By Mike Schaffman, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Simplicity Lone Beacon
If you desire change, then know that you’re responsible and should feel empowered to make that happen. Remember, change is not just about doing something different; it’s about a well-calculated approach toward modifying your perception, behavior, and response.
As you likely already know, change can be a daunting phenomenon. Managing change is critical for any person or business to transform, but it requires trust and commitment. So, where do you start?
Well, financial advisors may focus on the specific carriers or products they utilize, others might evaluate case design and business operations or staff, while some look at the various marketing platforms available to them.Whatever it is, when asking yourself if it’s time to change (and wondering what to change), know that the advisors poised for the most growth opportunity will account for all critical areas across their practice with a defined gameplan.
We’re going to review what the approach looks like for your perception, behavior, and response.
Modifying Your Perception
The change phenomenon is rooted in one’s ability to properly observe where and when change is needed. Advisors are busy business owners too, which is why having trust in team members and strategic partners is so important. Two of the biggest mis-aligned perceptions we see advisors having are:
- My old leads are no good, and anyone who doesn’t want to book an appointment with me right now is a waste of my time
- I don’t need a full-scale digital marketing platform because I’ve built my business on referrals and closing what’s in front of me
I’m not saying you’re wrong for perceiving things this way, but rather trying to open you up to a different perspective. Let’s start with your old leads: What have you done to showcase your authentic irrefutable brand?
If you’ve never had a consistent email system in-place to communicate with them, then start with a change there. If you are delivering content on a regular basis, then think about the types of content, how it educates and engages them, and what changes you’d make to better separate yourself from the crowded competitive landscape vying for that same business. And if you are thoughtfully executing this, then consider your evaluation of analytics, finding patterns amongst your most engaged users, so you can be timely and strategic with your sales outreach.
Regarding the second misaligned perception, referrals in this day and age are not guaranteed. As John Capuano said in his recent vlog, it’s time to accept the fact that consumer behavior is changing. No matter what, no matter how warm the lead is, they’re going to look you up online. People want to be educated, people want things easier, and people want to know what’s in it for them. In a previous piece, I wrote about the 3 marketing buzzwords to live by, which are reach, frequency, and impressions. There’s only one way to accomplish this to ultimately meet people where they’re at along the customer journey, and it’s through a complete digital marketing platform, or what we call the “Core 4.”
Connecting Your Behavior with Your Response
If your mentality is accepting what the status quo is and has been, then it’s time to act a little bit differently. Taking us back to where we started, remember that you are empowered and the one responsible for enacting change. Your attitude must adapt based on your future goals and changing needs across your business. And as such, your actions must be deliberate and precise in order to execute.
Take, for example, live events which a lot of advisors utilize as their main marketing source. If direct mail has continued to perform well for you on the promotion side, then take a deeper look at your attendance and appointment booking numbers. If it hasn’t performed to the same level as the past, then you might want to consider a digital advertising component to supplement.
As you dig in, you’ll likely start to find helpful patterns between the event location, type, or topics delivered. Additionally, you might unearth ways to improve your confirmation/reminder follow up processes in between their registration and date of event. Or perhaps the flow of your actual event and the way you greet attendees, deliver your presentation and corresponding calls-to-action, and perform outreach/nurturing post-event will need to be tweaked.
Like everyone else, you probably want to double your production next year and find ways to spend less time working “in” your business and more time working “on” your business.
Well, alright then, go get started. What are you going to do differently? How are you going to enact change? Once you have answers to those questions, you’re on your way to making measurable improvements to your business.
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.
