Monday marks the beginning of the end – of the last week of the year.  Financial advisors often complain that nobody wants to do business during the Holiday Season.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  A host of opportunities exist with our clients, including:

• Year-end Portfolio Reviews
• Gift Purchases of Investments and Insurance Products (Hint: Investments are on sale right now!)
• Tax Loss Selling – and Repositioning of Those Assets
• Qualified Plan Sales and Transfers

In addition, make some investments of your own during the next month.  Invest in your best relationships.  Spend time with those individuals and businesses clients that are your best clients and prospects.  Get to know them better.  Make certain you care about them, and just not their business.  In addition, take some time to invest in yourself; hone your sales skills.  Tighten up and refocus your marketing plan for the coming year.  Look for opportunities within your business for client development and improvement of your profitability.  Don’t forget to take time with yourself and your family – the most important investment you make.

Sometimes we earn our money – and sometimes we get paid.  During the next thirty days, earn it.  Consider these ideas to help make next year your best ever.

Good selling!

Last night I enjoyed seeing a real professional at work.  Anne Warfield, CSP addressed the National Speakers Association’s Minnesota Chapter.  Anne is a gifted professional speaker and world-class corporate presentation skills trainer.  Her firm, Impression Management Professionals, says it is “all about how to communicate with candor but without judgment.”  Ann, along with her husband and business partner Paul Cummings, spoke about how they have built their business by providing a uniquely valuable corporate communications service proposition.

Here’s the point: Anne hasn’t just sold speeches and training – she has built a business.  She runs the business; the business doesn’t run her.  IMP utilizes the services of talented professionals within their business to maximize the potential of each client interaction.  This business will outlive Anne and Paul and provide real net worth, and not just an income.

Consider these questions:

• Are you building a business or are you just selling stuff?
• Do you create multiple ways for your clients to utilize your services?
• Do you focus on strategies and solutions or only upon products?
• Have you created a system to continually stay in from of your best prospects and clients using a variety of marketing techniques, or do you only call them when you want to sell something?

Your clients – and your prospects – are dying for an advisor that truly provides services that help them meet their financial objectives.  By building a business that delivers service at multiple levels your clients won’t focus on individual transactions.  So build strategy that meets their needs and helps you grow your business exponentially.

Good selling!

Technorati Tags: Anne Warfield, CSP, National Speakers Association, professional speaker, presentation skills, Impression Management Professionals

Believe me; I know it is tough out there right now.  People passed nervous, anxious, and concerned several weeks ago; they are scared to death.  Investors continue to make the fundamental mistakes of buying high and selling low.  Asset allocation has become one hundred percent cash, spread over a large number of financial institutions.  Companies, (which are, oddly enough, made up of people) continue to freeze budgets, choose paralysis, and wait to see what happens next.

What everyone is waiting for will happen before they know it, for this too shall pass.

Make no mistake about it; we have seen a fundamental change in broad asset valuation unlike anything we have seen during our careers.  Mountains of debt and the prospect of parasitic new tax increases loom on the horizon. Earnings drift downward, or in some cases plummet.  Business failures will increase.
So where do we go from here?  Simple – get back on the phone.  Call your best relationships.  Contact new prospects.  Go see someone.  And in all cases, have your story down cold.

Last week I returned to an old discipline – twenty calls per day.  Not everyone was glad to hear from me, but some people were.  The results: four new speaking engagements, and several future commitments.

America, it is time to get back to work.  See the people.  Make some calls.  Ask for the order.  It won’t be easy – it was never easy – but you will open accounts and make sales.  When business returns to normal – if it is ever normal – your sales with grow beyond your wildest dreams, and your competitors will start calling you “lucky.”

Good selling!

Technorati Tags: buying high and selling low, speaking engagements