Ellis Communications, L.L.C.

Stop Popping Antacids, Take the Heartburn Out of Prospecting
By Following Simple, Easy Marketing Concepts

Prospecting is one of the day-to-day activities that gives financial advisors heartburn but it doesn’t have to be that way.

"Prospecting is challenging for most advisors, but it’s actually easy if you know what you’re doing," says Martin R. Baird, president of Phoenix, Ariz.-based Advisor Marketing and author of The 7 Deadly Sins of Advisor Marketing.  "Prospecting is just another word for marketing, something that many advisors do.  Once an advisor understands the direct relationship between prospecting and marketing, they’re ready to make things easier for themselves."

Baird offers the following seven tips that will ease the burden as advisors hunt for new clients and generate more business from existing ones.

No. 1. The most important fundamental of marketing and prospecting is to find a need and fill it.  "For any product or service to succeed in a free-market economy, it must fill a need," Baird says.  "Identify that need and people will come to you looking for your solution."

No. 2. One of the best ways to identify a need is to listen.  "Clients and prospects will often tell you what they want," Baird notes.  "It’s good if this need is expressed in an emotional way because that means it’s very important."

No. 3. Listen for comments that multiple clients say and repeat.  "What this tells you is that more than one person is looking for the same solution or has the same need and this could be the start of finding a hot new niche to work with."

No. 4. Be consistent with your marketing message and repeat, repeat.  "Companies that do well have a consistent message their target market identifies with and they keep that message on their prospects’ radar screen over time," Baird explains.  "Consistency in your message and repetition of your message are critical to reducing your prospecting or doing a better job of it."

No. 5. Cut through the marketing clutter.  "Everyone is bombarded with marketing messages all day long," Baird says.  "It can take as many as eight to 10 impressions before a prospect remembers seeing your particular message.  It could take even more additional impressions than that before they act or consider action."

No. 6. Market yourself every day.  "It doesn’t have to be anything complicated, but doing one marketing activity a day will generate amazing results," Baird notes.

No. 7. Try one contact a day.  "You can have an amazing impact on your business over time if you just call one client a day," Baird says.  "Even advisors who have a real aversion to prospecting should be able to do that."

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.