Virtually working smarter, not harder

While some financial advisors prefer meeting with prospects and clients face-to-face and holding events such as seminars, that’s not always possible or practical. It could be because of social distancing or because there are only so many hours in the day. 

That doesn’t mean you can’t grow your business or help a wide range of clients from different income levels and life stages. The following ideas can increase your productivity — and they don’t require more of your time. Instead, these ideas are about effectively tapping into the power of technology so you don’t need in-person meetings or events for every client and prospect.

Plugging into robo-advisor technology

The technology that powers robo-advisors also allows financial advisors to digitally onboard clients, offering online fact-finders and the ability to buy basic financial products online, such as smaller term life insurance policies. This allows financial advisors to connect with clients who are at the start of their careers.

Watch Jonathan Kestle discuss how “The robo-advisor is an advantage for advisors.”

Robo-advisors “all do things a little bit differently, but the basic task of onboarding digitally makes it easy to consolidate assets and transfer money. It’s really the core value of the robo-advisor,” said six-MDRT member and Court of the Table qualifier Jonathan Peter Kestle, CLU, B Com, of Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada. This means Kestle can spend more time doing what he’s trained to do, which is providing clients value through his advice. “I can really make this an opportunity,” he said, noting the chance to help families with more complex family and business dynamics with their financial planning.  Robo-advisors or junior financial advisors then can assist clients with less-involved financial and family dynamics.

Cross-selling, marketing and following up

Once you have clients connected to your practice, even if it’s for a basic financial product, you can stay top of mind for those clients and continue to grow with them as their life circumstances shift. Clients will get job promotions, start a business, buy a house, marry, have children, remarry and have blended families, gain inheritances, want to retire and so forth. You know as a good financial advisor how to help protect their financial future and help them reach their goals. Make sure your clients know that as well.

Watch Ryan Pinney discuss email marketing in “Is communication costing you clients?“

“We take this buy-or-die philosophy,” said 12-year MDRT member Ryan J. Pinney. “In essence, until they buy a product or service from us, we’re going to continue to market to them until they die physically or virtually by opting out and we are no longer able to market to them. 

“Research has shown — and our experience has shown — that today 10% of the clients are going to buy today and another 20% really are never going to buy. That means there’s this huge gap in the middle, 70%,” said Pinney, a Top of the Table qualifier from Roseville, California. “That 70%, if we continue to market to them and educate them and stay in contact with them, research shows that, over time, 84% of the 70% will eventually convert. That means you can pick up five or six additional sales over time with the exact same 10 prospects. Now your closing rate goes from being 1 in 10 to 5, 6, or 7 in 10. Think about what that does to your bottom line as an advisor. There’s no way the typical advisor can do it without having a system in place to automate that follow up.”  

Video meetings

As social distancing has illustrated, more clients than ever are willing to forgo in-person meetings and will video chat. That option provides a practical work-around during the current crisis, however, in any circumstance, it saves on travel time and allows a financial advisor to “meet” with clients no matter where they are in the world.

While you may need to adjust processes, these ideas can allow advisors to do more of what they like and less of what isn’t profitable for them to do.

For more about video chats, read “Building a better videoconference.”