When I have a phone consultation with an individual or couple, and I ask, “What do you think the value would be for you to have a complete Financial Road Map®?” They often give an answer that sounds more like the benefit they would get from having a complete financial *plan* (not just a Roadmap). Should I say, “That sounds like a benefit you would get from having a complete plan? What would be the value to having just a Financial Road Map®?” Or should I just let it go?
Is there much of a difference? I suppose I would have to hear what they say exactly. My gut feel is that they are saying something positive about getting their financial house in order and that’s a good thing.
I recently conducted a Phone Consultation™ and it went well. However, when I asked "What do you think the value would be for you and your wife to have a complete Financial Road Map® that you build together? He replied "Well If I did not have an Advisor and have a plan, I could see value in it". I continued to offer to complete the Financial Road Map® for them (following the script) but he said "he would not want to waste my time since he already had an Advisor for 20 years that he was happy with" I let him know it would not be waste of my time if I could do something good for them; and it could only enhance the relationship with their current Advisor. He declined but thanked me. What could I have done differently?
Sometimes I think we work too hard trying to figure out how to get people to say yes to our offers. The bottom line is that in the process of getting clients, whether via Values-Based Financial Planning™ or some other method, people are going to say no. Accept it. The reason why they say no is irrelevant. No is no. In your journey to build your Ideal Client Community with Values-Based Financial Planning™ you might distribute 1,000 Values-Based Financial Planning™ books, thousands of Values-Based Quality of Life Newsletters™, and conduct hundreds and hundreds of Financial Road Map Interviews™. Trust the process and enjoy the fact that even for the many people who don’t ultimately become Ideal Clients there is the possibility, even the probability, that many of them got value even though they did not become clients. If in a year or two or three you will have a complete Ideal Client Community of people you truly enjoy helping to achieve their goals and fulfill their values. This...
I had a Phone Consultation™ and offered to have the prospect and his wife come in to complete their Financial Road Map®. He would not commit to a tentative appointment and wanted to discuss with his wife and think about it. How long would you wait to follow-up to see if they want to go ahead with their Financial Road Map® at our office?
Eliminate all follow-up from your life by scheduling a phone appointment. Get in the habit of doing everything by appointment.
I ask a prospect to bring in their documents and they state that they have a really detailed spreadsheet with everything on it.
What is a quick and easy response to help the individual understand why I need their documents and NOT a summary of numbers?
Documents are to financial planning what teeth are to dentistry. For the same reason that a person who is serious about their dental health brings their teeth to the dentist, a person who is serious about their financial health brings their financial documents to the meeting with the Financial Advisor. You can’t do your job unless they bring their docs. It is in their best interest to bring the documents. Tell the truth about this and the people you really want to meet with will schedule an appointment with you, gather their documents, and show up to their meeting with you prepared to meet with a real financial professional.
After a good telephone appointment with the husband we arranged to speak a couple of days later at a specific time once he shared his experience with his wife. When we spoke he mentioned that his wife did not believe there would be much value in meeting since they already had a financial advisor. Would it be appropriate to suggest that I offer to walk his wife through the same experience or do I professionally accept their decline to receive the gift of doing the face-to-face Financial Road Map®?
Offer to conduct the phone consultation with his wife, allowing her to have an experience similar to his before deciding that she isn’t willing to meet with you. Remember, the Financial Road Map® is not just about money: it’s about the future, setting goals and determining what’s important to them so they have a higher probability of actually living the life they want.
Would you go through some of your thought processes as you decide whether or not to introduce the Quality of Life Enhancer Exercise® during the Phone Consultation™?
If the potential client seems to have gotten benefit from the Values Conversation™ but is not still sure about the value of coming in to complete their Financial Road Map®, my inclination is to introduce the Quality of Life Enhancer Exercise®. If at the end of the Values Conversation™ I am thinking these folks probably are not a good fit, I am inclined to introduce the Quality of Life Enhancer Exercise® as an additional way to be of service before politely disengaging.
Could you help create a script for our staff to use when calling to confirm both the Phone Consultation and Financial Road Map Interview™ to increase our chances of having the appointment kept and have the best possible experience?
"I am calling to confirm your appointment with on day at o'clock. In order for you to the best experience possible all you need to have handy is the copy of the Values-Based Financial Planning book that sent you. Do you have any questions?" Same opening to confirm the Financial Road Map interview... In order for you to have the best possible experience we sent you a checklist of things to bring to the meeting. Do you have any questions I can answer?"
In the last three business days, I had 11 Phone Consultations scheduled. Two were completed. Two were busy at work when I called and didn't want to complete the call, one didn't have the book, one canceled before the call, one canceled after no showing the call, two had forgotten and rescheduled and two more never answered when I called. To some extent this is normal. However, I am a little frustrated and disappointed. What can I do to be more effective in completing the Phone Consultations?
Great job. It's nice to see you implementing. 1. Stop being frustrated. What you are experiencing is how it works. 2. Listen to your recordings and compare what you are saying to the scripts for what you are supposed to say. 3. Make your scripts and your script binder better based on the lessons you have learned in the real world. 4. Keep asking for referrals, making follow-up calls, conducting phone consultations, getting better, and doing Financial Road Maps until you have all the Ideal Clients you need to have an Ideal Business.
When should I NOT give an existing client a Values-Based Financial Planning™ book?
I can't think of a situation where this would apply.
When you are talking to people about what you do and using the 10 Pivotal Questions should your focus be on what the Financial Road Map® is or on Client Deliverables? It seems that many people find the 3-Meeting Process, 10 Client Deliverables more compelling than the Financial Road Map®, especially if they are already working with a broker or financial planner.
Start with the Financial Road Map® benefits and work into the others, if necessary, depending on the answers you are getting to the questions you are asking. If you are doing these conversations right, you are doing much, much more listening than talking. Ask your questions and go deep with clarifying, expanding, and impact questions to determine whether or not "the offer" should be made. If you are not certain what I mean by "the offer" listen to your Academy 2 recordings and review the flow charts for the Self-Referral process on www.committedadvisor.com.
I am in a number of organizations; Rotary, Chamber, other service-type clubs. I have conducted a number of Financial Road Map® Phone Consultations and some in-person meetings with the people in these groups. However, there are a number of chamber members I have never met. There are some other service club members with whom I have never had a meaningful, important, significant and compelling conversation.
Prior to the last academy I had scheduled time on my calendar to call all the chamber members and self-refer. My coach suggested I need to be calling people whom I have met in person and with whom I have had a meaningful conversation and I agree. He also suggested that I go get involved in things I am passionate about where people have money. Our community is mostly a retirement community and they play dominos, bridge, and golf, and attend social clubs and service clubs. I am not passionate about most of these things and a number of the clubs are age restricted to those of senior age.
My coach also suggested that I look into Facebook & LinkedIn, but most of our base is retired, and a number of them don't even have a Facebook page. Some barely do email and some don't even own a computer.
I want and am willing to GO GET CLIENTS, but I am really struggling with who, where, when to go to self-refer and get clients.
Listen to the recordings from the January 2011 Academy 2 and review the corresponding slides about Self-Referral. We covered this in GREAT detail and everything you need to develop an effective self-referral process is there. You can call virtually anyone you know and strike up a conversation that could lead to a self-referral. My experience is that if you are "wimpy" with your existing clients in referral conversations that you will be wimpy implementing the self-referral process. Your goal should be to improve your expectations and your confidence in having Referral and Self-Referral Conversations with anyone, anytime, anywhere.
I conducted a Self-Referral and I have made many Follow-Up Calls without a return call to date. I believe I gathered good Meaningful, Important, Significant, and Compelling information and inputted it appropriately. When leaving a Follow-Up Call message after many attempts is there anything you would add to the Follow-Up Call script to try and get closure – to find out if they interested in a Phone Consultation™ or not?
No. Just make the call and leave a message following the same script / process / template. Some people will call you back after one call, some after several, some after many, some after dozens of messages over days, weeks, months, quarters or even years... and some will never call you back. In other words you will finish building your Ideal Client Community without making contact with everyone to whom you were referred. The only thing you might consider, which we have discussed in previous Academies, Committed Advisor Study Group webinars, and on this Q&A site is getting your client involved to reach out to their referral to encourage them to return your call. This could be done on the phone before your next Progress Meeting and most definitely at the next Progress Meeting. The less successful business-builder tends to over think why people aren't calling them back. The more successful business-builder makes the next call. Here is an example from one of our Committed...
I have recently bought about 400 policy holders from another firm. These people have not had any contact or service for at least 2 years and up to 20 years in some cases. When they come to the meeting with me they are not happy due to the lack of service from the previous advisor but do want to discuss what they have previously set up. How do I commence the meeting to acknowledge the neglect and ensure them that I will be discussing the account that they still have with me now?
When you call to schedule the appointment have whatever discussion needs to be had so they vent whatever they have to vent BEFORE the Financial Road Map® interview. Only invite people in to do Financial Road Map® interviews who you believe are ready to have that conversation. I doubt that you want to do Financial Road Map® interviews with all of your newly purchased 400 policy holders.
In my Financial Road Map® Conversations I find that my clients want to talk about the deck, car and the children’s education when I am trying to dig out their Core Values. I am not sure if I am making mistakes or just need to redirect them to their values. I am telling them that we will discuss the Goals in just a few minutes but need for them to go through the Values Conversation™.
Just relax and let them say whatever they say when you ask the question. Some people need to express the tangible before they move up the staircase into their values. Remember, this conversation is meant to be pleasant and enjoyable for them, not a forced march up their Values Staircase™ or an interrogation. Listen to your recordings.
At the point where I asked if the Financial Road Map® was something that he would like to complete with his partner, he said that they look at their goals every year. I asked the above question twice and still got no real response. How would you respond to this and people who seem to understand their values really well? I had the feeling that he may not be an ideal client given this interaction but wanted to give them the experience nevertheless.
You put the offer on the table and you get the response you get. When I get a non-answer I tend to say, "I appreciate what you are saying, but I'm still not clear what you want to do. The question on the table is, 'do you want to come to my office to have me complete your entire Financial Road Map®?'" If the next response still doesn't answer the question, I would take that as a "no" and transition out of the conversation.
It has been just over 12 months since I bought a client base of neglected clients. Over the holidays I have had time to consider where I am at in the context of Values-Based Financial Planning™. The situation is that I am still struggling with the question of who do I offer a Financial Road Map® to.
I feel I must offer an appointment to these acquired clients to discuss their current accounts (whatever they may have), I can’t extract any value from them or increased revenue from them otherwise. I cannot ignore them and only offer an appointment to those who want a Financial Road Map® which is what I took from Bill’s response to a question last year. The initial contact with them is effectively a cold call given the neglect they had by the previous adviser, therefore impossible to offer a Financial Road Map® as no trust or relationship is in existence.
The apathy and attitude towards an adviser from the majority of these people made it such that my assistant’s success in getting people in to just review what they had was less than anticipated. I could count maybe 10 appointments over 3 months he arranged and at a guess I know of three that cancelled or didn’t show up.
In the context of the ‘Ideal Client,’ I am seriously questioning whether I presently have a client base of the wrong type of people to be able to afford the service and to be able to mentally connect to the philosophy required to be an Ideal Client. If this is the case, then where do I get an Ideal Client from??? In speaking with Shane Hatch he mentioned that in his experience the person would probably need to have at least $500K in investible funds to be able to afford the program. And I would tend to agree to an extent. This would rule out every one of the clients I purchased.
I am thinking that the process I use may have to change to something as follows:
1. Invite each client in to review what they have and discuss this. This allows them to meet and maybe gain some trust and I can get a feel for them and their position.
2. After reviewing what they have, offer two options, to provide advice on what they have or anything else I pick up during the meeting, or, if I think warranted, offer a further appointment to undertake a Financial Road Map®. In the discussion offering the Financial Road Map® I explain what my business is about and they get a feel for what I do and not the perception of just being an ‘investment’ or ‘insurance’ adviser. The end result is that I get a win either way and re-engage with them.
I have some competing interests at play here that is difficult to work around. Firstly I have lost a lot more clients than budgeted for in the first 12 months (in fact a lot had cancelled before sale) and expected income is well below what was purchased. So I am trying to maintain this income or increase it any way possible by any amount to make the loan I have a worthwhile exercise. This is competing with wanting to deal with more engaged clients that want a meaningful advice relationship that is comprehensive in nature; those that have some money and the ability to make changes and can pay for service.
Can you give some advice as to how I deal with these people and secondly how I source Ideal Client if this isn't the solution I thought it was?
Completing a very important exercise will help you develop a specific strategy for each category of your existing clients. Go to the Ideal Life Evaluation Program Action Sequence #4, “Complete the Annual Recurring Revenue Exercise” on the Committed Advisor website (www.commitedadvisor.com) to complete the exercise and then implement the strategy you create for each category of existing client.
I am very new to this process. Because of some recent (very positive) publicity, we are receiving a number of telephone inquiries. What pre-screening questions should I have my assistant ask interested callers before making appointments with them?
Describe your Ideal Client Profile to the prospective client and tell them your minimum fee. If they would like to have an appointment with you, make sure they bring all of their financial documents and their spouse to the meeting in your office.
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