Let me share with you some common applications of this technology:

From the latest study of internet usage, it was discovered that the social networking websites like MySpace, Friendster and Facebook are in the top 10 websites visited by people surfing the Internet.  In terms of more Web 2.0 interaction, 42% of users actually visit blogs and 26% have their own blogs.

This means that many people have a habit to tune into what friends are doing, sharing what they themselves are doing and of course whatever that piques their interest like YouTube (among the top 3 most visited sites globally).

A Financial Adviser can use this technology for the purpose of branding, building mind-share and keeping in touch. It will pretty much be a soft-sell instead of a hard sell.

You can use Social Sites like Friendster, MySpace or Facebook (the most popular), to connect with friends, organise events, join discussion groups and share what’s happening in your business and life in general. This builds a more connected relationship despite our busy schedule. By writing on your client or friend’s bulletin board once in a while, you re-establish connections on a personal level. Not only that, you will also be seen by his other friends, as someone in their lives. The next time, a referral or introduction is made, the other person might have already “known” you.

You may be pleasantly surprised that people can even be curious enough to read more about you and what your financial planning business represents. That’s why you’ll need a more business profile. You can either have your own website or have a profile with sites like LinkedIn and Ecademy which are more “business” oriented. These sites gives you the flexibility to build your professional profile, to inform potential clients about your services, experience and even client testimonies.

Don’t forget to add a way for readers to get into your mailing list. You can do so by offering some free content that’s of value, or even an on-going subscription to your blog entries, by the means of RSS feeds. That way you enter into a regular communications with your potential  financial advisory clients. Better yet, turn it into an email campaign to get a two-way communication going.

As you can see, it may be quite a lot to accomplish. The maintenance of this system can also be very onerous. That is why many people don’t get started or cannot follow through. The good news is that there are now some automation in most sites and software that will help you save time. Auto-responders and Contact Management Systems can help track your contact with potential clients, linking up your social sites, means that you may only need to monitor one or two gateway sites and finally you can even out-source (on-line) some of the work to free-lancers all over the world.

Enjoy your Social Networking Journey to generate a tsunami of leads!!

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Would your strategies be sustainable and be profitable long term? And what are the check and balance you should have to bring your business over obstacles and into the next level?

Market Positioning and Branding

Studies have shown that  first impressions have shorten over time to just over 6 seconds, when you first meet your prospective client. If you just slip up a little, it could leave an impression you would need to work very hard to change.

Therefore, leaving it to chance during the first meeting is not a good idea at all. Why not have your prospective client have a great opinion about you even before you meet him?

That’s what intelligent Market Positioning and Branding can do for you.

Here are a number of suggestions for you:

1. If the prospect was introduced, get your friend to give you an endorsement via a testimony or phone call.
2. Email the prospect with a simple introduction about yourself, your company and it’s services. Use benefit statements when explaining your services.
3. If you have a web-page/blog, you may provide links to it, where your prospect gets a first-hand experience with what you represent through your website.
4. If you have been featured in magazines, newspapers or other forms of media, include it in as well.

You get the idea? It’s all about building Credibility, the strongest which comes from the referral from a highly-regarded friend, next comes public or third party endorsements, and finally a strong message from your web-profile.

Client acquisition methods are numerous limited only by your creativity. However, one should not forget about some principles, ask yourself these questions:

1. Is it targeted to your Ideal Client Profiles and market?
2. Is it something you can cope with in the long run? In other words, is it sustainable?
3. What’s the cost-benefit? Can the effectiveness be measured and improved?

I have classified the Acquisition Strategies to three Main Categories:

1. Direct Marketing: Mail, Email, Leads-buying, Online Strategies
2. Third Party Arrangements: Referrals, Tie-ups, Professional Alliance
3. Other Marketing Programs: Advertising, Articles in magazines, Seminars

Having defined the broad acquisition strategies, work out the costs and logistics (including manpower) of running your campaigns.

Client Relationship Management & Retention Strategies

Getting the client is just one part of the story. As your client life stage changes or has a windfall, will you be the adviser he will call upon?

This will depend on how successful has your client relationship management program been. You’ll have to gain mind-share and over time establish top-of-mind presence.

Clients enjoy personal contact more than just electronic means, which can only supplement but not replace the need for face-to-face interaction. Having said that, mastering the use of technologies like Auto-Responders, Web 2.0 applications, and Blogs can really ensure continuous contact with your clients, eliminate admin time, and free up your time.

Retaining and cultivating your clients into supporters (or advocates) is very important, thus you can also think about how to add-value to your clients like perhaps a Rewards program, or annual client appreciation night etc will go a long way to maintain strong relationships with your client-base.

Think about what are your client relationship management and retention strategies. See if they can be enhanced or supported by technology.

Sales Targets, Performance Gauges and Practice Milestones

No plan is complete without measurables and deliverables. Work out SMART goals, and review them often to see if you are on track. The marketing plan will certainly change in response to feedback from your campaigns, but give it a good shot before moving on to different methods.

Examples of Sales Targets could be revenue or income based, or based on number of clients acquired. Performance guages are important to check that your time is spent cost-effectively, and low-value tasks should eventually be out-sourced.

Sales targets should be checked weekly, while performance reports should be done at least once a month.

Break down your vision of your dream financial advisory practice by years, and check back at milestones you have achieved or yet to achieve.

Step by step, little by little. Slowly but surely, you’ll be able to reach your goals. Start with some thinking and research and take massive action.

Good Luck!!

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Would writing a marketing plan ensure success? I wish I could say that, but it’s just one part of the puzzle. The marketing plan is just a piece of useless paper if not put into implementation, constantly reviewed and improved upon.

Before we start with the preparation before writing the marketing plan, we need to know the components of the marketing plan for a Financial Advisory Practice:

1. Market Study & Segmentation
2. Competition analysis: SWOT
3. Market Positioning and Branding
4. Products & Services Offering
5. Client Acquisition Strategies
   1. Direct Marketing: Mail, Email, Leads-buying, Online Strategies
   2. Third Party Arrangements: Referrals, Tie-ups, Professional Alliance
   3. Other Marketing Programs: Advertising, Articles in magazines, Seminars
6. Client Relationship Management & Retention Strategies
7. Sales Targets, Performance Gauges and Practice Milestones

Market Study and Segmentation

It’s essential to start with a decent Market Study & Segmentation. To do so, you may seek the help of your coach and senior colleagues. It’s also very helpful to engage some of your trusted friends for their feedback. Finally check out your company’s resources or on-line if there is information available for you to scope out your target markets.

Make a study of the profitable segments of in terms of net-worth, occupations, industries or even by age demographics. Make an assessment of their likely needs for financial services at large. Match this with the likely products and services you can offer to these groups of people.

Competition Analysis

Having had an idea of the competition landscape, do a Competition Analysis and determine your Competitor’s weaknesses and strengths. This will allow you to turn their weakness to your advantage and avoid fighting head-on with their strengths.

Doing a SWOT analysis pits you in the Market and brings out glaring points about how NOT to compete with your potential target market. It’s all about standing out from your competitors including your colleagues from the same company.

Here are some points you may want to know:

1. What types of firms are there offering Financial Services and what are their competitive advantages?
2. Where your firm has similar competitors, how do they differentiate from one another?
3. What sort of products and services so they have? How do they market their services?
4. How does the public or at least your target market see them?
5. Matching with the Market Study are there any segments of people that are under-served and profitable?
6. What is the current share of the market like? (not essential but good to have)

Products & Services Offering

Next, take a look at your company’s product and services offering vs your competition and matching your target market’s needs. If it does not stand-out and shout at you in a positive way, you may have to work harder at the Market Positioning and Branding. Why McDonald stands out in the competition for Fast Food is it’s ability to Position and Brand itself well in the market.

Another consideration is to tie-up with other service providers to beef up your product offering. For example, if you are an insurance agent, tying up with a mortgage broker gives you an extra “product” to offer to your target market.

Also, ensure that the products and offering are really solving problems for your target market, and that they are competitive in terms of benefits vs costs. A good way is to ask your senior colleagues who have been in the business for very long and have met different competitors.

Coming Up “Why You Should Bother with a Marketing Plan if You Want Success” Part 2

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Let’s face it; there are easily 4-5 financial planners or financial advisers that most qualified prospects in their 30s and 40s already know. Why should they listen to you and not the others?

The three key factors to stand out in our Financial Advisory arena are: trusted references, expertise branding and effective use of marketing.

Trusted References

How we first contact our prospects will be enhanced by trusted references. In order of the likelihood of conversion: Trusted friend’s referral, media references like articles in newspapers or video interviews and third party testimonials.

Referral Marketing is certainly one area you should really work at. How referrable are you? Do your clients and advocates know how to sell you? How often do you update them about your services? Do you have a system to constantly feed them with information and spur them into referring for you?

Building a strong relationship is not enough, you will need to educate them about your services and how to refer business to you.

Personal Branding

Now that you’ve got your referrals, they will need somewhere to catch a glimpse of you before they agree to meet you. Years ago, without Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and a host of other social websites, it was not possible to do a pre-meeting introduction. Imagine if before you even make an approach to your prospect, they already know you are well connected, loved by your clients, and have a solid knowledge about financial planning and about other topics your prospects are passionate about. Will that not help to secure a meeting with them?

So, work on your personal branding. A good website and web profile tells the prospect that you are modern, informed, connected and trusted.

Check with your company what they allow and do not allow to be public and on websites. With the advent of many web-tools, you can still have web interaction with your targeted prospects, within company guidelines.

Effective Use of Marketing

To access new markets where you have little or no connections, you’ll have work out a marketing plan exploring on-line and off-line methods.

The online world has not been much penetrated by Financial Advisors in my opinion. There are so many means of marketing or branding oneself online, which complements the off-line marketing strategies. Online advertising can be targeted (Example: on Amazon, targeting at books your target audience read), or general (for Example: advertising on Google sites when a related term appears in the content).

Email Marketing with Auto Responders can automate contact with your reservoir of prospects you are not ready to talk to, but want to gain some mind-share. It can even bring to life that pile of name cards you have gathered over the years.

Video via YouTube and other forms of media like podcasts generate tons of traffic into your website, or at least helps to educate your prospects about the benefits you can have for them.

Some markets are unlikely to “select” their financial advisor online, but it may be useful for branding so by the time you contact them, they have formulated a good opinion about you. The majority of the efforts have to be off-line: direct-mail campaign (usually 3-5 continuous weekly contact to achieve any reasonable results), advertising, articles writing on magazines your target market reads etc.

Conclusion

It is clear that if you fail to stand-out from your competitors, you will soon join the dinosaurs and fade into extinction in this rapid age of information. To even protect your current clientele you’d better work on your marketing strategy to maintain mind-share, or be blown away by the tsunami of competition.

Next up … Developing your marketing plan …

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How should a new adviser go about their Goals Setting?

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” Friedrich Nietzsche

There is no “Right” way, but your goals should answer your purpose, desired income level, skills and personal development and physical health.

Personal Vision and Purpose

You started off this career for a reason. For some, it’s to pursue an interest, some to earn Financial and Time Freedom, others to challenge themselves. How it is going to go is sometime hazy.

The destination is not always easy to see at the beginning, like what Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, said looking back from success, “connecting the dots” every experience was valuable in getting to where he is today.

“Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” Steve Jobs at Stanford University, 14 Jun 2005

Keeping it simple in the beginning, write down why you decided on this career and what do you expect to achieve in 2 to 3 years time.

Example:

“My purpose of starting this financial advisory career is to achieve financial and time freedom and serving the community with what skills and knowledge I have.

I expect to match my current income in one years’ time and earn $150,000 per year in 3 years time. I’d like to be able to spend 1 month of my time for UNICEF work and enjoy quality family time while running my business.”

Income & Activity Goals

Your income is determined by what you do and how you do it. Control the controllable: making the calls, getting the appointments. As your skill level improves you should close more deals.

Working backwards from your income goals, you should arrive at specific number of new prospects you should see a week. It is imperative that the goals you set weekly are being achieved weekly. Plan your calling time and appointment times as a priority.

Focus on the objective of seeing the number of new prospects every week, not on the eventual sale. As your skill level improves you should multiply your results very quickly.

Skills and Personal Development Goals

Commit to growing in your Communication and Persuasion Skills, whether it’s fact-to-face or over the phone. This will be your most important ability to acquire. A “SMART” goal is to commit to a book or audio program (Specific) every month (Time-line), review it with your trainer/coach and use the skills taught (Measurable).

Another important aspect is to master basic predetermined presentations from your company, and role play it with your colleagues. Set goals to practice weekly to improve your Presentation Skills.

Also, make it a point to grow the inner-person to have a success mindset. Start with books recommended by your coach for personal Success Motivation.

Health & Physiological Goals

To accomplish great results, you’ll need to be at your physical and physiological best. It’s no secret that fitness makes you more alert and effective at work. On the other hand, an illness can knock you out for weeks, and break your momentum you need in the first 90 days.

Set fitness goals like weight loss targets and work out the schedule for physical fitness activities. Better yet, create prospecting opportunities while pursuing them.

Mental & Motivation Goals

Create some motivation for yourself by setting up a reward system for achieving weekly goals and milestone goals.

Example:

“I will reward myself with a fishing trip or other leisure time in the weekend for achieving my weekly goal of meeting 3 new prospects. And a spa visit for achieving my sales goals for the month”

Conclusion

Keep it simple in the beginning, and focus on getting the important things right on a weekly basis. Success is always a road under construction. Don’t spend too much time getting a perfect goal or perfect plan.

“Goal setting is often a matter of balancing timing against available resources. Opportunities are easily lost while waiting for perfect conditions.” Gary Ryan.

Next up, Marketing Planning for New Financial Advisers …

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Now that you’ve passed all your licensing exams and eager to launch your financial planning career, you realized that there are tons of things that needs to be learnt and to be done. Many people get stuck in the complexity, have misplaced priorities, eventually tire out and fall off.

To get off the starting blocks fast and right, here are five things to work on:

Tip #1 – Check you are Facing the Right Direction!

Bang! Goes off the starting pistol, and you get into a momentum very quickly, only to realize you are heading the wrong way! Not only have you wasted valuable time, but energy as well.

Make sure you have worked out your marketing plans with your coach. It should outline a simple three year target to move away from cold-call or canvassing, and towards your ideal target markets (Direction) via quality referral leads. Work out a suitable pace that stretches you, and not burn you out (Pace). Concentrate on doing, don’t over-think (Focus).

Tip #2 – Overcome Transformation Pains

The first 30 days is all about getting the work routine and work habits right. We all carry some baggage, that is why you should be unlearning all the negative habits and assume positive habits required for success.

Do the things you don’t like to do first, and get it out of the way. Most of the time, it’s about making the calls, and prospecting. No one likes to be rejected and snubbed, but it brings you closer to the next “yes”.

“I only reason why I am more successful than you, is I faced more “no’s” than you.”

Tip # 3 – Plan the Run and Run the Plan

Whether it is cold-calling, canvassing, direct mail or any other sort of marketing, you’ll need to exercise your plans. If you have to get 2 appointments a day, and you need to make 30 calls to get it, then finish your 30 calls before you leave your office. Don’t worry, you’ll get better at it soon.

As a good practice, you should apportion uninterrupted time to do your calling, do not stop if you are on a roll or facing difficulties. Stop only when the pattern is broken. This will ensure you ride on your winning streak and don’t quit easily. Have short breaks in between to re-charge.

Plan your time well, such that you spend most of your time actively marketing your services. If there are mundane things like hand-writing letter addresses, hire your niece who is on holiday to do it for you.

Reward yourself if you had a good week by taking a short break, but complete your weekly goals without excuse.

Tip #4 – Record and Review

Spend half an hour daily to record down your activity effectiveness, and think about things that have gone well. As for the things that have not gone so well, Give Thanks! They are “learning opportunities” for you to get better.

“What I can measure, I can improve.”

Go over the week with your coach. This is an important accountability factor that many financial advisers neglect. Learn from those that have been there and done that. This will shorten your learning curve tremendously.

Tip #5 –Your Only Competition is Yourself! Focus on the Fundamentals

Usain Bolt, the fastest man on Earth could have clocked 9.55s in the 100m Olympic race according to physicists from University of Oslo, had he not glanced back at the pack while finishing. Roger Bannister first broke the thought barrier of the four minute mile only in 1954, and five others re-wrote the record in the next 10 years.

Why bother about how well others are doing? Focus on getting your fundamentals right: Calling/Contacting, Mastering Communication and Influence, Presentation of Ideas, Closing the Sale and getting into the right Mindset. You’ll be presently surprised that you’ve exceeded your initial goals, and possibly created a record.

Next installment of articles will be talking more about the five important aspects of: (1) Goal setting & Achieving, (2) Motivation and the Success Mindset (3) Mastering Communication and Influencing Others (4) Making Effective Presentations (5) Become a Prospecting Monster.

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