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At a recent conference, an advisor asked about the best way to interact with clients – and also how to get in front of prospects. The answer to that question came from an advisor who used a simple email as a client-communication and lead-generation tool.
Personalized portfolio reviews and one-on-one contact are essential to let clients know how they’re doing and to assure them that their portfolios are holding up – that’s especially true in turbulent markets like we’ve seen of late.
The challenge in times of stress is that given how many clients want to hear from you, trying to reach everyone in person is impractical. And if we’re not careful, the focus on existing clients means we miss the opportunity to reach out to prospects.
It’s here where vehicles that allow you to efficiently reach multiple clients at the same time are effective. Some advisors invite clients to evening town hall meetings, at which they discuss market developments. Others host conference calls for clients, during which the advisor and an outside money manager review where the market stands.
Town halls and conference calls are effective supplements to regular contact, but during market turmoil even these fall short of the frequency of updates that some clients are seeking – and they have limited impact when it comes to prospects.
That’s the appeal of a strategy that one advisor employed in the 2008 to reach both existing and prospective clients – an approach he began using again in the past month.
Offering to send articles and videos
Last month, I wrote about some guidelines for effective client communication during turbulent periods. As part of that, I mentioned an advisor named Robert who I sat down with in September of 2008. A 20-year veteran and a multi-million dollar producer, he talked about accelerating his client contact.
As a result of our conversation, Robert and two associates on his team began calling clients with this offer: “Given what’s happened to markets, we have ramped up the time we spend each week reviewing a variety of the very best sources for new insights. In light of the current uncertainty, I’d be happy to send you articles or video interviews I find especially relevant. Is this something that would be of interest?”
Almost without exception, clients expressed strong interest in getting this information. Then Robert asked a follow-up question:
“And how frequently would you like to get an article or video? I could send these to you once a week, once every two weeks or once a month.”
Most clients responded that they’d like to get these weekly – although some did choose every two weeks or every month. In each case, Robert promised to start sending these emails – and asked clients to call or send an email if they had any questions about the information they received.
Making weekly emails happen
When I met with Robert, I suggested he send out emails on Saturday mornings. There were two reasons for sending these on Saturday - first because clients are more likely to be able to focus on the articles on Saturday, second because of the message this sent that Robert and his team were going the extra mile and not treating the crisis as business as usual.
Robert and his team set out a schedule to make these emails happen. First, they had to select the weekly item to go to clients by end of the day Wednesday. Since Robert worked for a firm where he needed compliance approval on anything he sent clients, his manager agreed that if he received the article or video on Wednesday, approval would follow no later than noon on Friday.
Each weekend, Robert and his team divided up responsibility for reviewing publications like Forbes, Fortune, Bloomberg Business Week, New York Times, the Economist and Financial Times. They also looked at Barron’s and Wall Street Journal, although these were less likely candidates for articles to send clients, since they limit access unless you’re an online subscriber.
Robert and his team also looked for videos they could email clients. They began viewing the PBS interview shows Charlie Rose and Consuelo Mack and also divided up responsibility for checking the schedules on Bloomberg and CNBC for possible videos. Finally, Robert asked contacts at his head office and wholesalers he dealt with to forward articles that could be candidates to send clients.
On Wednesday morning, Robert and his team sat down to review candidates for the Saturday email. Their problem was never finding something to send; it was choosing just one item from among the available options. Once they made their selection, Robert wrote a short note to go along with the article or video that he submitted for approval at the same time as the item itself.
Finally, all clients were divided into three categories for the Saturday morning emails.
For those who chose the weekly option, the email began: “When we spoke, you indicated you’d like to receive an article or video once a week. If you’d like to get this less often, please let me know.”
For clients who opted for bi-weekly emails, their email was headed: “When we spoke, you said you’d like to receive an article or video every two weeks. Please let me know if you’d like to receive this either more often or less often.”
And for clients who picked the monthly alternative, the email said: “When we spoke, you said you’d like to receive an article or video every month. Please let me know if you’d like to receive this more frequently.”
Leveraging client communication with prospects
The response from clients was overwhelmingly positive – several told Robert they looked forward to receiving his Saturday email and mentioned that their friends weren’t getting anything like this.
As a result, Robert began adding a postscript to his email message: “A number of my clients have asked if I could add friends or family members to the distribution list for these emails. Feel free to forward this email to anyone who might be interested – and should your friends wish to start receiving these, have them drop me note and I’d be pleased to add them to the list.”
A few prospects were added to the distribution list as a result of this, but only a few. So Robert and his team did two other things to extend the reach of their weekly emails.
When meeting face-to-face with clients for their reviews, most mentioned the weekly emails. When that happened, whoever was conducting the review would say that many clients had said that their friends weren’t getting anything like this. Then they asked clients to check with anyone they thought might be particularly interested in the Saturday emails and to let them know if their friends would like to receive those emails. To make this easier for clients, the advisor typically suggested three to five names of friends, family or work colleagues; in advance of the meeting, these names were pulled from the “key contacts” section of their client database.
Finally, Robert and his associates put together a list of people who might make good clients. These included accountants and lawyers for existing clients, former clients, prospects they’d met with who hadn’t signed on at the time and people Robert and his associates knew socially, from university or from Robert’s membership on a couple of boards. Even in the face of crazy markets and full schedules with client calls and meetings, at 11:30 on Friday morning, each set aside 30 minutes to call the people on their list, with this offer:
“Given what’s happened to markets, each Saturday I’ve begun sending clients one article or short video from the past week that I’ve found especially useful, from sources like Fortune, the New York Times and the Economist. For example, last week was an interview with the chief economist of the IMF. I’ve had an exceptional response from clients and it occurred to me that you might find these useful as well – If you like I’d be happy to add you to the list.”
Many people quickly said yes. In fact, over a sandwich at lunch afterwards, Robert and his associates compared the number of prospects who’d agreed to receive the emails. Unless he had at least two more new additions to the list than the average of the two associates, Robert paid for lunch – but if he had added two more names to the list than they had, they bought him lunch.
Three months later –after 13 weekly emails – Robert and his associates checked in with the prospective clients. They asked if they were finding the emails helpful – and also if they’d be interested in scheduling a time to review their portfolio. Over a quarter of these calls led to a meeting – with the most common comment being, “I hear much more from you than I do from my own advisor.”
The benefits of weekly contact
Three clear benefits to these weekly emails emerged.
First, retention among existing clients was almost 100%. In a period when most investors were complaining about lack of contact from their advisor, Robert and his team were in front of clients each and every week with an interesting, useful perspective whose content added value and whose source enhanced his credibility.
Second, the emails led to a record number of fruitful meetings with interested prospects, with many of these leading to new accounts. And in the process, Robert’s pipeline of qualified prospects increased significantly, something that he’s still benefiting from today.
Finally, as a result of the time each week reviewing articles and videos for the Saturday email, Robert and his associates felt more confident in their meetings with both existing and prospective clients. That confidence helped keep existing clients calm and inspired interest among prospective clients.
With the success of these weekly emails following the 2008 crisis, you’d think that Robert and his team would have continued to send them.
And you’d be wrong. With the onset of summer vacations in June of 2009 and with a return to better news in the economy and stock market, Robert sent clients an email saying he was suspending those emails, as it appeared that the crisis had passed. He intended to start up again in the fall of 2009 on a less frequent basis – but like so many good intentions never got around to doing this.
With the dire headlines of the past month, Robert had a couple of clients ask if he planned to resume sending out the articles. As a result, in early August he again began sending his Saturday emails – and once again has received an extraordinarily positive response.
In a conversation last week, Robert told me he’d forgotten how much clients liked these articles and videos. “In 20 years in the business,” he said, “nothing has gotten the response of those Saturday morning emails. I’ve told my team that this time we’re sticking to them, regardless of what improvements we see to the economy and stock market. Quite simply, there’s no better way to stay in front of existing and prospective clients.”
Dan Richards is a top-rated presenter at advisor conferences and an award winning instructor in the MBA program at the University of Toronto, as well as author of Getting Clients Keeping Clients: The Essential Guide for Tomorrow’s Financial Advisor. To learn more about his conference keynotes and workshops, email
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