Ellis Communications, L.L.C.

Leverage Great Sales Message As A Marketing Tool
And Reach Hundreds, Thousands More Prospects

 Financial advisors who don’t leverage their sales message as a marketing pitch are missing an opportunity to reach hundreds or even thousands of prospective clients. 

"Marketing is all the effort that goes into making a person positively predisposed to your product or service the next time they have a need for it," says Martin R. Baird, president of Phoenix, Ariz.-based Advisor Marketing and author of The 7 Deadly Sins of Advisor Marketing.   "When you’re ‘selling’ or offering solutions to your clients and prospects, that’s a form of marketing, too.  Marketing is salesmanship in a print or electronic format."

            Baird offers the following seven tips on using sales as marketing.

Number 1 - When you do marketing, you should be able to take your sales message and put it in a different format so more people are aware of your solutions to their financial problems.  "That different format could be advertisements, direct mail, TV or radio," Baird says.  "The key point to remember is that the message doesn’t change with the way it’s delivered."

Number 2 - If you have a great sales presentation that works every time, duplicate it as marketing so you can leverage it.  "Don’t make the common mistake of thinking you need to do something different when you’re doing marketing," Baird notes. 

Number 3 - If you know what to say when you’re face to face with a client or prospect, you’re 75 percent of the way to having a great marketing message.

Number 4 - Record your sales presentation several times and then have them all transcribed.  From that document, you have the most important elements for a great marketing tool.  "It could be formatted so it’s a brochure or it may need to be revised slightly for a sales letter or it could even make a great article for your trade media," Baird says.

Number 5 - If you can "touch," move and inspire people in person when you are selling, marketing is a way to do that to hundreds or thousands of people simultaneously.

Number 6 - What’s stopping you from doing this?  Is it a feeling that you may not have a great sales presentation?  Is it fear that you don’t have a system you can repeat?  Is it that all your presentations are custom and no two are the same?  "The sooner you forget about these questions and focus on what works, the easier it will be for you to make progress and move forward with the great opportunities this brings to you and your prospects,"  Baird explains.

Number 7 - If you don’t have a great sales presentation, you need to retool it before you leverage it.  "If your sales messages aren’t working, don’t waste your money trying to make them succeed as marketing," Baird says.

Advisormarketing.com is the premiere Internet-based source for free marketing advice, information and tools for self-driven, success-oriented financial advisors who are demanding information that helps them market their practice, meet the needs of their clients and increase sales.  It offers such services as a free weekly electronic newsletter, free reports on how to conduct different kinds of marketing and evaluation of advisors’ marketing materials that is provided at no charge when the critique is posted online for all advisors to read.  Advisormarketing.com also offers an electronic forum where advisors can learn from each other by discussing common problems, sharing ideas and gaining new insights from their peers.  Advisor Marketing may be reached at 480-991-6421.