|
FINDING
YOUR RICH NICHE
Many
financial advisors exert a tremendous amount of effort
trying to find prospects. One of the keys to becoming
an Effort-Less Advisor is to identify and penetrate a
rich niche.
A
rich niche is a ‘community of people’ with common
wants, needs and personality styles that meet two criteria.
First, it has a high concentration of people who need,
or will soon need, help managing their money. Secondly,
you have a natural rapport and affection for the people
in that community. Mark is an Effort-Less Advisor from
the Northeast. The story of how he found his rich niche
perfectly illustrates the process that you can use to
find your rich niche.
IN
THE BEGINNING
Mark
has been in the financial service industry for over 16
years. He is a competent professional financial advisor.
Before he enrolled in the Effort-Less Advisor Coaching
Program, Mark prospected for new clients primarily through
public seminars that he advertised in the newspaper.
When
I met Mark he had a commission based business model. Mark
says, “One of my main issues when I started the Effort-Less
Advisor Coaching Program was how to make the transition
to a fee-based business. I felt it was a healthier business
model for me, made more sense from a cash-flow perspective
and would be better for my clients.”
Mark
was very concerned that many of his clients would not
want to convert to fees. But during his research interviews
eight out of ten of his top clients said they were very
interested in a fee-based relationship. Over the last
two years Mark has converted about $12 million to fees.
"Of
all the clients I wanted to convert, there were probably
just 1 or 2 clients that did not want a fee-based relationship.
There was one that I was concerned about even making a
presentation to because I didn’t want to offend him.
Just last month I decided that I had no choice but to
talk with him about a new fee-based relationship because
of competitive factors. When I made the presentation,
he said, ‘of course. It makes all the sense in the
world.’”
After
Mark felt comfortable with a fee-based approach, I encouraged
him to look for new ways to develop new clients. I'm not
opposed to public seminars it's just that they are expensive
and a lot of effort, and they don't attract the best quality
clients; they are not a ‘community’.
Mark
explained his method: “A part of the coaching program
was to conduct research interviews with clients and their
friends. I uncovered an enormous amount of information
that I didn’t know before about how my clients and
their friends think about our industry and about their
money. The interviews helped me to understand how to approach
and address prospects in a client-centered way. I learned
how to think outside the box and how to open my mind and
listen better.
“In
the coaching program we explored the importance and power
of strategic alliances. I had pretty much given up on
them. I’d tried to develop some in the past, but
it always seemed to be a one-way street.”
A
DEAD END
“The
coaching program re-energized me. I started thinking about
different opportunities to develop strategic alliances.
I had some initial success with an upscale retirement
community. I had a few clients who lived there. The people
had money. It was a qualified niche. The Activities Director
was very interested in working with me. We set up a few
seminars and I did some research interviews. Initially
I was pretty excited. But it didn't work out as well as
I had expected. The big problem was a local bank had a
branch office inside the retirement community. So that
really limited my opportunities. Ultimately, this experience
prepared me for my big opportunity.”
Mark
and I discussed this retirement community as a targeted
niche for him. We decided there were two primary problems
with it. Aside up from the fact that the bank had a strong
presence in the community, the potential clients’
key transitional event, which was retirement, had already
passed. And I suspected that the psychographics of the
group were probably not ideal for Mark's business model
and personality. I encouraged him to keep looking for
his rich niche.
MARK
FINDS HIS RICH NICHE
It
wasn't long before Mark heard about a new opportunity
that we both agreed could be spectacular. “I learned
that a Fortune 500 company, in my city, was going to be
laying off approximate 250 of their 6,000 employees. I
don’t know what I would have done in the past. But
since I had the experience with the retirement community
I tried to figure out how to penetrate this rich niche.”
Mark's
initial thought was to run ads in the newspaper aimed
at the employees of this major company. But as he thought
about it more, a few of the people he had interviewed,
and put on his Informal Board Advisors, had retired from
this targeted company. The research interviews had dramatically
enhanced Mark's relationship with these clients and enrolled
them in wanting him to become even more successful.
“So
I asked three of these clients, ‘would you help me?
You retired from this company. What you think I should
do to get in front of the right people?’ All three
people responded very positively – one actually sent
me in a list of people I should be talking to inside the
company. But one of them sat on the board of the company's
credit union.
“I
was delighted when he said he would, ‘cash in some
of his uncollected chips to set up a meeting between me
and the woman running the credit union.’ The day
before I met with this woman I had a column published
in a local newspaper. It addressed the problems and solutions
that her employees faced managing the retirement rollovers.
When I walked into her office, my column was laying on
her desk. In essence her first words were, ‘We would
like to partner up with you, how can we do that?’
Much
to Marks surprise, she had been looking for a competent,
client-centered financial advisor for sometime. She already
had a strategic alliance with a mortgage broker who only
distributes his product through the credit union. She
told Mark, “We are very loyal. If there’s going
to be financial planning, it’s going to be with you.
We’re not going to split this up, we just want something
that works.
Mark
introduced the concept of an Informal Board Advisors for
the credit union. Six employees were invited to participate.
Mark spent an hour and a half interviewing each one of
them and from that developed a year-long marketing plan.
They are now running monthly ads in the union newsletter.
In the first two months, Mark has met with 25 people who
have between $40,000 and $2 Million in their 401K plans.
One of the best things about this rich niche is that many
of the employees are within five years of retirement.
“Every
other month, we are conducting an in-house seminar. We
did the first one on retirement. We’re doing one
on college planning, tax planning, bringing the members
into the electronic age and estate planning.”
Mark
just closed his first client from this company for $100,000.
He has 24 more highly qualified prospects lined up and
is generating more qualified prospects every week. He
has found his rich niche and is learning how to add value—as
his potential clients define it. Instead of public seminars,
Mark now does focused seminars for members of this community
only. He's building relationships, establishing visibility
and credibility and preparing for an avalanche of new
clients.
A
BRIGHT FUTURE
2001
was a major transitional year for Mark. He says, “I
believe, in my heart of hearts, that the Effort-Less Advisor
Coaching Program and 9/11 have helped define an important
turning point in my career. As a result of participating
in the program I truly understand who I am, where I am
going, and what I want from my business and my life. The
tragedy of 9/11 forced me to create even more value for
my clients. Now I feel that I am truly a great financial
planner. I think my clients have always believed that.
But now I also believe it.”
Mark
says, "My passion for my business has never been
higher. It is so exciting to be re-energized. Through
the coaching program, I’ve developed a much stronger
sense of my identity and who I want to work with. And
as importantly, who I don’t want to work with. To
really have a sense of who you are and where you’re
going and to truly enjoy the journey, with your clients,
outside the business, inside the business, it’s all
about the joy of life at this point. I just think that
everything is converging at the right time and it’s
going to mean great things for my future.”
|
