Beating a Dead Horse
It is has been stated in many studies about the retirement market that, depending on the study you look at, only 13% of retirees will ever attend a seminar.* This fact has been staring us in the face for years now, and we’ve been ignoring it. We only get a 1% response rate to our mailers (if we’re lucky). People that attend tell us that they have been to 5 or 6 seminars over the last year or so. That means it’s the same small percentage of retirees attending seminars over and over. NO WONDER seminar marketing isn’t working any more.
We’ve been beating that horse to death for years now!
What About the Untouchables?
I’m assuming that you are in the financial industry, so you must have crunched the numbers by now…THAT MEANS WE ARE MISSING THE OTHER 87%! These are the same people that have put their names on the “Do Not Call List.” The same people that throw all of your marketing dollars in the trash every time you do a seminar mailing:
5,000 piece (at most) mailing @ 65 cents per piece = $3,250
Only 50 reserve a spot meaning that 4,950 do not
4,950 * 65 cents = $3,217 of your mailing went right in the GARBAGE
They have completely insulated themselves against you and your message. That’s the bad news….
The good news is they’ve insulated themselves from everyone else too!
Stop Ignoring the 87%!
Why does 87% of the retirement population make themselves untouchable? They don’t want to be bothered. They don’t want to be screwed. And they don’t want to talk to anyone who might do either to them.
They also feel that what they don’t know won’t hurt them. That is why they are such a great market! We can have the biggest impact on them. We can help them fix and achieve things that they never knew were possible! We will be the first people to share concepts that have been around for some time and that we consider basic…but to them they will be eye-opening and extremely impressive.
To us, who are surrounded by everyday conveniences, a microwave may not be impressive…however, what would a 1950’s housewife think if you popped back in time and gave her one? ”It’s a bloody miracle! How does it do that! I need one of these right now! I can’t wait to tell every single person I know about this godsend!”
What those of us that have been relying on workshops or lame lead programs have failed to recognize is that we have the equivalent of the 1950’s housewife staring us in the face and have been ignoring it as a possible market.
If you could sit down with someone that had ignored all “financial messengers” for the past 15 years, do you think they might be surprised and impressed by a few things like…
· A method to increase your clients income by 25% or more
· Techniques to pull money out of their IRA’s without increasing their taxes
· What kind of mess they would be in if they didn’t have a Power of Attorney
· How to reduce their taxes with a bit of financial planning?
· Or, any of your other unique solutions?
Sure, you and I look at these techniques as “old hat,” but to them it is magic. They are impressed and amazed because not only do they not know how to do it…they didn’t even know it was possible. They have never let an advisor in to inform them of these things. They have never been to a seminar to learn these things even exist!
Not only that, but you can actually feed into their natural skepticism by showing them the “tricks of the trade.” When you show a skeptical person how someone was trying to take advantage of them, they are your best buddy for life. It’s now you and them against the world! And you form a bond like you’ve known each other for years. (See the next article… Be the Whistle Blower)