Are you on a production plateau and you need a little nudge to get going? Most advisors are because they’ve never learned how to create the perfect campaign to grow their business; as a result, they leave their success up to chance.
Benjamin Franklin said it best when he said, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”
I believe that is true. The best way to plan is to design a campaign, an organized course of action to achieve your goal, and take the right steps to do so.
Let’s take a look at a step-by-step process for creating your campaign:
Step 1: Identify What You are Passionate About
It might sound simple but you need to be passionate about what you are doing. Otherwise, a week, a month, or a few months into the campaign you will give up. That’s why it’s important to identify what you are passionate about.
For example, Joe P - a thirty-year veteran financial advisor client of mine - said that he needed some help converting his book to a fee-based business because he had lost his passion for running a transactional-based business. Also, his firm was going to increase the minimum gross commission requirements and he knew that if he converted his book to fee-based accounts he would easily be over the firm's required standards.
Step 2: Determine What You are Going to Say
Once you’ve identified any campaign that you want to run, you need to know what to say and more importantly why it’s good for the prospect or client.
Knowing what to say comes down to two fundamental techniques.
First, Framing the Conversation, which is a four-step process to set the appointment:
- Intro
- Reason for the Call
- Three Benefits
- Close
Second, use Story-Base Selling, which is done by using an analogy, metaphor, or an example to illustrate a story to help the prospect/client understand what it is you are trying to explain to them.
When I explained to Joe that I understood why he and the firm wanted him to convert his book to a fee-based platform but I don’t understand why his clients would want that since they have always relied on him, he simply replied, “I’m getting older and I want my clients to get better returns.” That was all I needed to know to help him know what to say to his clients.
So, we mapped out his Framing the Conversation steps. Next, we crafted a great story to help the clients understand that Joe was now taking another type of role managing the money managers instead of picking stocks. Finally, we practiced both techniques and went to the next step.
Step 3: Prepare for Pushback
Change can be a scary thing to some people. That’s why it’s important to get ready for pushback. In other words, being able to overcome common objections.
The two techniques that you need in order to handle objections are these: First, the Smoke Screen Technique, “In addition to ___ what’s holding you back from ___. Is there anything else?” This will help you find the real objection.
Second, the Objection Resolution Model, which is also a four-step process:
- Empathy/Acknowledgement
- Best Question
- Three Benefits
- Close
Joe knew that the biggest objection was going to be, “I don’t want to change things. They seem to be working as is.” So, we crafted his Objection Resolution Model for this specific objection.
Then, we went to the next step.
Step 4: Execute the Plan & Track Your Progress
The final step is to simply put the plan into action and record the progress. Create a daily tracker to get a picture of your results.
Joe started his daily tracker by listing out all 72 households that he earmarked for converting to fee-based accounts. Within three short months, he had set appointments with all of them, told the story, handled the objections, and closed everyone! Nobody slipped through the cracks because he executed the plan and tracked his progress.
Why Creating the Perfect Campaign Works
The reason why Creating the Perfect Campaign works is that it’s a step-wise approach to accomplishing your goals. When you use all of the previous steps along with other strategies that I discuss in The Advisor Solutions Podcast Episode #66, Creating Your Perfect Prospecting Campaign, you will find that campaigns are something that you will enjoy creating and implementing because they give you direction. And that is certainly a recipe for success!
