anyone on matters financial. He assured me that they would teach me everything I needed to know, and if I shined my shoes and looked them in the eye, I should be okay. I went to the interview and got the job, much to my surprise.
I soon had what I call my “aha” moment. It was shortly after I passed my Series 7 exam (which I thought I had no chance of conquering). I was still a bit concerned that I cheated the system, so to speak. I mean, after all, they did hire a former artist and website designer who had a history of bad check writing. What was I doing here? I began to look around at all the people who were successful at this job. As I got to know them, I realized they didn’t have some magic skill that I did not. Then it hit me, and I remember specifically when it was. As I walked into the office one day, I remember hearing an advisor talking to a client/prospect. It was awful, cheesy, and fake. He used every cliché in the book and, you would have though he was talking to a four-year-old. At that moment, I remember thinking, “If that guy can do this, I can do this – and better.”
I worked with two senior advisors, for two years, and to give credit where credit is due, they were a big part of the reason that I made it through the first year. Without them helping me hit some of my goals, I’m not sure I would be writing this today. That being said, I learned a lot in that year. I spent the next eighteen months cold calling in what I now feel was the wrong way. I honed my skills, but wasn’t building anything. Eventually, I realized I held a different vision than my co-workers did. I changed firms, and brought a portion of my clients with me. As I began at my new firm, I felt excited that I had a fresh start.
As I made this transition, I took a weekend to sit and reflect on my experiences thus far. I formulated a business plan and marketing system that proved to be the key to my success. As I started at the new firm, I had about 5 million dollars in assets. In the subsequent two and a half years, I managed to bring in 35 million more dollars. Sure there were advisors bringing in more money than me, but they knew people, were on teams, or had been in the business before. I was doing it the only way that was available to me. I have a long way to go to get to where I want to be. What I do know is that without the plan and process I formulated that weekend, things would be very different.
What follows is a combination of what I discovered that weekend and the three years that followed. My career as a financial advisor took me to three large financial services firms and had me wear the hat of both an FA and a manager. I was a Series 7, 66, 9 and 10 registered rep, I managed 100 million dollars, and lead a training program of roughly 60 financial advisors which was the largest in the country for the most well known wealth management firm their was (prior to 2008). Through this journey I have had the unique opportunity of watching the different approaches that many advisors use in the pursuit of success. Many fail and few succeed. What I have taken from this is that the fastest way to success involves some form of cold calling.
It is not easy. I have come to believe that when getting started you should take every motivational speech and sports cliché that you have heard and put them into your pocket because you will need them at some point. Many refer to cold calling as a brute force, unskilled, numbers game approach. I disagree. Cold calling today is a different animal, and the level I have taken it into my business requires organization, practice, education, commitment, and a very high level of strategy. I would challenge anybody who feels my system is a “shotgun” approach to success to spend a day learning it. It is the furthest thing from the drone-like long distance sales rep that calls you during dinner. Becoming a financial advisor is a journey that requires one of the highest levels of sales strategy around. Yes, cold calling, or as I like to refer to my process “Cold Networking”, works.
To-Do’s
Clear your calendar for a weekend and set aside time to get prepared.
Make a list of all the reasons why you want to be successful.
Make a list of the things you are willing to sacrifice to achieve this goal.
Make a list of your biggest failures, and a second list of lessons that can be learned from each of them.
Make a list of your greatest successes, and a second list of the one thing that made them possible. Be honest. Luck and timing are perfectly acceptable answers…if they are true.
Incorporate all of these things into a “Life Plan.” Write down your goals for all the different areas of your life: personal, spiritual, family, professional, etc. Place this book on your desk next to the phone. Do this to remind yourself where you are going and why. You’ll need it.
The Difference Between Yesterday & Today
The sales profession has been around for hundreds of years, and has evolved like anything else in this world. As the general consumer has continued to become more educated, and as markets continue to become more competitive, the art of selling has, in some ways, stayed the same. However, in other ways, it has become vastly different.
What has stayed the same is that a sales professional is charged with finding prospective clients, creating or identifying a need, and providing a product or solution to address that need. What has changed is that the population has become increasingly numb to previously used sales methodologies, and the task of creating a need has become more difficult, especially in the world of financial services.
There is the story of a roofer who did a roofing job in a particular neighborhood. Upon completion, he asked the neighboring home owner if he could take a photograph to use as the “before” picture in the before and after flyer he was going to pass out. The neighbor would then feel that they were “not keeping up with the Jones’,” so they would solicit a quote from the roofer and eventually do business. In this scenario, it is obvious that the roofer created a need that didn’t previously exist, in an effort to make his service relevant. If he had just walked up and asked if he could give a quote, the response may not have been the same. In many areas of the sales world today, this, and variations of this technique, may still have some relevance, but in the world of financial services, this method proves to frustrate aspiring financial advisors time and time again.
Step #2 - Understand the Anatomy of a Sale
Research the sales fundamentals.
Understand buying influences.
Know how it applies to your target market.
Know how it works with your strengths and weaknesses.
We have to realize that “sales” is a very generic term that applies differently to each area of business. Terms like pipeline, prospect, opportunity, and close are common across the board, but how they apply changes drastically. We cannot treat a sale involving someone’s IRA rollover like that of buying a car. The emotions involved are different. The downside risk is far greater in what we do. Rick Wilcoxon, a sales trainer from Houston, spoke to my training class once, and said that people are motivated to action by fear of loss and hope of gain. That is absolutely true. However, here is the difference:
If you are trying to create one of these two emotions in an effort to make a sale, you start to put yourself in a tricky situation. If you are attempting to win business by promoting hope of gain in talking about something, such as better returns, you are betting your success and relevance on something that may or may not happen. The prospect has to believe that whatever you bring to the table will do this. Even in the cases where there are obvious holes in the prospect’s investment strategy, the markets are volatile, and there
