By Peter Kaufman – Director of Creative Services, Sage Marketing
In all my years working with financial advisors, one statistic never fails to amaze me: The average advisor adds ONE NEW CLIENT per year. Can you imagine any other business development position where this would be tolerated? There are several reasons for this:
- FA’s are comfortable. It’s easy to go into the office every day. Pick up a Wall Street Journal, grab a cup of coffee, flip on MSNBC, fold the newspaper and put it under your arms and head for the bathroom at 8:48. It all becomes so easy to spend every moment in the warm cocoon of your office.
- Many FA’s are financially secure. With most of their business generating predictable revenue, they’re fat and happy. Bills are getting paid and new cars are being purchased. No sweat.
- Most clients are on autopilot. With wrap funds and ETF’s there is little of the daily back and forth with clients. I’ve had million dollar producers tell me they haven’t seen their Top 10 clients in person in over a year. OVER A YEAR.
At Sage Marketing, we work with a lot of Branch and Complex Managers. They work at the Big 4 and smaller firms everywhere. And they’re all looking for ways to motivate and excite their FA’s. Here are a few tips that may help…
- CLOSE THE OFFICE FOR A WEEK. Shake things up. Tell them the office has lice and needs to be fumigated. Trust me, nobody sticks around when you mention lice.
- Make everyone submit a quick plan for how they’re spending their time away from the office. It could involve meeting with their top clients, attending civic meetings, visiting the diners and Panera’s where most of local business gets done…you get the idea.
- Follow up and find out how much good came out of this. As Branch Rickey once said, “The harder you work, the luckier you get.” You, and they, will be amazed at the things they’ll learn just being present where people are gathered: companies about to be sold, divorces on the horizon…people love to talk and FA’s should be in the middle of the action.
Once the “lice situation” is over, plan one day a week where no FA’s should be in the office unless absolutely necessary. Start training folks that the business is happening outside in the real world. Unless prospects are lining up outside an FA’s office, they need to out and meeting with people.
If you’d like to hear more about this and learn some success stories that came out of this program, please call me at 804/239-6254 or email me at peter@sagemarketingus.com.
Peter Kaufman is the Director of Creative Services at Sage Marketing. Focused 83.5% on the financial services world, our team of former big firm employees know how systems work and strive every day to motivate and move advisors to work harder and be happier.