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Two years ago, I purchased a 1984 Porsche 911 Carrera and set about restoring it from the ground up.
Breathing new life into it to make it fully operational has been a journey to say the least, but I’m glad I did it because I learned some valuable lessons along the way.
One of the things I became intimately acquainted with during the restoration process, is the relationship between engine power and torque.
With engines it turns out there’s a rev range in which the engine generates the most amount of wheel turning power (torque), for the amount air and fuel it burns in a cycle.
The purpose of the gears is to keep the engine working within that optimal rev range (also called the “power band”), so as to maximize acceleration power.
You’ll notice this in your own car.
Acceleration builds quickly in the lower gears but as the engine revs past its power band, the rate of acceleration declines and you can’t go any faster unless you shift up to a higher gear.
Eventually in the lower gears, more energy is lost through friction and heat than is transferred to the wheels.
Fuel consumption goes up exponentially also, as well as wear and tear on your engine’s internal components.
A typical torque curve of an engine looks a bit like this...
When I saw this for the first time, I was immediately struck by the parallel to my own sales and marketing engine.
It’s some kind of universal law.
You see, early in the lifespan of your business you’re reliant on bringing in as many leads in as possible to get your business moving forward.
But over time as you begin to look at ways to grow, you encounter a problem that’s pretty much identical to the torque curve above.
Your business doesn’t have the same accelerating power it once had, and simply bringing in more leads or servicing more clients is unsustainable, as you’re already operating at the limit with the volume of clients you have.
What is the missing “high gear” in your your sales and marketing engine that needs to continue generating useful power, rather than just friction and heat?
Well, it’s to do with how you’re uniquely differentiated in your market.
For the hundreds of advisors I coach and mentor, I refer to this unique differentiation as your “trusted authority positioning”.
Without trusted authority positioning, you’re essentially stuck in your market running in low gear.
The general marketing activities that got you moving in the beginning now have you busy chasing prospects over long sales cycles, and essentially providing free consulting in the hope they become your client.
All of this positions you with the majority of other advisors doing the same thing, and as a result, the type of clients you bring in are less than ideal.
Even if you were to increase your market share of these non-ideal clients, the cost and “internal friction” they generate passing through your sales process, would place an unsustainable load on your system.
It’s like driving at 100mph in 3rd gear – there’s just not enough extra free bandwidth to go any faster, and if you push it hard enough it won’t be long before your engine burns up.
But with trusted authority positioning that clearly differentiates you in your market, you’re able to choose your clients rather than chase them.
If you’re an experienced advisor and your sales and marketing engine is working overtime but it’s not transferring enough power to where it’s needed to grow your business, then creating your own trusted authority positioning, is the “upgrade” that will get you to the next level.
Stop burning up fuel and generating heat in the lower gears, doing general marketing activities that only attracts more non-ideal clients and overload your system.
Instead, learn to create and “shift up” to become a Trusted Authority position in your market.
Related: Being a “General Practitioner” Advisor is a Bad Career Choice
Get your Free copy of Ari’s best-selling book "Trust In A Split Second!" here and you’ll also receive a Complimentary Sales and Lead Generation Consultation (value $995.00). Ari Galper is the world’s number one authority on trust-based selling and is the most sought-after high-net-worth new client acquisition expert for financial advisors. His latest book, “Trust In A Split Second!” has become an instant best-seller among financial advisors worldwide.