The sales process has always been an in-person, relationship building activity. However, nowadays, a newer breed of clients are too busy or plain not interested in taking the time to maintain relationships in person. How can the services industry use technology to deliver excellent and compliant services especially in finance when time is at a premium? And even more importantly, how can financial advisors connect with clients in a world where no one picks up their calls anymore?
Technology for one can make it easy for advisors (and firms) to set up appointments. Make use an online appointment setting system to avoid lags and trouble related to calls and telephone lag. You can easily insert links to schedule an appointment along with the signatures on emails as well as your website. social media marketing
Most advisors are required to conduct periodic investment reviews which now involves a lot of manual processes that can be time-consuming. Before automation, financial advisors would likely end up leaving voice mails most of the time. At times, when the client would unexpectedly pick up the phone, the advisor would be forced into a discussion then and there without having sufficient information available to conduct the review. This would soon descend into small talk and wasted time.
LinkedIn, the next frontier of Prospecting!
One of the bigger opportunities on social media is using LinkedIn to prospect for new clients. With the paid for options on LinkedIn, one can now run searches by company, title, business size, years of experience and so on. The individual profiles that get thrown up are likely to be qualified leads.
Once you shortlist prospects, it is wise to send out simple, personalized invitations to people mutually connected through your existing clients or connections. Make it personal and maybe send out a note like ‘We seem to have quite a few common connections and it might be beneficial for us to connect directly.’
You’d be surprised at how many people will accept a connection request, especially those personalized. Once they accept, you can send a simple pre-scripted note to thank them for connecting and offer them help. Then a few days later – a month or so, you can follow up with a message that leads to further engagement.
Above all, you should commit to using LinkedIn on a consistent basis. “Learn how to perform advanced searches on LinkedIn and use it to your advantage. It will definitely be more worthwhile than time spent cold calling an hour or three a day. Try the same out on LinkedIn, commit to spending time scouting for prospects every day and you can get people to say yes to meetings.
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