During this pandemic, quite a few advisors are expressing frustration that it is taking longer to convert prospects into clients.
How about you? Taking longer? About the same?
I decided to do an unscientific study on this topic. I interviewed 37 financial professionals of different tenures and success levels to learn more about their experience.
Roughly 80% of those I interviewed were experiencing this virtual-world-sales-cycle slowdown. BUT 20% were converting prospects to clients at the same pace as pre-pandemic.
Those interviews yielded 10 tips on how you can speed up your prospect-to-client conversion cycle.
- Don’t neglect referrals/introductions for other sources of prospects.Leads, online seminars to cold prospects, and other methods of meeting prospects are great, but they do have lower and slower conversion rates. Don’t neglect referrals and introductions.
- Add a referral component to your online seminars. When filling your pipeline with colder prospects, don’t forget to use referrals. You can ask clients to invite people to your educational events. You can promote referrals at one event for your next event. And you can ask these prospects for referrals to appointments or future events.
- Make sure you get a great introduction from your referral source. Stop settling for weak or no introductions. Collaborate with your referral source for a meaningful introduction. Even while we are working in a mostly virtual world, you get robust referrals—here is some guidance on how to effectively ask for referrals virtually.
- Be transparent with your process.How many steps are in your process of getting your prospects, making recommendations and onboarding? If a prospect is unclear about your process, they may abandon it. Let your confidence in your process show through.
- Use an agenda for every meeting—that you share with your prospect. Using an agenda will usually result in a better managed meeting with time to cover all the items on the agenda. Share your agenda with the prospect before each meeting so they know what to expect and how to be prepared.
- Provide tangible value as quickly as you possibly can. The value and trust that you build quickly in a new relationship will often make a huge difference in how quickly you can earn that prospect’s business. One thing that builds trust quickly is bringing value as quickly as possible—in a way that doesn’t earn you a penny. For example, help your pre-retired clients determine what their Social Security payout will be at certain age points.
- Digitize all your materials to share on the computer screen. Don’t wait to mail something for your prospects to review. Review with them on the screen. Have all the documents opened so you can move quickly between them.
- Make sure meeting times meet expectations. Whatever time you feel you need to bring value and cover the topics that need to be covered, confidently communicate that to your prospects so they don’t schedule something that will interfere with your agenda.
- Send summary emails with specific, expected action steps. If you believe your prospect is a good match for the work that you do, don’t end a meeting without specific next steps—on either their part, yours or both. Then stay with the process to make sure everyone does their part.
- Get to the ‘gap’ or the critical issue as quickly as possible. People put off aspirational opportunities, but they will often move heaven and earth to plug a hole or solve a critical problem. If a prospect does not convert into a client, it may be because they didn’t recognize the critical nature of the problem you purport to solve. A great question to ask is, “What will happen if we don’t take action on this issue today?”
Bonus tip: Lead the process—be the expert—and expect the result you want
Here is my definition of financial leadership: Helping people make educated decisions that are in their best interest and that they wouldn’t make without you.
Taking a leadership role in the lives of your prospects and clients takes confidence. Lead this process in a way that produces the best possible outcome for your prospects and clients. Help them take the action that is in their best interest. That, by the way, may mean that you don’t take them on as a client—rather you introduce them to a colleague who is better suited for their needs.