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UNDERSTANDING
HUMAN MOTIVATION
It turns out we are all chasing the same dream: happiness.
In a new book called Authentic Happiness, Martin Seligman,
Ph.D. and the past president of the American Psychological
Association, reveals that happiness is the only human
endeavor that is an end in itself. Once we meet our survival
needs, we turn our psychic and physical energies to the
pursuit of happiness. Everything we strive for has only
one goal-to put us in the positive emotional states of
happiness, contentment, and fulfillment.
The pursuit of happiness is not new, but recent scientific
efforts, including Dr. Seligman's book, are shedding new
light on the matter. In short, the drive to be happy is
rooted in science. Understanding this "science of
happiness" and incorporating it into your business
will help you effort-lessly attract desirable, wealthy
clients.
The first step is to look at how people are motivated.
Behavioral psychologists have discovered that to get people
to take action, you must connect with the right side of
their brain, where dreams, intuition, and emotions, like
happiness, reside. The left side of the brain, where logic
and linear thinking reside, is actually the brake in human
behavior.
If you have ever heard a prospect say, "You've given
me a lot of great information. Now I need to go home and
THINK ABOUT IT," you know the typical results of
connecting with the left side of the brain. That's why
traditional, information-based marketing and sales techniques
require so much effort. You are communicating the wrong
message to the wrong part of the brain.
Unless you are talking with undesirable prospects like
Thrill Seekers and Guru Groupies, who are totally focused
on money, you'll need to exert a huge amount of time and
effort chasing prospects and overcoming their objections.
But there is an easier way to attract wealthy clients.
A CURRENCY MORE VALUABLE THAN MONEY
As you probably know from reading my newsletter or my
book, Effortless Marketing, or from hearing me speak,
Prudent Investors believe that happiness is a much more
valuable currency than money.
That means instead of providing left-brain information
in your marketing and sales processes, you need to help
people discover what they WANT from their money, and then
establish processes to help them achieve that. With this
process, instead of fighting you, prospects will actually
help you. They will be drawn to you, knowing that you
understand the dreams they have for their lives.
Best of all, happy clients make raving fans. And raving
fans will be inspired to introduce you to their family
friends and associates.
THE SCIENTIFIC FOUNDATION FOR A VALUABLE NEW SERVICE
In order to incorporate the science of happiness into
your practice, you need to understand what makes your
prospects and clients happy. This may sound easy, but
you'll be surprised by how few people know what really
makes them happy and fulfilled. Most people chase money,
hoping that if they get enough of it, they will magically
become happy. Unfortunately, that strategy simply does
not work.
By using the principles of "Positive Psychology,"
you can help your prospects and clients uncover their
sources of happiness. The goal is for a client or prospect
to get in touch with their "authentic self"
and their vision of an ideal future, then align their
life with their vision.
The new science of Positive Psychology tells us when people
are in harmony with their purpose, their passions, and
their strengths, they report higher levels of happiness,
emotional satisfaction, and fulfillment. The psychological
term for this is "living authentically."
This approach is not only effective, it's timely. After
September 11th and the recent economic slowdown, many
investors have begun to re-evaluate their financial advisors,
their priorities, and their lives.
Prudent investors are no longer responding to product-centered,
performance-promising marketing and sales techniques.
They want something more than just money management and
financial advice; they are longing for someone who can
help them use their money to achieve their dreams and
aspirations.
By filling this need, you will be able to attract $250,000-plus
clients. And with this business model, you derive your
power from the motivations of your investors rather than
from the persuasiveness of your arguments.
How do you transform your business from selling products
and services to helping people define and achieve their
dreams? It's a question on many people's minds. In fact,
our industry is starting to refer to this new service
as "Financial Life Planning." But until now,
there has been no effective way to market Financial Life
Planning services. And there has been no simple way to
integrate it into your financial planning and investment
advisory practice.
Fortunately, all of the skills you have developed in your
career will help you integrate this new philosophy into
your business. In addition, there are some key steps you
need to follow.
CLARIFY AND BALANCE THREE KEY AREAS OF EACH CLIENT'S LIFE
The first step is to understand and integrate the basics
of Financial Life Planning into your business.
Financial Life Planning is not about deep psychoanalysis
or spiritual counseling. It actually has much more in
common with career counseling, life coaching, and the
best practices of the world's most successful organizations.
The cornerstones of this philosophy are (1) asking great
questions and (2) empathetic listening.
You can begin by helping your investors define and then
integrate three key elements of their life. These elements
are:
1.
Their purpose-this includes their values, empowering
beliefs, and their epitaph.
2. Their passions-these are the things that they are
vitally interested in that wake them up and make them
feel fully engaged with life.
3. Their personal strengths-including natural talents,
learned skills, and the attitudes that make them successful.
PURPOSE: Ask your investors, "What's important about
success to you." Or, simply ask them to select four
or five values from a list. To define their empowering
beliefs, ask them, "What are some of the key tenets
that you live by?" Finally, to find out what they
envision for their legacy, ask them, "How do you
want your epitaph to read?"
PASSIONS: Ask your investors to rate a list of activities
and hobbies on a scale of 1 to 5. I also like to ask the
question, "What lights you up and makes you feel
excited about life?" Another powerful question is,
"If you only had six months to live, what would you
do with your time?"
STRENGTHS: These are the things your investors do easily
and well -- that other people have difficulty with. Positive
attitudes and learned skills are also strengths. The best
way to define strengths is to ask them to list 10 activities
or responsibilities that fit the following criteria: (1)
they enjoyed doing it in the past, (2) they were good
at it in the past, (3) they feel good about it now.
This work does not need to take place in the course of
one appointment. You can ask your clients to complete
this assignment as homework, then discus their answers
during the next meeting.
DISCOVER THEIR IDEAL SCENES
Once you clarify the three key elements of an investor's
life, the next step is to identify their ideal scenario
for the future in each area below:
1.
Career or business
2. Family, friends, and other relationships
3. Health fitness and sports
4. Hobbies and creative interests
5. Home, community and surroundings
6. Learning and personal growth
7. Leisure and entertainment
8. Philanthropy and volunteer work
9. Spirituality and religion
10. Travel and adventure
Ask
open-ended questions and help them describe their dreams.
Encourage them to speculate if they are unsure of an answer.
DEFINE A POSITIVE VISION OF THEIR IDEAL FUTURE
The next step is to help each investor define a positive
vision of the future. This is a well-defined picture,
in their mind's eye, of all these elements integrated
into their life. Ask them this question, "What would
it look and feel like if you were able to align your passions,
purpose, and personal strengths, and to make your ideal
scenes become real?"
You are not guaranteeing that all of their dreams will
come true, or that you will beat the markets. Rather,
you can promise to develop a written plan and that has
the highest probability of making their dreams become
reality, then help them implement the plan over time.
You CAN guarantee to use your expertise and resources
to help your investors make smart choices and take appropriate
actions. When they take positive action aligned with their
vision of the ideal future, they will make steady progress
towards meaningful goals--and they will enjoy the journey.
THREE POWERFUL BENEFITS OF THIS NEW SERVICE
This new way of interacting with investors will yield
three powerful benefits.
Number one: In general, the more resources people have,
the more interested they are in "self-actualization,"
or the fulfillment of their highest potential. This means
you'll be attracting wealthier, more established clients.
Number two: Financial Life Planning is only attractive
to Prudent Investors. It won't appeal to Thrill Seekers
and Guru Groupies, who focus more on money than on the
payoffs they can get with their money. Prudent investors
are the most appreciative and lowest maintenance clients,
and they are the most likely to introduce you to friends.
Number three: You don't have to learn new skills or do
much extra work to provide this highly valued service.
You just shift the focus of the conversation from products
and processes to people and payoffs. It usually takes
approximate two hours of additional conversations at the
beginning of the relationship, but it dramatically reduces
the time and effort you put into marketing and selling.
CREATE A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS FUTURE
The bottom line: You can either continue beating your
head against the wall selling products, services, and
performance. Or, you can use the new science of Positive
Psychology to transform your business and your life.
With the meltdown of the markets and especially the NASDAQ,
wealthy baby boomers need a competent, caring, client-centered
financial advisor more than ever. A basic premise of marketing
is that when your clients shift their thinking, you must
shift your marketing and sales strategies, and your value
proposition. The investors today want more from you. Are
you willing to step up to the plate and provide them with
the service they truly want?
By embracing Financial Life Planning, you provide the
payoffs your ideal clients want more than money. That
will empower you to create a super-profitable business
and a wonderful life. And that's what effort-less marketing
is all about.
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BETA TEST OUR NEW FINANCIAL LIFE PLANNING MARKETING SYSTEM
Based on the Positive Psychology and Financial Life Planning
approach described above, I'm developing a clear process
to help financial advisors discover what will make each
of their investors happy. Once advisors understand this
critical information, they can plug their professional
services directly to into the payoffs their investors
want most out of life.
This is a powerful new marketing system. And to make the
process as valuable as possible, I am actively recruiting
some of the top names in Positive Psychology for my Scientific
Board of Advisors. In addition, you can become part of
the Beta test for this exciting new approach (see below).
The first project I'm introducing is a turn-key marketing
system and service process to help financial advisors
attract, convert, and retain wealthy Prudent Investors.
My goal is to help you attract college-educated prospects
with at least $250,000 of investable assets. I call my
new marketing and client service process "Vision
Coaching."
ELIMINATE EXPENSIVE SEMINAR MARKETING COSTS
If you've read my book, Effort-less Marketing for Financial
Advisors, you know I'm not a big fan of public seminars.
However, My goal with Vision Coaching is to help you secure
speaking engagements in front of existing groups, including
service clubs, associations and employee groups that attract
high concentrations of wealthy investors over 50 years
old. In other words, I am training you to give a dynamic
and inspiring presentation that will generate new business.
I am designing this turn-key Vision Coaching system for
financial advisors who have good public speaking skills
and who have been successful attracting clients through
workshops in the past.
There are four components to this turn-key marketing and
client service system:
(1)
A Lead-Generating Workshop that advisors can present
to targeted groups with high concentrations of wealthy
senior investors who are over 50 years old.
(2) A Conversion Workshop to help qualified, motivated
prospects discover their purpose, their passions, their
personal strengths, their ideal scenes, and their vision
of their future. This workshop will prepare and inspire
qualified, motivated prospects to meet with you to learn
how you can help them turn their dreams into reality.
(3) An Internet-based Software Program that will empower
you to prioritize your investors' dreams and goals,
and motivate them to turn these dreams into reality.
(4) Marketing Tools and processes to help you secure
speaking engagements, convert qualified prospects into
clients, and generate referrals to qualified prospects
for your Vision Coaching services.
As
you can see, both presentations above are about the science
of happiness, rather than investments and financial planning.
That will help you generate strong interest from meeting
planners, and you'll incur very low marketing costs --
no more mass mailings or buying expensive dinners for
unqualified prospects. If you become very skilled at presenting
the seminar, some meeting planners will even pay you for
your time. Getting paid to prospect is the pinnacle of
effort-less marketing.
Both workshops mentioned above will be highly entertaining,
visual, compelling, and interactive. Your audience will
complete self-assessments to determine how they can benefit
from your scientific processes and live their ideal life.
BETA TEST THIS INNOVATIVE NEW MARKETING AND SERVICE SYSTEM
I am finalizing the design of this turn-key system right
now, and I'm looking for roughly 30 additional financial
advisors to volunteer to help me refine and test it.
If you want to get in on the ground floor, please indicate
your interests by replying to this email by August 1.
I will send you a complete information package explaining
the benefits, qualifications and commitments for Beta
testers.
I look forward to evolving this exciting new marketing
and client service model with you.
Live with passion!
Steve Moeller
P.S. if you can't wait to integrate Financial Life Planning
and Positive Psychology into your practice, sign up for
my new teleclass series, Bury Yourself in Qualified Referrals,
which begins August 14.
In just six hours of interactive telephone conferences,
you will learn how to use the new science of Positive
Psychology to turn your clients into raving fans, who
will go out of their way to introduce you to qualified
family members, friends, and colleagues.
Call American Business Visions at 800-678-1701, ext. 208 right away
for more information. Or, reply immediately to this e-mail
with a request for more information on our teleclass.
We are limiting this class to the 25 advisors to sign
up.
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