There is a new selling landscape

It’s time to ditch the old-school way of running your practice.

Nothing stays the same. And in these economic, partisan political and highly turbulent times, things are changing at an accelerating rate. In reaction to these changes, clients work harder to seek firmer ground on which they can make their financial decisions. If unable to find the solidity they are seeking, fear for their future welfare, either consciously or unconsciously, rises off the charts. That fear creates decision paralysis. Out of the fear of making the wrong decision, clients then make no decision at all. The result: Clients languish in their poorly defined financial strategies, and we lose an increasing number of sales.

Trust has always been the standard by which sales are made. Today, however, that message has taken on a whole new meaning. The combination of being burned by financial professionals in the past, a deteriorating trust in financial institutions that were once cornerstones of the American economy and a world that most Americans really don’t understand has made trust harder to earn and more difficult to nurture. 

Bottom line, our selling needs to change from old, manipulative, traditional tactics to something much more genuine. Old-school selling simply has too much negative history, which, when experienced by clients, sets up too many negative memories and emotional reactions. Instead of trust building, trust erodes, and the sale becomes more like a contest between salesperson and prospect than a relationship where two people work together to try to solve a unique problem.

Selling without selling is the challenge of the day

Assuming financial professionals are seeing enough prospects (a big assumption) the other side of the coin is consummating business with more of the people that are actually seen. Creating strategies that build trust, rather than creating strategies to manipulate people into buying, becomes the ticket by which more sales can be made.

Here are five ideas to consider: