Trending
Sometimes meeting with a potential client for the first time can feel a bit awkward.
You know they have a financial problem and are at least aware of your services, otherwise they wouldn’t be meeting with you.
Yes, there’s still a big gap between where they are and where they need to be, to hire you as their advisor.
Are they tire-kicking?
Are you being shopped?
How much of your time and value do you need to invest for them to trust you?
For most advisors, the goal is simple – prove your value and expertise, that should get them onboard.
That is the linear sales approach taught by the profession for decades.
Sharing your credentials, finding common ground, describing other clients who are like them, etc – is all part of that traditional process.
The issue with this traditional approach it that it doesn’t rear its head until a few days after your meeting, when your prospect who was initially eager to speak with you, stops returning your calls.
Then the clouds clear and it becomes obvious to you that you’ve been “ghosted”.
The blind spot here, often missed, is how your sales process is perceived from the perspective of your potential client.
As an advisor with years of experience, you’re an expert in your field.
Your days are spent crunching numbers, researching the latest trends, and fixing problems for clients they can’t resolve on their own.
It’s what you do.
It’s who you are.
But that’s not them.
They’ve spent little if any time learning about dividends, the intricacies of the market, or how to ensure a solid rate of return.
In their mind, and from their perspective, the only thing that matters is solving their core problems.
Will they have enough to retire? Send their kids to college? Get that boat that they always wanted?.
To them, your solution, your services, and the fact that they even have to hire you (no offense to you) is a means to an end.
That doesn’t make anything you said wrong, it just means that in your haste to prove yourself, you may have missed their real reason for meeting you.
What they’re coming to you for, is not to find out if you can solve their problem.
It’s to find out if you’re the one they can trust to solve it.
They want to feel that you understand them, and be provided with a sense of clarity about their situation they’ve never experienced before.
That means, you need to shift your mindset and change your perspective of what a successful first meeting looks like.
Selling and trust-building require two completely different mindsets and can’t co-exist together.
Selling is all about persuasion, and convincing someone you’re the right choice for them, in your own subtle way.
Trust-building is the art of connecting with your client at a deep emotional level by providing understanding and empathy around their issues.
With trust building, you guide them down a path so they’re clear about their situation, and what caused their problems in the first place.
It’s a diagnostic approach, that doesn’t come from talking about yourself, your credentials, or what you have to offer.
It comes from being present, meeting them where they are and asking to unpack their issues at a deep level -- without an agenda to make the sale.
When you build trust, you don’t have to “close”, pressure, or ever feel uneasy about speaking to a new prospect, because your intention is only to get to the truth.
Once they sense that you generally care about them, they’ll begin to view you as trusted authority they can trust.
The sale happens naturally because you established a foundation of trust from the very beginning.
If you’re open to shifting your mindset, and seeing how trust-based selling can help you onboard new clients in one single meeting, without being “ghosted”, get your complimentary book and consultation below.
Related: Your True Calling: Solving Problems, Not Selling Solutions
Get Ari’s 6 best-selling books for FREE 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 books "Are You Chasing Ghosts", "Trusted Authority" and "Trust In A Split Second" have become instant best-sellers among financial advisors worldwide, get your free books here.