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Many advisors spend time and money on marketing efforts in hopes of growth. Yet, few have the sales infrastructure and processes to effectively capture, manage and covert leads into clients (and then turn those clients into advocates).
A sales process doesn’t have to be complicated. You likely have an ad hoc system in place. By formalizing your approach – aligning your marketing and sales efforts and resources (technology, data, people, etc.) with an ideal client journey – you can improve outcomes.
Don’t leave your prospect and clients’ experience up to chance. First impressions matter and resources are limited.
I spent years at an RIA and then a fast-growing asset management firm with over 30 sales territories. The best practices that large distributors use to sell are incorporated in this article. You can replicate them in your advisory business.
Before you invest time and money on marketing, ensure you have these five things in place:
- Clear and measurable goals;
- Target audience profiles (be specific);
- Marketing plan – how to best reach and engage your target audience;
- Sales process – what you do once they are in your pipeline to convert them to a client; and
- Client service model – the consistent, ongoing client experience you want to deliver.
Determine your marketing approach
Your goals and prospect profiles should drive your marketing approach. Marketing is meant to increase awareness and engagement with your target audience, and support and validate client relationships.
When looking to grow your marketing efforts, focus on content and tactics that are relevant to drive your ideal targets to take action. No dead ends; always have a call-to-action (CTA) to lead prospects to a deeper level of engagement. Ultimately, your marketing efforts should inspire them to connect with you.
If you’re focused on a referral-based approach, your marketing should reinforce your credibility and value.
Define a sales process
Before you invest resources into marketing, establish a sales process to make the most of the opportunities generated by your marketing efforts.
Your sales process is the key step to move someone from prospect to client. A pipeline is an easy way to break a client’s decision-making journey into a handful of trackable and actionable stages. These stages help you know where a prospect is in their decision-making and what you need to do to progress them to a decision.
There are two steps to establishing a sales process: outlining the stages and implementing the process.
When it comes to pipeline, the simpler the better.
Outlining your pipeline
I like to use the following stages, but you can rename them and add or remove stages as appropriate:
- Qualify;
- Research;
- Implement; and
- Close won or lost.
Outlining your pipeline requires you define what each stage means so your team is aligned when you implement.
For example, “qualify” may require they have a minimum of $500K in investable assets, earning potential, investment and planning needs you can serve, and you want to work with them. “Research” may mean that they have met with you and have acknowledged they need help, and are in the process of deciding how to proceed. “Implement” may mean they have verbally acknowledged they want to work with you but the relationship has not been legally formalized. “Closed won or lost” indicates they are now officially clients (or not).
If you rely on referrals, you may consider adding a target stage before qualify. Target, may be your dream clients and the specific prospects that your existing clients are connected with and may be able to refer. This helps keeps potential referral names top-of-mind.
In addition to clarifying what each stage means, be clear about the key data you need to capture to quantify an opportunity and who owns what in the process. In addition to their stage, track metrics such as the size of the opportunity, when the engagement started, when you expect it to close, who owns the relationship and important notes you may need to reference.
Implementing sales process
Implementing your sales process is easiest when you leverage existing systems. If possible, build your pipeline and processes into your CRM or the tool(s) you use to track and manage relationships.
Many CRMs have pipeline reminders and automations built in. If you can use out-of-the-box functions, that’s the easiest way to get started quickly. Customizing your process in your CRM may require development work. Check with your system(s) and team before creating an elaborate process.
If you don’t have a CRM, use an Excel worksheet or other free tools to track and manage your pipeline.
Establishing expectations by stage, such as length of time between contacts and time from initial engagement, keeps an eye on stagnant opportunities and identifies areas where you may need to refine your process. For example, if it’s been two weeks since you’ve interacted with a prospect at the research stage, use reminders to reach out.
A Pipeline helps you stay focused on the highest priority opportunities, those that have expressed or acknowledged interest in your services. These are the people you and your team should be spending the most business development effort on.
Keep your pipeline visible and focus on it daily.
Build your client service model
Once someone becomes a client, how do you ensure they receive the quality of service and experience you aspire to provide (and they expect)? Clients are often your best source of marketing and growth.
Just like pipeline, define the key stages to progress a client from client to advocate (i.e. trusted and loyal partner, and referral source). A client service model ensures consistent, high-quality service and enables you to delegate and automate – to scale.
Key takeaway
Marketing identifies and attracts new target clients, but alone it’s not enough. The best sales-focused organizations have a sales infrastructure and processes to efficiently manage and deliver consistently excellent experiences to prospects and clients. Aligning your marketing, sales and service efforts help you and your team focus on the right opportunities with clarity around what’s needed to close more business.
Over the past 15 years, I’ve built and implemented sales, marketing and data-driven strategies to grow businesses within financial services, at an RIA group and an asset management firm. Today I work with RIAs, advisory teams and financial professionals who want to unlock their potential. If you’re looking to grow I’d love to help. You can reach me at [email protected] or learn more at www.shaunamace.com.
Read more articles by Shauna Mace
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
