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Practice Management > Building Your Business

8 Best Practices Of High-Performing Advisors

By Staff Writer

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8 Best Practices Of

High-Performing Advisors

1. Develop a Marketing Plan. All high-performing salespeople have used and continue to use a planning process. In contrast, most low-performing salespeople spend more time planning their vacations than planning their careers.

2. Know Your Client. During a first interview with a prospect, many advisors ask, “Can you tell me about your business?” That question is the kiss of death. This is probably the best way to show a prospect that you cant help him. Top advisors never ask this question–they already know the answer. Top advisors use their first few minutes to demonstrate their mastery of the prospects situation and thereby establish trust and confidence.

3. Understand Decision- making. Top advisors know that people use facts as factors but make decisions based on emotion. They are able to zero in on what matters most to each individual prospect.

4. Help Them Buy. Top advisors know that people hate to be sold but love to buy.

5. Create Client Capital. Client capital is the true value of an advisors business–top advisors create client capital by building successful relationships with their clients, relationships that lead to introductions.

6. Obtain Introductions. Dont get referrals–get introductions. In an introduction the client makes the appointment. It may be over breakfast, over lunch, over coffee, at a social occasion or a round of golf, but the client will arrange the meeting for you. This allows you to hitchhike on the credibility of your client with your new prospect.

With referrals you may have a lot of background information and knowledge about an individual, but you have to make the appointment. When you get an introduction, your success ratios are much higher.

7. Delegate. Average performing advisors get bogged down in $20, $30 or $40/hour activities, when they should be working on $500/hour activities. Every minute they spend on a low-value activity is costing them time and money. Top advisors optimize their talents and skills by constantly working at their optimum capacity, delegating lower value activities to employees and technology.

8. Utilize Resources. Top advisors leverage the time, talents and skills of consultants, suppliers and collateral professionals to optimize their efficiency.

–Norm Trainor

Reproduced from National Underwriter Life & Health/Financial Services Edition, June 30, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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