Separate Yourself From Other Advisors By “Productizing”

Face it – what most of us do for clients is indistinguishable from what other advisors do for clients, at least from the clients’ perspective. Claiming that we provide great customer service, financial planning, or adherence to the fiduciary standard won’t work. So, how can you differentiate yourself? One effective way is to “productize” your offering. Document your process, define what problem it solves and for whom, and package it as a single deliverable.

Here are a few examples:

• ·         RealLifeFinance^TM (GersteinFisher, New York, NY)
• ·         Parent Care 360 (Andrew L. Comins, CLU, ChFC, MSFS)
• ·         RetireSmart (Mass Mutual)
• ·         Divorce Survival Kit (Carol Ann Wilson, CFDS)
• ·         Rescue Your IRA (Brogan Financial, Knoxville, TN)

To productize your offering, first decide what issues it will address. Will it be oriented to risk management, college savings, retirement planning, a major life event like the loss of a loved one or a divorce, or some aspect of investment management? Identify what you will help clients work through and what the result will be at the end of the process.

Determine the outcomes and deliverables of your service. If it involves financial planning, decide what components of the plan will be fundamental. List what kinds of analysis you will perform. Decide what you will deliver and how it will look. Will it be a plan, ongoing reports, personalized page on a website, or a report? Will this be something that is delivered once during your relationship with the client, or is it an ongoing service? If it is ongoing, how frequently will you deliver it to the client?

Give everything a consistent look. The plan you deliver, any ongoing reports the client receives, the worksheets you use during the process, and the marketing material to promote the process should be named and design so that it is clear it all belongs to a cohesive system.

Once it is complete, give it a compelling name. If it is descriptive, a list can work well (our 10 point…, Our seven step…). If you can come up with something more like a brand name, consider trademarking. Whichever way you go, the point is to offer people something brief and memorable. If you have done it effectively, you can mention the name of your service to someone who is in your target market and they will ask you to tell them more about it. People will not remember everything about the description of your process or the steps involved in it, but they may remember the name. Once they have that in their memory, it gives them something quick and interesting to mention to other people.

A “Wow” Experience Is Not Enough

We have been told that to attract referrals and clients, we have to provide a “wow” experience. But that’s just not enough on which to base a business development or referral marketing plan.

Last week, I was discussing with an advisor his strategy for utilizing his client advisory board to generate referrals. During the conversation, he said “We have to make sure we deliver such a fantastic experience that the clients will tell everyone about us.” This is a philosophy I have heard many times. As a business development strategy, it has some serious shortcomings.

One issue, of course, is that there is no generally agreed upon definition of “wow.” Too often, when I have heard an advisor say this, they then went on to provide their own interpretation of “wow”, and that is one way to disappoint clients. What matters is that you exceeded the client’s expectations, not your expectations of what the client wants. And all clients are different. For that matter, how will employees understand what “wow” is? And how can they deliver it if they cannot clearly translate it into behavior?

I remember one time I established a new relationship with a bank. There was some form that I neglected to sign or something.  The manager, in her pursuit of delivering the “wow” experience, drove to my office to deliver it to me. My reaction was “Why is there a bank manager in my lobby? The mail would have done just fine. I don’t need to be interrupted right now.” My assistant went out to see her. She dedicated a meaningful portion of her day to drive something to my office, as testament no doubt to their dedication of delivering an outstanding customer experience.  And if it had any effect on my attitude toward the institution, it was mildly negative. She focused on her assumptions of a great experience and ignored my expectations.

The bigger issue of “wow” is that too many people say it. And, yes, most do not deliver it, but YOU do.  I know. But how will prospects know that? If a prospect interviews five advisors, and they all say they deliver an amazing client experience, how will that help the prospect to choose you?

If you dedicate yourself to consistently deliver “wow” how will you operationalize that? If you are committed to providing “wow” then you must have procedures around it and they must be measured. Much, much better to define exactly what your service comprises, and explain that to clients.  Better yet, ask them if that is how they would most like things to be handled. Then create processes to deliver  that consistently and manage to those processes.

If you commit to delivering a “wow” experience, you will thrill some clients and it will generate some referrals. People are attracted (and make referrals) to firms that represent specific solutions and experiences that particular clients seek. Define what those solutions and experiences are, and test them with clients. Once you have determined what the target clients’ expectations are, build processes to meet them consistently and exceed them periodically. Then you will have a performance goal all your employees and clients will appreciate, and that they will tell others about. And that will yield a much greater return than simply “wow.”

Do you have the guts to set yourself apart?

In a recent post, Seth Godin points out that creating a competitive advantage takes guts.

A few days ago, I wrote about the importance of identifying a niche marketing to it. It makes you more attractive to prospective clients, and makes you referral. I noted that it is counterintuitive.

It is more than that. Marketing guru Seth Godin noted in a recent blog post that it takes guts.

Like others before him, he points out that working harder is not going to make you more successful anywhere near as much as working smarter or different. He also made a point I had not considered before – that simply getting more efficient at your work turns intellectual work into factory work. And that engages you in a race to the bottom.

He noted that overcoming the inertia to get better at your craft, or to be different in your profession, and to create a competitive advantage takes guts.

Why are we so insistent on describing ourselves and our practices exactly the same as all other advisors? Why do we describe what we do and for whom we do it the same way so many others in our industry do? You would think that we would understand that using the same words as everyone else will be utterly ineffective at giving prospects a reason to choose us instead of anyone else. Part of the reason is because being creative is really hard. And part of the reason is probably because it is scary to do something different than everyone else.

It is tempting to believe that everyone has chosen to do something one way because it's the best way. It is not – it is the average way. And it takes a measure of courage and self assurance to make a different choice than your peers.

So, as you lay out plan for the coming year, be brave. Be different. Achieve more.

To Get Referrals, Your Clients Must Understand Your Target Market

When Andrew Sullivan, of Sullivan and Schlieman in Atlanta, formed his client advisory board, one of their top recommendations was to give each of them a card listing his services and accomplishments. Their request was "tell us how to sell you."

In a recent client advisory board I facilitated, the participants told the advisor "tell us who your ideal client is, so we know who to refer." It is not the first time I have heard that kind of feedback from clients.

Experiences like this raise two critically important points. First, there is clearly a strong willingness, even an enthusiasm, on the part of clients to make referrals. This is not really surprising – Julie Littlechild's research has shown that as much as 91% of our clients are willing to refer. (It also demonstrates why participants on an advisory board tend to be a firm’s best referral sources!)

Second, it is the strongest proof I can imagine that advisors must clearly define what they do and for whom. They must be able to describe their niche, their target market. Remember, these advisory boards are composed of the advisors’ best clients – the ones who should know best what they have to offer.  And yet, they asked for guidance on what kind of clients the advisor hoped to attract.

If you believe you have defined your target client, here is how you can test how well you have done. Try this experiment – next time you talk to a couple clients you are on particularly good terms with, and who would be willing to take a minute for a little thought experiment, ask them this question: If I sent you into a cocktail party in the next room full of all kinds of people, and I asked you to refer a couple of them to me as prospective clients, how would you figure out who would be the best ones to send to me?

I suspect that most clients would answer "I don't know." And if that's the response, you will know why you aren't getting more referrals. Your clients are not sure who you're looking for. And whatever you have done so far to define and communicate your target market, your value proposition, and your ideal client, you still have work to do.

Defining who you want as clients and what unique solutions and experiences you provide to people like them are the foundation of referral marketing. Get those two things right, and attracting new clients becomes much easier.

To Connect With Prospects And Attract Referrals, Communicate Solutions – Not Methods

People care less about what you do and more about what they get.

When I asked advisors what they do, or what value they represent, too many describe the process they utilize and not enough describe solution they deliver. People won't send you a referral because you have a customized financial planning process and evaluate individual goals and generate recommendations tailored to client specific needs, and they won't send you a referral because you carefully monitor relationships between markets and rebalance portfolios based on proprietary protocols. They will provide a referral beause you provide a solution to a problem their friend has. People care less about what you do and more about what they get.

I believe the most powerful descriptions of the value advisors offer encapsulate the benefit a target prospect realizes by working with them. This requires, first, that you have a practical and well defined target market, but that's another post. Consider describing what you do worded as a solution from the client’s point of view. Complete this sentence “People like [describe target prospect] come to me for [solution that target market requires]. Consider these possibilities:

Corporate executives facing retirement in the next three years come to me because I show them the right choice on their retirement plan distributions.

Single professional mothers come to me to learn how to balance the demands of raising kids with the ability to afford college.

People who have saved enough to take care of themselves and want to use their savings to leave a mark on the world come to us to plan their legacy.

You can teach your clients statements of value like these, and they will repeat them to others when providing you a referral.

Don’t worry about answering the question “What do you do” with a sentence that starts out by describing your target client. You may think the person who asked you the question wants you to be the subject of the sentence, but you can much more effectively get their attention by describing the person you specialize in – especially if it is them.

When I ask advisors what they do, most often I hear versions of “I help people reach their financial goals” or “I manage people's portfolios to help reduce risk.”  Or “I give people peace of mind”. These are usually too general to be useful. And the bigger problem is that I don't think of my problems in those terms. I have just started a new business with one child in college, and am newly married, working on consolidating two households and have a three-year-old in the house for the first time in 14 years. You are NOT going to give me peace of mind.

People will come to get a solution, not to get a process. And people will remember to refer you because a friend mentions a problem that your client can plug your solution into, not because they like your process or because you have provided them returns to keep up with the market (even if it's with lower volatility).

If you stand for process you are a technician. If you represent a solution, you will attract clients and referrals who need a problem solved.