The Best Practices Path: Sales, Timing, Persuasion

Control Time Allocation

While all best practices are best, there are some that are “more best.” As George Orwell put it in Animal Farm, “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.”

The “most best” practice is time allocation. It controls the execution of the others.

Lately, I have been having conversations with some senior advisors who prospected retirees 20 years ago, and have woken up to the stark reality that their clients are dying and their assets are flying. (Something like 85% of assets leave the parent’s primary advisor when the last parent dies and the kids inherit.)

Life has been comfortable. Fees led to a relaxed lifestyle—four-day workweek, 9-3 Mon-Thurs. The only problem: no time allocated to prospect constantly. Lifestyle downgrade looms.

There are two parts, then, to time allocation. First, catalogue the best practices you will deploy, and then allocate time for each best practice. Most are daily, some weekly and perhaps a few monthly.

These time allocations are your model week.

I have named these time blocks “mini-days” because, just like our usual day, each should have an end. At midnight tonight, you cannot say, “Wow, what a great day. Give me two more hours.” It is the same with your mini-days. If your “Call Clients” mini-day is 8:00-9:30, at 8:00 pick up the phone. Finish your last call at or around 9:30 and swing into your next mini-day.

You can start with a “model day.” Heck, you can start with just one mini-day—Call Clients. Now add a “mini-day.” Soon you will have a “Model Day.” Add time blocks for tasks that need to be done weekly. Now you have a “Model Week.” Somewhere along this road your work life will shift from reactive to proactive. You’re now in control. You are deploying all your best practices.

Present Ideas Persuasively

You can be extremely skilled with your investment craft yet produce a mediocre living. But add persuasive presentation of your ideas and your chances of success multiply.

The elements of persuasion include, but are probably not limited to:

Start with someone who is interested. The very core of prospecting the “Good Way” is to find prospects who are interested and qualified. You cannot persuade someone who is not interested.

Communicate clearly. Whether speaking or writing, use short words. Use short sentences. Use short paragraphs. Use familiar words, not industry jargon.

Communicate with passion and conviction.

Create and sustain your expert financial advisor brand. The more your clients perceive you as an expert, the less persuasion required. (Does your doctor have to persuade you to “take two of these every four hours?)

Use crowd power. Many people are influenced by what they believe others believe. Keeping up with the Joneses is powerful stuff. This is why you have references. It’s why you invite clients to your prospect seminars. It’s why you have pictures in your brochure of you interacting with clients.

Be likable. Dale Carnegie really nailed this one in 1936 with How to Win Friends and Influence People. Can you fail to like someone who is genuinely interested in you, who smiles at you, who remembers your name, who listens to you, who talks in terms of your interests and who sincerely makes you feel important?

Ask lots of questions. The Roman philosopher Epictetus put it best, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” No filibusters please.

Tailor your presentation to what people want. In How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling, my favorite author on sales, Frank Bettger, wrote (1947): “Show a man what he wants and he will move heaven and earth to get it.” To find out what your client really wants, keep asking questions until you are certain you know what they want. Then show them how to get it.

Because I’ve run out of space (as usual), I’ve created a blog entry, “Tips to Become More Persuasive.” You will find a link to it on my best practices resource page.