3 simple, low-cost ways to connect with potential clients

The most important aspect of a successful financial services business is identifying, nurturing and processing prospects into new clients. I use detailed procedures to ensure this happens in my business, and you can easily adapt them for your own prospecting.

1) Cost effectiveness: inexpensive vs. other traditional

Like many advisors, I have tried most of the traditional avenues of prospecting and have ultimately found them to be an expensive use of both time and money. Our strategy is run on a shoestring budget, but we have garnered better-quality prospects who are more closely aligned with how we operate and what we offer. We have one full-time marketing director who also manages our client relationship programs, and a part-time staff member who enters data and sets follow-ups. This is all coordinated through post-activity notes in our client relationship management system (CRM).

2) More individual interaction, fewer objections

Rather than dealing with mailing lists, direct mail or seminar management, we find that seeking out the right people and meeting them on a personal basis is more efficient. We also come into the relationship with a leg up, as they have in all cases been exposed to us in some manner. They know why they’re in the appointment, and we don’t have to spend as much time building credibility. We have, in many ways, pre-educated our prospects and find them much more open-minded, which is one of our top pre-qualifying attributes.

3) Better referrals

We’re finding that when we know more about who we’re trying to be referred to and their relationship to the nominator, the introductions are easier and more effective. That further enhances referral prospecting, and helps us turn a prospect into a client.

Thomas Levasseur, a 34-year MDRT member from Dover, New Hampshire. This was excerpted from “10 steps to effective prospecting” (MDRT member exclusive) in the the January/February 2017 issue of  Round the Table.