Make "simplicity" your focus

We live in a busy world. We are constantly on the run, from business meetings, to personal events, kids’ sports, and all the other things that fill our calendars. In the midst of these daily events, we have countless emails, voice mails and text messages that meet us along the way that we must address. Then, in between the limited free time we have, there are the capital markets constantly trying to fight for our attention to purchase some product or service. I don’t know about you, but for me, at times it seems a little too much.

The clients we serve are also being bombarded in the same way, but they have one more element that keeps them up at night: concern about their financial future and whether they will have the income to support their dreams in retirement.

The key to creating an environment for them to have peace of mind is helping them to truly understand what the right plan is and what the most suitable vehicles are to help them achieve their financial objectives. Herein lies the challenge: How do we take something so complex and put it in a way that is simple to explain and illustrate? The following are some key simplification approaches to use in your practice to allow you to increase your business revenue and enjoy the process a little bit more.

1. Think: 1, 2, 3

Hopefully you have noticed that I have given you three bullet points to think about today. A tremendous amount of research has been done in the marketing field about how we as humans process information and our desire for a simple path to follow. As a society, we are being trained to process information in very particular ways, and this is one of them. So how do you apply this to your business? Think about the sales process you currently have and how you can explain it in three simple parts. Lay it out so clear and to the point that it does not seem overwhelming, without sacrificing intelligence.

Below is a quick example of how you might think through your entire business process in three simple steps.

• Diagnose: Share with the prospect your process and different tools you use to help them understand their current financial trajectory.
• Solution: This is where you demonstrate how you cross-reference the diagnostic results to what they are trying to achieve and illustrate if they are in line or not.
• Maintance: Express how you make sure this new plan stays in focus to their long-term financial success.

2. Power of single words

This I believe is the hardest part, but once you can deliver, you will move mountains in your business. In the world of sales, explaining something with the fewest words is critical. My brother and I are constantly challenging our firm to do this. We stress-test the way we communicate to our clients and prospects, and in this constant journey we have been able to take a process and sum it up into a single word. For example, let’s say we are talking about how you manage a client’s financial portfolios.