients and hot prospects and watch your practice grow and your workload shrink.

Doctors are told to spend less time with each patient so that the hospital can make more money.  Be faster!  That’s not what the patient wants.

The customer support person on the phone when I’m trying to get a fouled up airline ticket fixed is told to hurry up!  There are more people that need help.  That’s not what I want.

A husband is impatient with his wife to get to the point or to get ready to go.  He’s got things to do!  That’s not what his wife wants.

Emails, faxes, the internet, credit cards, ATMs, drive-thru’s…everything is designed to hustle things up!  That can be good thing or a bad thing depending on what the person receiving the treatment wants.

Let me ask you a question.  How many of your clients want to be treated in a rushed fashion?  How many of them want you to hurry them through transactions and decisions?

Not a very big percentage is it?

In any profession, it may seem like the best policy is to communicate as fast and efficiently as possible, and there are certainly times that is the best policy.  However, when it comes to the overall perception we want our clients to have of us, fast and efficient can seem very cold.

Health, money, family, any of these things require the professional to slow down to show that they care about the person as much as the “ailment.”

Using fast, efficient communication can actually backfire on a professional.  Instead of being perceived as great service, it can be construed as cold and uncaring.  You need to really foster the message of caring in your communications with your clients and prospects.

How can you do that?

The handwritten note and the phone call are really the two best ways.  Given a choice between those two choices, the handwritten note is better most times because it conveys even more caring and effort needed to produce it.

I think any professional that has been around for awhile understands the power of the handwritten note but for many they are at a loss for what to put into a handwritten note.

Here are some ideas on how use your handwritten notes to create a practice where people know that you care and thus feel the need to refer to you:

1. Say thank you as often as you can.  Thanks for coming in.  Thanks for the trust you put in me.  Thanks for sharing what was happening in your life when we got together last week.  Anything and everything.  People loved to be thanked!
2. Follow-up on any meeting.  If you just happen to bump into someone. Send them a note letting them know you enjoyed seeing them and you’ll have them eating out of your hand the next time you do see them.  Send a note after a formal meeting noting 1 or 2 of the top things covered.  Follow-up with your accountant after he does your taxes with a handwritten note and you will have begun a whole different dynamic between the two of you.
3. Remember client anniversaries, wedding anniversaries, and birthdays.
4. Send a card to let them know you remember what is going on in their lives.  A note sent after their vacation hoping they had a good time.  A note celebrating the baptism of their grandchild if they brought it up at your meeting.  A note letting them know you though of them after the big storm last night.
5. Send them a note about nothing or with a little joke or riddle to tickle them.
6. Send them a note about a special meeting you are having or a lunch that you are hosting.  Invite them and suggest they bring friends.
7. The more that you send and the more personal you make it…the more success you will see.

I used to send 250 cards a week.  It took me 6 hours a week to write them but it was worth it.  Before I started writing cards I had spend about 6 years as a financial advisor and I had never made more than $50,000.

The year after I started writing handwritten notes, my income shot up to over $900,000 that year.  It works.

I know of nobody that is getting 3 or 4 referrals month in and month out.  Why?

We’ll talk about clients on another blog.  Let’s talk about CPA’s and attorney’s today.

Do You have a system to get Professionals to refer to you?

Oh sure, we would maybe take a CPA out to lunch or refer a client or two to an estate planning attorney, in the hopes that they would reciprocate and refer back. However, most advisors do not set up the same type of systematic marketing for professionals that they do for the public with seminars, lead programs, and advertisements.

Smart financial advisors everywhere are beginning to realize the advantages of leveraging referrals from CPAs and attorneys.  As an industry, we have allowed them to take advantage of us for years.  We have in good faith referred our clients out for tax preparation and legal work.  We have ushered client after client out our door and into theirs.  We have become their main source of referrals and income.  In fact, many CPAs and attorneys would find their income cut in half if it wasn’t for referrals provided to them by Financial Advisors.

Yet, how often do we see referrals back to us?  Rarely.  Up to this point all we have done is whined about the unfairness of it all.  Enough is enough.  Clients regularly ask their CPAs for the name of a good financial advisor and so do attorney’s clients.  Do they recommend us?  Rarely.

Why don’t CPAs and attorneys want to refer to us?

They give us all sorts of reasons why they don’t refer.

• I’m not comfortable
• You are just one of the many advisors that refer to me and I don’t want to bite the hand that feeds me
• It doesn’t come up
• I will next time
• And on and on

I believe the reasons they don’t refer back to us is different for CPAs than it is for attorneys.  Of course, I am making general assumptions here, but hear me out.

CPAs have big hearts

I know that we think of CPAs as being these robotic, wooden humans that are void of emotions but think about it.  CPAs protect their clients.  They are almost like mother hens sheltering their broods from the big bad world.  They do not want anything to hurt their clients.  This is to be applauded.

Unfortunately, many CPAs are not really familiar with what we do for our clients. Since unfamiliarity breeds mistrust, they feel the best way to protect their clients is to recommend for their clients to stay the course…to do nothing.

Yes, maybe our suggestion could save their client taxes…but it might lose them money.  Yes, maybe our solution is beautiful to us but it is foreign to them.  Yes, we MAY want to help their clients BUT they REALLY want to help them.

It is much more difficult to get into trouble by doing nothing than doing something (as financial advisors, we know the trouble people get into by doing nothing:  Paying too much in taxes.  Not growing their money enough.  Or trying to grow the money too fast and having a portfolio that is too aggressive during a market correction.)

However, to an accountant, we all look like money grubbing salespeople that want to get at their clients wallets to fatten our own bank accounts.  They know that a few of us are good but why take the risk.  So, just like we tell our kids, they tell their clients, “Just say no,” to whatever that financial advisor recommends.  And God forbid that they would put their clients into the lion’s den by recommending their clients come see us!

Attorneys have big egos

No surprise to most of you.  Attorneys always have to be right.  They have to be the center of attention.  Their egos have to be fed.  If you know an attorney, you know that they know everything about everything and would never stoop to having to ask for help from a mere mortal, like a financial advisor.  They feel perfectly qualified to give their clients advice on any subject from law to heart surgery to car mechanics to financial planning.

Need I say more?

Same solution works for both problems
So CPAs don’t trust us and attorneys think it is beneath them to refer to us.  Two different problems but luckily the same solution works for both problems.  In Dr. Cialdini’s book Influence: Science and Practice, he breaks influence down into 6 principles.

Cialdini and Ethical Influence

Utilizing a simple combination of five of those principles is what works.

Reciprocation – You then me, then you, then me…Be the first to give:

1. Service
2. Information
3. Concessions

Authority – Showing knowing…Establish position through:

1. Professionalism
2. Industry knowledge
3. Your credentials
4. Admitting weaknesses first

Consistency – The starting point…Start:

1. Small and build
2. With existing commitments
3. From public positions
4. Once you start, deliver on time, every time

Liking – Making friends to influence people…Uncover:

1. Similarities
2. Areas for genuine compliments
3. Opportunities for cooperation

Consensus – People proof, people power…Unleash people power by showing:

1. Responses of many others
2. Other’s past successes
3. Testimonials of similar others

Build a referral machine
First, what is a machine? It is a device that modifies energy to perform or assist in the performance of a repetitive task.  Another definition is a device for overcoming resistance at one point by applying force at some other point.  Both of these concepts work well with how to get referrals from other professionals when combined with Dr. Cialdini’s Principles of Influence.

For years we have known the value of dripping on our clients and prospects with newsletters, phone calls and other methods.  It is a testament to how well this has worked that more and more entities use these tools.

Have you ever considered a drip program for CPAs and attorneys?  Not simply sending them the same thing you send your prospects and clients!  That does not make them feel special.  If you try to use your client/prospect drip on them it simply seems like you added them as an afterthought…that you don’t even look at them as professionals but just as some other sucker.

Feed Their Need!

By creating a systematized drip designed specifically for CPAs or attorneys you will give them both what they need.

You will give CPA’s the information they need to determine that you will not hurt their clients…that you only want to help.  By having a specialized drip program that leverages all of Dr. Cialdini’s principles, you will effectively influence accountants to begin to refer to you.  What should your CPA drip system include?

• Reciprocation – Give them information about the financial industry that can make their job easier.  Not product information but how different tax laws are affecting investments, easier ways to get 1099′s at the end of the year, resources they may not have heard about. Give them heads up about financial scams to look for, etc.  Give them success stories about happy clients.  And give them referrals.
• Authority – By doing the above it will also show them that you are a person that knows what’s going on and that they could count on if they have an investment related question.
• Consistency – By doing these things in a consistent manner, monthly or bi-weekly, they will see that you are here to stay and are reliable (HUGE issue with accountants.)
• Liking – By including things about your family and your activity in the charitable arena they will begin to know you and your values.  They will start to feel like they know you as a friend.

You will give attorneys the information they need to feel important and to feed their ego…

• Reciprocation – Always genuinely compliment them.  Mention other attorneys that have done a great job for your clients. Make them stars. Also, give them information about the financial industry that can make their job easier. Not product information but how different estate laws are affecting investments, information on Medicare or LTC as it applies to legal advice, issues that may affect their clients, etc.  Give them success stories about happy clients.  And give them referrals.
• Authority – By doing the above, it will also show them that you are a person that knows what’s going on and that they could count on you if they have an investment related question. This is important to them so that they can have all the answers for their clients.
• Scarcity – By mentioning attorneys that have done a great job, it will make other attorneys want to be mentioned as well…did we talk about egos earlier?
• Consistency – By doing these things in a consistent manner, monthly or bi-weekly, they will see that you are here to stay and are reliable.
• Liking – By including things about your family and your activity in the charitable arena they will begin to know you and your values.  They will start to feel like they know you as a friend…and with attorneys it’s all about who knows who.

Does This Really Work?

Nope. Because nobody does it.  Yep.  Because nobody does it. I take that back.  I coach 150 of the top financial planners in the country.  These guys are easily in the top 5% in income for advisors.  How many of them take the time and effort to create and utilize these professional drip systems?  Two, even with me yelling at them monthly to do it!

These two have had terrific success with it.  They have had attorneys that they have been referring to for over 10 year without a single referral back hand over 10 referrals in a week within a month of using a professional drip system.

They have gone from being just another broker to someone that is respected and known and invited to speak at their gatherings.

They have gone from relying on the old methods of seminars, leads and ads to getting highly qualified and pre-sold prospects (I hope you already know that when an attorney or CPA refers their client, you have a 99.9% chance of getting the deal.)

Do it?

You know that this works. Why aren’t you doing it?  Too hard? Haven’t considered it before?  Don’t know how? No one else is doing it.  You have a once in a lifetime opportunity to get a strangle hold on the professionals in your town. Don’t blow it.

Few people in the financial industry go after professional referrals aggressively which is baffling.  If you asked 100 advisors in what manner they would like new people to come to see them…99 would say referred from an accountant or attorney.

Yes it takes some time to come up with a drip system skewed towards them but don’t you agree its worth it?  Sit down and think about the Principles of Influence and how you could incorporate them into regular scheduled contacts with targeted professionals in your community.  The time spent will put hundreds of thousands into your pockets.

What to Do Next

Don’t let all of the everyday hassles we all face in the financial industry everyday keep your from getting started on the above information today.  Remember the difference between urgent and important.  It is the important things like putting client acquisition strategies in place that will ensure your profitable practice…not answering the phone that is ringing on your desk right now. 

Another indicator of advisors’ troubles with marketing is expectations:

• 52% of advisors expect 20 new clients from marketing of $1,000 to $2,000
• Only 17% of advisors would consider an investment of $1,000 to $2,000 a success if it garnered less than 11 new clients

Excuse me as I begin my tirade… ARE THEY FRIGGIN’ CRAZY!!!!!!!!!

What is the average commission on a new client?  Geez!  Even a $25,000 investment at 4% is $1,000.  And I hope most of you aren’t accepting clients with less than $25,000 minimums or you have more problems than marketing.

If you brought in two crappy $25,000 accounts you’ve made $2,000.  On a $1,000 marketing investment…now for you financial professionals out there…what kind of return is that on investment?

100%.  How long did it take you to get it?  A month (at most).

Again, you financial professionals out there…what is the annual compounded return on a 100% per month?  That number is too high for me to calculate.  Anybody able to give it to me?

How much would you invest in an investment with that kind of return?  I’d mortgage my house! Heck, I’d mortgage my mother’s house!

And yet, only 17% of advisors would think a $1,000 investment in marketing yielding 11 new clients is a success:

11 crappy $25,000 accounts at 4% commission = $11,000 in commission

$1,000 marketing investment returns AT A MINIMUM $11,000 in commission and only 17% of advisors would think that is a successful marketing campaign.

With the math and investment skills of the remaining 83% that didn’t think that was successful…it would be safe to say, I would choose one of those 17% as my financial advisor.

Guys and gals, you do the math on your clients’ investment accounts.  Why not do it on your own investment…MARKETING!

If you invest $100 and you make back $140 in a month, what should you do?  Take the $140 and reinvest and make $196…then $274…then $383…then $537…$751 just 6 months later.  Take something that is working and keep investing more in it!

Marketing only costs you money when you make less than you spent.  Otherwise, invest…invest…invest!

Which are you? If you are one of the 1% willing to take action then you’ll be able to double your business in a year with this idea.

First put together a list of all your “A” and “B” clients.  Then get a cross directory (a list of people by address).  You can either buy it (www.coleinformation.com) or get it at your local library.  Then each time you meet your clients for their annual review ask them if they would do you a favor.

Pull out a postcard that you have already printed up with verbiage similar to the one below.  Let them know that you would like to send it to their neighbors and ask if they would be OK with it?  I know that the guys that have tried this, NEVER had someone say no.

Example postcard verbiage:

Do these names ring a bell?   <Your Client’s name>  <Your Client’s address>

They are your neighbors and they heard that we were doing all the things that other advisors forget to do!  At first they thought, “What things?  We’ve got all our financial concerns covered!”  Ooops! Contrary to their attorney, CPA and financial advisor’s assurances, they found out that they were missing important documents that these professionals had never discussed with them.  They had not protected themselves from ID theft and their professionals had missed over a dozen important details that could have caused major problems for them or their family.  In one short visit we filled all these gaps and they left happy, sure that now their finances truly were in order.

As our way to introduce ourselves, we would like to send you our “Financial Survivor’s Guide” that is a comprehensive guide for you, your spouse and your family should anything ever happen to you.  Call right now for your free, no obligation guide, on us!  You and your family will be glad that you did!

How hard is it to just ask your clients this simple question at your annual meetings?

What do you get?

About 1 in 4 cards that you send out will call you for the free guide which costs you about a buck to mail to them.  You then simply continue to drip on them with handwritten cards or invite them to your next seminar.

It’s not a matter of “if” they’ll become a client but instead, “when” they become a client.