This Summer…  Increase your income
by building Strategic Alliances with Accountants

Uninterested Investors and Uncertain Markets…

Most people don’t think about financial planning during the summer months.  Investors are busy soaking up the warm rays of the sun with their families.
Investors are not ready to commit due to uncertain markets.

• How can a financial advisor keep getting referrals during summer to boost his income?
• How do you effectively market your financial advisory business during summer to keep getting leads?

Build Strategic Alliances with Accountants.

Forming any strategic alliance takes careful planning and a disciplined approach.  The goal is to build a trust team to better service your clients.  Most financial advisors do not have the time to spend.

Increase your income by increasing your referrals.  Build strategic alliances with accountants.

Summer is the Perfect Time!

Summer is the perfect time for meetng with accountants because they have just finished their heavy tax preparation workload for individuals and self-employed people.   They are looking for a welcome break away from their desks.

How do you enhance trust with your clients?

Your client sees the extra service initiative and place more trust in you.  What have you done?  You have serviced his needs beyond his wildest expectations.  You have made him a more trusting client.  You now have a loyal client.  You have made him feel that he owes you something in return.

What can a trust, loyal client give a financial advisor?

We all know that the best kind of lead is a referral.  An exceptionally happy client is willing to refer his family and friends to you.  He has now transferred his trust in you to produce high level, qualified referrals.

All this takes time and effort!

Yes it is true that building strategic alliances takes time.

What can Professional Business Owners Learn from the G20 leaders?

When the G20 leaders met in London in April 2009 they pledged to work together on six priorities to deal with the global economic crisis.  Acknowledging “the greatest challenge to the world economy in modern times” the official communiqué specifies cooperation among nations to “restore confidence” and “rebuild trust”.  This black hole of suspicion is a force that no country or company can escape.

Very similar remedies were adopted after the “dot.com bust” eight short years ago.  However, the reforms put in place did nothing in preventing the excesses that led to the current crisis in credit and credibility. 

Experts in business and marketing believe that the suspicion unleashed during the present economic crisis is far deeper and has more lasting consequences than earlier.  Further eroding of this trust occurred  with the auto industry  and bank bailouts.  On the one hand they  gladly  accepted the tax payer’s  money and then spent  it on extravagant and immoral executive bonuses.   

Financial scandals and the Ponzi  schemes are on the rise…  Isn’t this called white collar crime?    Most of these people  just received a slap on the wrist. Where was the bailout for the middle-class tax-payer who lost all his savings or pension to such financial thievery?  After hearing about all of this, , would you trust another financial advisor with your money?

The reality of this…  Read the rest of this entry »

Low Cost, High Value Lead Generation

Boost your Lead Generation and Customer Loyalty by forming Trust Teams.
Lead generation is the most important factor for business survival. There are several small business marketing strategies that enable lead generation. Some of the small business marketing strategies used are cold calls, direct mail, email, networking and word of mouth referrals. A time-consuming, less utilized small business marketing strategy is the forming of strategic alliances.

Today, let’s take a look at strategic alliances and trust teams. Strategic alliances is a very important small business marketing strategy for professionals like financial advisors, mortgage brokers, lawyers, real estate agents. Read the rest of this entry »

When you consider website building – Making money from your website should be the first and most important goal of
small business marketing.

Why build a website if you don’t know how to accomplish the first goal.

Thinking of building your website, ask the question :

What is internet marketing?

In a nutshell, Internet Marketing is using your website as the most cost-effective Read the rest of this entry »

How much money are you leaving behind on the table?

You are marketing in various places. You are receiving leads and referrals.
Your lead generation strategies are working. Statistics show that most financial advisors are easily converting 30% of lead traffic.

The important questions for every financial advisor are -

• Am I satisfied with just the low hanging fruit?
• What do I do with remaining 70% of leads generated?.
• How can I easily increase the lead conversion percentages?
• What strategies can I utilize to not loose sight of the harder to convert leads?
• How effective are these strategies?

To fully understand the amount of money left behind on the table… ask yourself these questions.

• How much does a lead or referral cost you? If you are part of a networking organization, the cost of the lead is not just the cost of membership. It is membership plus the time you spend attending the meetings.
• Are you purchasing leads and at what cost?
• Do you use rented lists and at what cost?
• Do you use telemarketing to contact these leads?
• Do you use direct mail to contact these leads?
• How can I make more income from my present lead generation?

Given that not all leads will not convert into business – What effective marketing strategy can you employ to increase the hard to convert leads. Read on to find out how professional financial advisors are Read the rest of this entry »

Why are you having this event?

Who are you inviting to this event?

What do you hope to get from this event?

If you don’t have clear answers for these questions, then you might as well throw your money away.

A common mistake made by many financial planners, especially newcomers to the profession, is to go out and spend a wad of cash hosting large, costly galas where any Tom, Dick and Harry attend, but with little or no benefit to you, the financial advisor. That’s where your Professional Event Planner comes in to the picture and can save you time and money. Read the rest of this entry »

Really?  What is it?

It is Internet Marketing & Social Media Marketing.

What is internet marketing?

Reaching your target market by effectively using the internet as the primary source of advertising.

What is social media marketing?

Using all the available online networking sites as a means to educate and inform your clients.

How is internet marketing eco-friendly?

Why is it called, ”Green marketing?” Read the rest of this entry »

I read a lot to my children when they were little.   Among the many books we read together were the Dr. Seuss series like, “Cat in the Hat” and “Green Eggs & Ham”.  It taught them to read with fun, rhythm and enjoy the play on words.   They became avid readers and remain to this day.  

Years later, I stumbled upon a quote also by Dr. Seuss on Authenticity that I really love.

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter, don’t mind” 

I shared this quote with my children.   It challenges them to be themselves and to become comfortable being their authentic self.  Over the years, they have told me stories of how challenging this was – how they have had to make hard choices in their relationships with their cousins and friends.   They have gained many insights and now are quite adept at assessing people they meet.   They have lost out on some friendships (which in hindsight didn’t matter) and gained lasting and rewarding friendships with others. 

How do we apply this same principle to business?  

When you are your authentic person, you will attract like minded people within your target audience.  You then become liked and the more likeable you become to your target audience. Read the rest of this entry »