By Mike Schaffman, Simplicity Lone Beacon’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing.
As a financial advisor, it’s essential to recognize that not all prospects are alike. Understanding the different types of prospects is pivotal in tailoring your processes and conversations, providing a superior experience, and elevating your likelihood of securing deals. In this article, we’ll discuss the intricacies of identifying various types of prospects, where they stand in the process of becoming your client, and how to approach building and maintaining a system that nurtures those prospects to become your client in the context of the financial advisory business.
First, we need to understand what Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) and Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) actually are.
- Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
- Top of Funnel: These are individuals who have displayed interest in your company and have the potential to become customers with the right nurturing.
- Expectations: They are not yet prepared to make a purchase, necessitating further nurturing before involving the sales team.
- Types: They can be identified based on their actions, such as visiting your website, downloading information, or engaging with your social media content.
- Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)
- Middle/Bottom of Funnel: These prospects are ready to engage with your sales team as they are seriously considering a purchase.
- Expectations: Having demonstrated significant interest in your product or service, they are deemed ready to progress into the sales process.
- Types: Such leads are typically vetted by the marketing team before being passed on to the sales department.
Integration into the Customer Journey
It’s not about treating all prospects uniformly; it’s about managing both MQLs and SQLs simultaneously. By doing so, you can engage customers when they are most receptive and ready, rather than solely at your convenience as the advisor.
Customizing Your Approach to Follow-Ups
If you’ve been sending cookie-cutter follow-ups to your prospects no matter who they are, how they’ve engaged with your business, and how long they’ve been visible to you, it’s time to reconsider your follow-up strategy. Instead of employing a one-size-fits-all approach, consider the distinction between MQLs and SQLs when interacting with prospects. Tailoring your engagements based on this differentiation can significantly enhance your effectiveness and improve your chances of closing deals.
Navigating and Maintaining the Funnel
To effectively navigate the variances between MQLs and SQLs, establishing what I call a “lead Czar” is crucial to managing the dynamic intricacies of a marketing and sales pipeline. As part of that effort, you’ll want an internal prospect flow chart to make sure you and your team have full visibility into your marketing and sales funnel. This ensures that prospects are channeled through the appropriate nurturing and sales processes based on their classification as MQLs or SQLs. It’s important to note that sometimes, it takes extra expertise and bandwidth from your team that you just don’t have. So, if you’re going to outsource those responsibilities, make sure you fully understand what you should expect from this partner, and familiarize yourself with what the signs of a bad marketing and sales partner are.
Where To Go from Here
Understanding both the differences between MQLs and SQLs and how your marketing and sales system functions together to support MQLs and SQLs can bolster your financial advisory practice. By acknowledging and appropriately addressing these distinct types of prospects, advisors can optimize their lead nurturing and sales processes, ensuring that each prospect receives tailored attention at the right time so that they have the highest likelihood of making that crucial decision to choose you for something as consequential as being the steward of their finances. Ultimately, this approach can lead to more efficient and effective conversions, benefiting both the advisor and the prospect.
By incorporating these insights, financial advisors can refine their lead qualification processes, streamline their interactions with prospects, and increase their probability of converting prospects into long-term clients and partners.
About the Author: Mike Schaffman joined Simplicity Lone Beacon in 2015, pioneering their core marketing platform, creating content and connecting media and broadcast components with a turnkey digital solution. Mike helped transform Simplicity Lone Beacon’s offerings and solutions into one of the leading independent financial advisor marketing services in the country today. When he’s not in the office, Mike enjoys playing golf and hockey and likes to experiment in the kitchen.
