How (and When) To Talk About Your Financial Advice

Hey there pro-active financial planner!

Steve Salvia here from Blackwing.com.au and today I want to talk to you about HOW & WHEN to start talking about your financial advice.

See there’s a right time (and some very WRONG times) to talk about you, and what you do, and answer all their financial problems so that they not only GET IT, but they WANT IT as well.

Do you bring up what you do at the start…?

At the end…

Do you wait until they ask…?

When’s the right time…?

So if you’re trying to figure out the best way to speak about your Financial Planning program in front of clients, so that it doesn’t feel awkward or weird or disrupt the flow of your meeting…

Sit tight and I’ll show you exactly when to do it.

Lets do that NOW!

So I just got off a GAME PLAN session with a really cool Blackwing Profit client.

A Game Plan session’s where we jump on a ZOOM or Skype call and map out the next sort of 30 / 60 / 90 days and agree on the 3 most important Projects we’re going to get done in that time….

And anyway, the conversation focused a lot on how we convert a Prospect into a Client in a one on one Conversion meeting.

And the question kept coming up:

“But Steve, when do I get to talk about MY services or MY business?”

And

“What’s the best way to do it so they actually GET what I do and they WANT what I’ve Got?”

And they’re pretty common questions.

Maybe you’re wondering when the right time is for you…?

Well, I want to give you 3 Tips right now so that you know exactly when the right time is for you and your approach.

1. The first thing you want to do is to actually HOLD BACK!

That’s right – Tip number one, I want you to HOLD BACK!

See in say a 90-minute to two hour (max) Meet & Greet or Engagement or Discovery meeting, you want to talk about you and your stuff and what you can do in about the last 30 or 40 minutes only.

About the last third of the meeting.

That’s it!

See the challenge is that financial planners are problem solvers by nature.

It’s just what we do and we’re ‘hard wired’ to help people and fix things…. right?

But what happens is that we get so caught up in giving people the answers and solutions…

And starting to do all the calcs they need on a piece of paper or the whiteboard…

Or we start solving all the issues there and then…

And 2 really bad things happen:

A. The first thing is that we haven’t really given ourselves time to get a real, true understanding of where they want to be, where they’re at right now…, and what needs to happen to get them to that place in the best way!

We don’t get them excited about their future…

Or unhappy or discontent with where they’re at…

So there’s NO EMOTION.

There’s no ‘Emotional Buy In’.

It’s just you and their problems and they’re just waiting for you to give them the answer (which of course you do….).

So the first issue is that we launch into Solution Mode way too early.

B. And number 2, when we give out all the answers really early in the meeting…

What happens is that we ‘give away the COOKIE’!

We dish out all our VALUE before there’s any emotional buy-in!

When you give out the answers and fix everything to soon, well there’s No Value left anymore because you’ve just given it away for free…!

Make sense?

How many times have you finished a first meeting with someone…?

You’ve given heaps and heaps of advice and done a great job….

But you’ve never seen the person again…?

They’ve just never came back…!

Honest?

Lots of times I bet (and so did I).

Oh – you know…. “we had such a great chat….

and we did a heap of calcs and did up some insurance quotes….

and it was really great….

And I sent them a summary…, and a draft strategy…, and a fees schedule…

He’ll definitely be back – I know he will….

He said he’d call me next week to get it all done…………”

But of course – they never do do they?

And that’s when you start the ‘Chasing Game’….

But of course – when you chase – they RUN!

What happened was that you didn’t get any emotional buy-in because you only gave Information instead of getting that deep TRANSFORMATION that you need!

Information never helped anyone!

Your job is all about TRANSFORMATION!

So tip number one is to HOLD BACK!

And get more EMOTIONAL BUY-IN!

Ask quality questions and then ‘open up the space’ for your prospects to answer….

2. Tip number 2 is to STRETCH THE GAP!

Stretch The GAP!

My friend Taki Moore taught me this years ago and I want you to imagine that you’ve got this big ‘lacky band’…

And you’re stretching it and stretching it…

On the RIGHT hand side is where they want to be…

And the LEFT hand side is where they are now…

And the GAP is the distance between where they need to be and what it’s actually like now….

And you want that GAP to be as wide as possible…

That means the need for YOU is as BIG as possible!

The further your prospects are from the Results they want, the more they need your help.

We’re going to get them excited about what the future could look like for them and the Results they want to achieve….

Then we’re going to bring them back to Reality and get them to tell you what it’s like for them right now (and that’s normally not a good place – that’s why they’re here in the first place….).

We’re going to rub their noses in it a little bit…

And once we’ve got them to buy into where they want to be…

And what things are like for them now…

Then we’re going to show them all the ways that we can help them get to that place!  The Roadblocks.

Break thru any brick walls, speed bumps, sticky points, and challenges – help them get thru whatever they need to get them to their UTOPIA!

We’re going to take them on an emotional journey and we’re going to Stretch The Gap!

That way, when you do talk about you & your business and what you can do…, your stuff matters.

Your stuff’s got a place in their world because it’s now in the CONTEXT of their Goals and their Problems.

Make sense?

So the second thing I want you to do is to Stretch The GAP.

3. The third tip for how to talk about your stuff is to do it while you’re actually GETTING HIRED!!!

We’re going to give them one little pill at a time.

One little piece of important information in a very strategic way….

About you…. About how your business can help….

There’s six important things that a prospects needs to be ‘crystal clear’ on before they’ll make a big decision and pay high fees and work with you…

We call them the 6 MAGIC PILLS:

Who you are?

How you operate?

The services you provide?

What they can expect from you…

Your FEE structure in detail!

And we add what we call the Joint Commitment Statement!

This is our commitment to you as your adviser…

But here’s what we expect from you as a client of our firm…!

And then check-in with them after we’ve explained every step.

One Magic Pill at a time.

We give away six pills:

• 3 pills about “Who, How & Why they need it” and;
• 3 pills about “What, FEES and Logistics & Expectations”

We’ve got the Emotion at the TOP, and the Logic at the BOTTOM.

So you want to give out one pill at a time.

6 pills and each time checking with them.

And this is When and How you talk about your advice proposition and it’s Value.

But only after there’s a CONTEXT around it.

So your job becomes really simple.

It’s to have a conversation and work out IF they’re fit or not.

It’s NOT about dishing out answers and solution – not yet.

You can do that later once they’re engaged!

You don’t push yourself onto anyone…

You just ‘circle nice and slowly’ – like a hang glider….

You’re not pushing anyone into anything.

In fact the reverse actually happens.

They’ll pull you across the line and you’ll convert more Fee4ADVICE clients – because you know where they want to be…

You know where they’re at….

And now you’ve got a great way to explain what you do and the value you can add in context with their needs…!

There’s a little transition script that we add just here – BEFORE we start answering their questions and solving their problems that GETS US HIRED!!

So that we get PAID for our advice and our work – and that’s exactly what we want!

So a quick recap.

HOLD BACK

STRETCH THE GAP

ASK FOR THE ORDER and GET HIRED

Because when you get good at this – when you get this piece right – here’s what happens:

You don’t look needy anymore…

You lose that nervousness and that desperation vibe that you’ve been given off…

Now you’re seen as an Authority in people’s eyes…

(Specialists don’t just ‘BLURT’ out answers do they…??)

And you sign more clients and that’s the end result we want right?

More Australians; getting quality financial advice and improving everything for everyone.

So that’s this week’s Boost Your Business tip.

If you liked what we’ve talked about or you think that some other financial planners might get some value out of having a different conversation with prospects….

Do me a massive favor and hit the LIKE & SHARE buttons in here somewhere.

Let us know you care and you enjoyed the content.

But before you go, I’ve got a question for you:

“What’s your #1 best method when it comes to converting new prospects into Fee4Advice clients?

What’s something that works really well to engage people in your meetings?”

Let’s share your best tip and make a list and have a conversation in the comments section.

I’d love to know so leave me a comment down below and let’s continue the conversation down there.

Anyway, that’s it for now.

Thanks so much for watching.

Hope you got something out of it.

I’ve had fun making it!

Leave me a comment downstairs.

Take Real Good Care.

Steve Salvia – PEACE OUT!