Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
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Dear Bev,
Our year ended on a fairly sour note. We had a number of clients who appeared to be very warm and we assumed were going to close by year end. I think the changing political landscape drew attention and many people started to get cold feet about switching advisors or using one for the first time. That said, many of the people seemed very interested and ready. Now that the new year has started we are calling and no one is responding. I don’t know if we are still dealing with holiday fallout but it seems someone should be ready to go. Is there a technique we could use to generate a response? Should we be more or less aggressive?
Steve P.
Dear Steve,
You have encountered the need for what I like to refer to as the art of qualifying! This is an area where even professional salespeople struggle. I have seen this struggle in my experience working with thousands of professional salespeople. There are so many reasons why a seemingly interested prospect goes dark but let me outline just a few:
- You misread their need for information or their apparent enthusiasm as genuine interest.
- You didn’t ask the hard questions to ensure they were ready to make a move.
- The prospect isn’t strong enough on the pain or pleasure continuum to want to do anything.
- The prospect might have already made a decision to work with another advisor and they were just “checking the box” by talking to someone else for comparison sake.
- You did not gain agreement from the prospect which gave them some stake in the process and ensured action on their part.
These, and others, are all too common in any sort of buying interaction. It’s often hard to know what trap you might have fallen into, so let’s look instead at what you could be doing differently to ensure your 2017 doesn’t end on a similarly sour note in 12 months!
Whenever you are dealing with a prospect be sure to ask more questions than you give information. This industry and the advisory process itself is confusing and complicated for many. It’s easy for an advisor to blah, blah and blah some more without knowing whether the prospect is even interested. Be sure to first ask questions like:
- Why are you seeking a financial advisor at this point?
- What kind of information is most important to you?
- How will you evaluate a decision like this?
- What are your top three priorities for choosing an advisor?
Make sure you are asking these kinds of questions because many times a prospect hasn’t even thought about them and if they haven’t thought about them, it could come back to bite you when they are finally asked to make a decision.
Another important thing is when you end the meeting(s), be sure to have a list of to-dos for both you and the prospect. Too often the advisor takes all of the follow-ups and then is left trying to reach the prospect (who, as you have painfully learned, may choose not to respond). In order to gain commitment at each stage, you will want to outline what should happen next and what you need the prospect to do in order to move forward – this could be to research something, send you information, answer a questionnaire, etc. If they aren’t willing to play a role, they probably aren’t engaged in the process.
Lastly, never be afraid to call an audible. There is nothing wrong with saying, “We often have potential clients who are very interested but then when we follow-up, they may struggle to make a decision. I don’t want this to happen to you – I want to ensure you have what you need to decide if our firm is right for you. What’s the best way to work together to ensure I’m communicating so you have the information you need to make the best decision for you and your family?”
Qualifying is most definitely an “art” and like any good craft, it needs to be practiced. Start taking some steps early in the year to bring these opportunities to closure!
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995. In 2008, she co-founded Advisors Trusted Advisor to offer dedicated practice management resources to advisors, planners and wealth managers. In 2016 her firm relaunched the Advisors Sales Academy. She is currently a Lecturer at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate students Leadership & Social Responsibility. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).
She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.
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