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When someone asks you “what makes you different from other advisors?”, how do you answer that question?
Sure, you’re believe and know for a fact, you’re different in how you think and work.
But at the end of the day, from your prospect’s point of view, an advisor is an advisor, now that the advisory profession has been commoditized.
The question above can catch you off guard and make you feel like you need to actually be different by trying to reinvent the wheel with new offerings.
If you do that, then you have to educate your prospects about how what you have, works.
You have to sell them on how your “difference” makes you better than everybody else, and they have to understand it.
It’s very hard not to lose your prospect with this solution–based sales approach, as it involves a lot of esoteric information that they can’t possibly process, as well as you can.
It’s important to realise that in a commoditised market like advisory, every advisor insists that they’re “different and unique”.
In reality however, your prospect can't judge if you really are different or if your solution really is better than anyone else’s, that’s why some of them challenge you with that question directly.
They’re sick of hearing advisors talk about how they’re different.
To them, you’re not different at all and they’re demanding you to convince them otherwise.
They’re challenging you to justify yourself.
And that can put the sales conversation on an adversarial footing if you don’t know the answer.
Here’s the answer: your differentiation is not based on being different for the sake of being different—it’s based on your ability to solve a unique problem.
When your prospect asks you how you’re different, you would say: “I don’t differentiate by being different, I differentiate by solving unique problems. If you’d be open to sharing with me in detail, the challenges that you have, then we can go from there”.
It’s a simple and elegant response that diffuses the potentially adversarial back and forth that normally happens when a sales conversation begins with this question.
But it isn’t evasive either, it’s the simple truth.
There’s no esoteric solution-based information for them to object to, or need to think about, and most importantly it puts the ball back in their court.
The conversation isn’t about you, it’s about them.
You’re not there to sell anything and deciding if you’re different is totally up to them.
You don’t want to be like other advisors who waste their valuable time educating their prospects and explaining how their services and solutions are unique, when they really aren't.
They’re focused on themselves, before they’ve sufficiently addressed their prospects deepest issues, their approach is “solution-based”.
But not you, you’re focused on understanding your prospect’s problem and assessing whether or not you can solve it—and you’re also assessing whether solving it is a priority, which is a critical element missing from the typical advisor’s process.
This is a totally different conversation from what other advisors are having with their prospects.
In fact, it’s a totally different sales approach, period.
At the end of the day, you’re not “selling” anything.
To learn more about switching from a solution-based sales approach to a problem-centric approach, where you differentiate by how you sell, rather than what you sell, order your complimentary book and consultation below.
Related: How to Position Yourself Not To Lose the Sale
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.