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*Bing*, your phone or computer chimes with a new email notification: “New meeting booked”!
Putting your coffee to one side, you run a quick LinkedIn search on the prospect and up pops their name.
You can’t believe your eyes when you see the long list of associations they belong to and the boards they’ve chaired.
This prospect checks all the boxes of being a high-net-worth client, a whale in the sea of minnows.
The day of the meeting rolls around and you start with:
You: “Hi, nice to meet you, here’s the agenda for today….and at the end of the meeting, we can decide if we are a good fit together.”
Running through your normal discovery meeting formula, the conversation covers a wide range of topics from your prospect’s career history to their eldest child’s recent wedding.
So far so good, you’re building rapport and creating that all important “personal connection” (and it’s easy for you, because you’ve done it a thousand times before).
Then towards the end of the meeting, your dream prospect asks: “So tell me about your services”.
It’s music to your ears, that’s the question that get’s you excited!
You: “Well, we start by looking at all of your financials thoroughly, then we package all of it into a comprehensive financial plan for you to review. Here’s one we just did for a gentleman last week”.
Pulling out an elaborate and beautifully designed financial plan, you spend the next 7 minutes explaining it in detail - risk management strategies that only the most knowledgeable, skilled, and experienced advisor could conceive.
You: “Once you approve the plan, which we’d need to review together in subsequent meetings and of course only after you send or bring us your financials, we then move to transferring your funds to new accounts based on your plan…then we go from there”.
A moment’s pause.
Dream Prospect: “That all sounds very interesting... let me think about it and I’ll get back to you”.
You: “Of course. If you have any questions about what we’ve discussed today or if you’d like more information, please don’t hesitate to give me a call.”
Your dream prospect thanks you and walks out the door. You never hear back from them ever again.
On the face of it, the meeting seemed to go well. You didn’t pressure them or say anything off-putting and they seemed genuinely engaged.
Maybe they just needed some time to digest the information.
But at the same time, you can’t help but feel deeply disappointed.
After all, the plan you showed them, was state of the art, heads and shoulders above anything else you’ve seen any other advisor come up with.
What gives?
The meeting went wrong for one fundamental reason: your prospect has seen it all before.
Specifically, you fell into the predictable pattern that most advisors fall into by:
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Talking about a solution for them prematurely, when they were still sizing up whether they should trust you first
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Not completely integrating your initial planning into your overall “treatment” plan (like a doctor does, being paid for his time, before receiving dispensing medicine)
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Mostly focusing on building rapport, instead of trust building
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Not simplifying, visually, how your process works, so they can feel you won’t “drop the ball”
If you want to de-commoditize your business, you need to jettison the traditional sales behaviours and routines that your peers use.
Otherwise, you’ll be viewed the same as all other advisors and continue to get:
“I need to think about it”.
It’s not your services or solutions your potential clients need to buy into, it’s you and your process.
How?
Your process needs to simplify their problem and show them a clear path to its solution.
If you want some help improving your process so that it has doctor-like simplicity and efficiency, then order the “Trusted Authority” book below and schedule your consultation.
Related: Is Your Intake Process Killing Your Sales Momentum?
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.