Is your practice built on the 8 Pillars of a Successful Practice? If you are not seeing the kind of success you want from your practice… make sure you have incorporated the following 8 principles into your business successfully:
- Zero in on a Target—You can’t be all things to all people… and if you try to tell people you are… they won’t believe you. Figure out the people that you help better than any other advisor in town—and then really focus on that group of people. Maybe it’s divorced women… or dentists… or teachers… or nurses… whoever it is, dive in and really focus on them. It will pay off in business and referrals.
- Communicate Your Difference–Now that you have picked the group you provide the most value to, let them know why you work with people just like them… in your marketing… on your website… wherever and whenever you can. And, create a killer Elevator Speech that gets those people asking for your help.
If you need help with that… use my free Elevator Speech System that you can download here.
- Make Your Business Memorable—You’ve started to do that with a great Elevator Speech, but what else can you do? Have a “theme” to your business that makes it immediately recognizable. Think Coke and it’s iconic red can. Does all your marketing, website, business cards have a consistent look and theme? Or, is it all over the place?
- Make Sure People Know What They Get With You—In a word…“package” your service. Create a succinct description of each of the items or services someone gets when they come on with you. This would be an example if you worked with nurses:
– Review the hospital’s health insurance plan offered to nurses
– Review and provide recommendations for your hospital pension plans and 403(b) options
– Review all legal documents to ensure all your i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed
– A free (optional) search to make sure you’re getting the most benefits for the least premiums on all your insurance (home, auto, disability, etc.)
– Free College Planning for your children
– Free Social Security planning for your retirement
- Educate… Don’t Market—If you truly are the best advisor for these people… don’t ask them to trust you… instead, PROVE it. How? By creating educational white papers, brochures, blogs, etc. that give them information they can actually use BEFORE they meet with you. That instills trust and trust creates clients.
- Create Your Trifecta—Take some time (and get some help if you need it) to create a three-tiered marketing system.
1st–Create advertising. Use all the things we’ve talked about above
2nd–Create a referral system. I would recommend a combination of the Elevator speech system as mentioned above, as well as a client advisors board. Combining these two systems regularly creates 9 fantastic referrals a quarter… that’s 36 a year!
3rd–Create a public relations system. Constantly communicate with your target market through the media they receive their information from.
- Use All the Tools Available to You—Communicate, communicate, communicate… blog, Instagram, podcast, Tweet, etc. If you don’t know how to do these things, consider hiring a consultant… your teenager.
- Plan, Plan, Plan—Map out your entire year and put it into the calendar. If you don’t put it into the calendar… it’s not going to get done. A productive garden requires constant care. Schedule a time to do all the things we’ve talked about above
