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Marketing
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You Need To Think About A Customer Before You Say Yes |
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Wednesday, February 22, 2012 17:57
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Tags: choice | niche  We’ve all done it, we’ve taken a customer on who we know we shouldn’t have taken. And, once that customer is there, we just don’t want to let them go.
I think most business owners I meet have a scarcity mentality. They haven’t learned to say no, especially to a customer who they suspect are going to cause problems.
The problem with taking on a bad customer is they take up space in our company. Most companies have a limited amount of capacity for customers. The amount of capacity varies. But, we all have a finite amount of capacity.
The problem with taking on a bad customer is that we fill that capacity with customers that are difficult or don’t make us any money, or even worse, both. I find that bad customers not only take up capacity, but they tend to take much more capacity than good customers do.
It’s time for you to learn to say no. That potential customer who you suspect is going to cause you problems needs to hear the word no thanks. It doesn’t matter how you get to no, but you need to say no.
One of the questions I ask business owners often is how often they say no? If it’s not at least several times a year, I suspect that they have a group of customers they wish they didn’t have. And, once we have a customer we’re usually not willing to let them to go away. It’s much better to say no before you have a problem.
If you say no, you build capacity in your business for yes. When you learn to say no you build capacity in your business for when to say yes. You never want to be close to 100% capacity. When that happens you can’t say yes to that great customer.
Or, if you do say yes and your capacity is close to 100% you’re likely to do a less than stellar job with them. Now you’ve taken a great opportunity and made it into one where you have to convince this great customer that you’re really better than your track record indicates.
Know what you’re looking for. The best way to keep from taking on a bad customer is to have a clear picture of what a great customer is like. Having a profile of who your best customer is allows you evaluate potential customers for your business.
I find this is the best way to keep from making that bad customer mistake that we’ve all made. What about you, how do you keep from making the bad customer mistake?
If you're a private wealth advisor, please join Advisors4Advisors (A4A) to get its full benefits. Register now, and we will donate $20 of our $60 membership fee to Bubbles The Clown’s financial literacy program, and you can post an icon on your website saying you support Bubbles' 501(c)3 charitable organization. Plus, get other membership benefits, including: - Analysis daily of issues affecting advisors
- Aggregation of news from dozens of sites targeting wealth managers
- Reviews by advisors of practice management applications
- 30 independent experts blogging on advisor business issues
- 24/7 access to webinars with 50 hours of CFP® CE and 100 hours of IMCA CE
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Rollover Investors May Be Eager To Work With Advisors, But Where Are They? |
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Thursday, February 16, 2012 15:02
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Tags: 401(k) | IRA Once again, the survey numbers on 401(k) rollovers speak loud and clear -- but ground-level advisors may have trouble believing the conclusions.
If you're a private wealth advisor, please join Advisors4Advisors (A4A) to get its full benefits. Register now, and we will donate $20 of our $60 membership fee to Bubbles The Clown’s financial literacy program, and you can post an icon on your website saying you support Bubbles' 501(c)3 charitable organization. Plus, get other membership benefits, including: - Analysis daily of issues affecting advisors
- Aggregation of news from dozens of sites targeting wealth managers
- Reviews by advisors of practice management applications
- 30 independent experts blogging on advisor business issues
- 24/7 access to webinars with 50 hours of CFP® CE and 100 hours of IMCA CE
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Cogent Research regularly polls investors to find out how they roll over their retirement accounts and how much of an opportunity this represents for advisors.
This year, the numbers were as bullish as ever. A full 43% of the survey population wants to work with an advisor when they shift those assets.
And with up to $300 billion up for grabs, that's a lot of assets that can theoretically be moved from tricky-to-manage 401(k) plans into more straightforward IRA arrangements.
But as A4A readers have noted, it's not like these investors are seeking out new advisors when they change jobs or retire, so the phone isn't exactly ringing off the hook with people looking to roll over.
These people either have existing advisors -- they might already be your clients -- or are not really thinking about seeking a new relationship.
They might have just gotten laid off or are going to be busy learning the ropes at a new job.
In the past, I've asked custodians their advice for advisors looking to capture these assets. They basically brushed me off -- after all, they make money on self-directed IRAs.
So the secret here may be simply keeping your eyes open to what your current clients are doing, so you can strike when that "liquidity event" happens.
If a client changes jobs on LinkedIn or posts a new resume, you should know. Send a note. Maybe there's a 401(k) account that needs to be transferred.
It's not rocket science, but it will probably never support an entire specialty of "401(k) rollover advisors," either. But capturing incremental assets is not a bad thing.
Read more...
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Advisor Products Partners With Keebler & Associates To Provide Estate And Income Tax Content Advisors Can Repurpose For Blogs, Social Media, And Webinars |
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Thursday, February 09, 2012 17:46
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Tags: advisor industry people | client communications | estate planning | fiduciaries | financial planning | high net worth | prospecting | tax efficient investing | tax planning | Wealth Management
Bob Keebler’s explanation and analysis of income and estate tax law and IRA rules is now available to advisors in a monthly slide presentation series for $300 annually. If you're a private wealth advisor, please join Advisors4Advisors (A4A) to get its full benefits. Register now, and we will donate $20 of our $60 membership fee to Bubbles The Clown’s financial literacy program, and you can post an icon on your website saying you support Bubbles' 501(c)3 charitable organization. Plus, get other membership benefits, including: - Analysis daily of issues affecting advisors
- Aggregation of news from dozens of sites targeting wealth managers
- Reviews by advisors of practice management applications
- 30 independent experts blogging on advisor business issues
- 24/7 access to webinars with 50 hours of CFP® CE and 100 hours of IMCA CE
Register Now | |
Advisors can use the slides to create webinars, seminars, blog posts, videos, or other content.
Using the slides as a basis for creating your own content should improve your search engine ranking and social media profile. Plus, you and your team will become more conversant in income and estate tax and IRA rules affecting high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and ultra-HNWIs.
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What Do Hugely Successful Firms Have In Common With Kleenex? How Advisors Gain From Doing One Thing Great |
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Wednesday, February 08, 2012 16:03
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Tags: differentiation | marketing | referrals When you can make your firm synonymous with the solution clients are looking for, new business arrives automatically.
If you're a private wealth advisor, please join Advisors4Advisors (A4A) to get its full benefits. Register now, and we will donate $20 of our $60 membership fee to Bubbles The Clown’s financial literacy program, and you can post an icon on your website saying you support Bubbles' 501(c)3 charitable organization. Plus, get other membership benefits, including: - Analysis daily of issues affecting advisors
- Aggregation of news from dozens of sites targeting wealth managers
- Reviews by advisors of practice management applications
- 30 independent experts blogging on advisor business issues
- 24/7 access to webinars with 50 hours of CFP® CE and 100 hours of IMCA CE
Register Now | |
When you need to blow your nose, what do you reach for?
A Kleenex. of course. But that's not what it is.
It is a facial tissue. So, why don't we call it that?
Because the brand Kleenex has done such a superior job of identifying itself with the solution a facial tissue represents. We all have come to call the solution by the brand name.
Similarly, when you want canned fruit embedded in a wobbly green mold, what do you look for? Jell-O. And, if you say Jell-O to anyone, they will know instantly what you're talking about, even though it is actually instant gelatin.
When you buy Scotch tape, Google someone or use Xerox as a verb, it's the same thiing.
What does it have to do with financial advice?
The idea of your brand being identified with a particular solution or experience can build your firm the same way it helped these consumer products achieve market dominance.
Let me tell you about Rob Brown, an attorney who specializes in employee stock ownership plans. That is all he does.
While his firm has the typical "Four Partners Names, LLP," the website at Rob Bown's firm is esopplus.com. Ron Brown has a national reputation for counseling business owners on employee ownership, and not just as a succession strategy.
Perhaps most impressive, partners at large regional and national law firms unhesitatingly refer clients to Brown when the topic of employee ownership comes up. (Lawyers usually refer to specialists within their own firm.)
I see many financial advisors do this all wrong. They promote their expertise and work with business owners, for example. But all of these advisors professing to be specilists in business owners work with lots of other types of clients, including corporate executives, doctors, and retirees. They have expertise in everyone!
None will accomplish what Rob has done, however. They will not be able to develop even a local reputation as the go-to advisor for small business owners.
That's because, they "specialize" in everyone. Therefore, they really specialize in no one.
You may not be able to become the Kleenex of financial advisors. But following Rob Brown's example, you can become the one person everyone thinks of as the solution to a particular problem.
In a large portion of the financial and legal community in the Northeast, Rob Brown now owns the real estate on everyone's brain labeled ESOP. And when a business-owner client mentions employee ownership to their attorney or wealth advisor, there is a good chance Rob Brown's phone will ring.
What place in your clients' minds do you want to own?
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Saying "No" To Prospective Clients And Firing Bad Clients Helps Ensure You Provide Great Value To Those You Choose To Work With |
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Tuesday, February 07, 2012 15:01
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Tags: enterprise value | marketing | niche A key to managing your niche is tracking how often you say "no" to prospective and existing clients. If you’re not saying "no" to a significant number of prospective clients and firing clients that don't meet your "ideal client" criteria, you don’t have a real niche. You might have a market segment that you work with, but you don’t have a niche.
If you're a private wealth advisor, please join Advisors4Advisors (A4A) to get its full benefits. Register now, and we will donate $20 of our $60 membership fee to Bubbles The Clown’s financial literacy program, and you can post an icon on your website saying you support Bubbles' 501(c)3 charitable organization. Plus, get other membership benefits, including: - Analysis daily of issues affecting advisors
- Aggregation of news from dozens of sites targeting wealth managers
- Reviews by advisors of practice management applications
- 30 independent experts blogging on advisor business issues
- 24/7 access to webinars with 50 hours of CFP® CE and 100 hours of IMCA CE
Register Now | |
 If you have developed a niche, by definition you should fairly often be telling people, “Sorry, but I’m not the right fit for you.”
Keep in mind, a niche is much more than your minimum investment requirement. A minimum is just one small part in defining your niche and establishing criteria for your ideal client.
There is nothing wrong with saying "No." In fact, it’s one of the best ways to ensure you provide tremendous value to the people you choose to work with.
Saying no takes courage. You must believe that there are people you are going to say "yes" to. You need customers. But getting the right customers is what makes a business successful.
Unless you've been very deliberate about saying no, it's likely that 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers. This indicates that you should be saying no to 80% oif your prospects.
How can you ensure you say no often enough? Before you can say yes or no to a customer, determine specifically who you want to say "yes" to. Be very specific in defining the customer that will have the most success with by working with you.
Once you’ve developed the criteria of who is the best type of person to work with you, let others in your organization know your criteria. Make certain your firm only says yes to those customers.
Saying no creates capacity. It never fails. Every time I see a company start saying "no" more often, customers show up. Not just any customers, but the right customers. When you spend a lot of time serving customers that don’t fit with your criteria, you’ve freed up capacity that can be filled with your ideal customers.
It all comes down to making sure that you’ve developed a clear understanding of who to say yes to. The next step is having the discipline to say no and say it a fair amount. In my experience those who have taken the time to say no greatly benefit from the discipline that no requires.
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