Selling financial services as a financial advisor, stock broker, insurance agent, or banker involves six critical factors to be successful – long term. Short term success is possible without attention to these “Critical Success Factors,” (CSF’s) but long term success requires proficiency on a regular basis in each area. The CSF’s include:

1. Prospecting
2. Sales Approach
3. Presentation
4. Answering Objections
5. Closing
6. Service

Nothing revolutionary here; these topics have been taught since the earliest days of sales training. However, today many firms neglect basic sales training, and we always benefit from a reminder to step outside ourselves and objectively examine our business. Let me ask you a few questions:

• Are you weak in one or more CSF’s?
• Do you pay attention to and seek to improve each factor?
• Do you continually evaluate yourself and your business?

If you are new to financial product sales, or if you are experienced, consider reading my book, The Ultimate Small Cap Business; Building A Financial Advisory Practice. This concise book provides a comprehensive overview of financial service selling and practice management. Look for future posts to provide tips for each of the Critical Success Factors of Sales.

Good selling!

Technorati Tags: financial advisor, stock broker, insurance agent, banker

Last Saturday, I enjoyed a special experience. I worked a booth with a sales superstar.

Working a booth at a trade show or professional association meeting exposes salespeople. In a matter of nanoseconds you must identify a suspect. Then you have 30 – 60 seconds to qualify them, make your presentation, answer objections, and ask for the order. As a professional speaker I serve the National Speakers Association – Minnesota as President. In that role I attended a Toastmasters Conference in Minneapolis and manned a booth to create awareness of our educational offerings with Stuart Gray, a fellow professional speaker and entrepreneur, and Director of NSA-MN.

Stuart is co-founder of 4Remarkable Service, a firm “works with restaurants throughout the world helping them implement wait staff training that focuses on service AND sales.” In addition, Stuart is the founder of the Hospitality Business Breakfast, which provides monthly programs of professional speakers as a service to the hospitality industry. Stuart is a master salesperson, and operates from a position of providing extreme value to his customers and clients.

A gentleman approached our booth, and showed interest in our “Institute for Professional Speaker Development” programs. Stuart identified his interest, and made a short presentation of the program. This man said, “Well, that’s interesting, but you may be wasting your time on me,” to which Stuart asked a clarifying question about the man’s question, answered it, and resumed his presentation. The end result – this gentleman changed his mind, and enthusiastically signed up to attend a future information session! The lesson – be persistent, and welcome objections as a request for additional information. Deliver this new information to your prospect with new perspective, and keep selling.

Once again, I was fortunate to witness sales greatness. Stuart, you rock!

Good selling!

Technorati Tags: professional speaker

All of us learn from our experiences. The problem with learning from personal experience is that you have to take the test before you learn the lesson, and that can be painful to you and your clients. One solution is to learn from the experiences of others. By learning from others you compress time and omit unnecessary mistakes. To benefit the most from this strategy, choose to listen exclusively to the masters.

No greater master exists in the investment business than Don Connelly. Don has long been acknowledged as America’s leading advisor to financial advisors. With forty years of unparalleled experience and success, he provides common sense ideas that benefit advisors regardless of their distribution channel or level of achievement. Today Don shares his expertise through “Camp Connelly.” Don possesses a wealth of information gathered from the best of the best in the investment industry. This is a can’t-miss resource for financial advisors.

Still have more to learn about the investment industry? Check out “Camp Connelly.”

Good selling!

Bill Metrey is a sales hero.

Bill works with TSC, a firm that provides qualified retirement plan administration services. TSC retains me as a consultant to provide sales and marketing strategies, so I am in their offices on a regular basis. When I started calling on TSC in the fall of 2006, whenever I saw Bill in the office he always asked me to move my company’s 401k account over to TSC. It never failed that every time I saw Bill he would ask me for the order. He asked creatively and always with a little different twist, but he always made a point to remind me that TSC would serve me well.

Finally, I decided to move the account. Instead of mailing paperwork, Bill took the time to bring it by for my approval. He sold me.What makes this ironic is that Bill isn’t in the TSC Sales Department – he works in Plan Sponsor Services! Even though it wasn’t his job, Bill sold TSC and its services.

Are your service team members selling for your company? For that matter, are your salespeople asking for the order like Bill?

Bill Metrey is a sales hero. Good selling, Bill!

Yesterday, along with millions of other families, we opened Christmas presents. My grandson Cameron, (aka Camper), was right in the middle of it all. Camper was that star of the show! He is a wonderful little boy. Bright, cute, loving, and while I am partial to him, all of that is the truth. As are many kids, he is a model of persistence – something that, as a sales trainer and sales coach, I love! In the midst of opening presents, he reminded me (aka “Pam Paw”) of an old sales principle – “Don’t Confuse Your Prospect!

Camper gets more toys that most children - a lot more toys! He would rip open one package, get real excited – and then push it aside for the next gift. Before long he was through opening packages and playing - in a box! Many of you will identify with this story. However, I hope it doesn’t remind you of your sales presentations.

Sometimes sales people give the prospect too many choices. A great way to close a sale is the “Choice Close,” where the salesperson offers the prospect two solutions, either of which will solve the prospects problem. No matter what choice the prospect selects, everyone wins. The Choice Close works, but the problem with this close is salespeople sometimes offer more than two choices. I know a salesperson in the 401k market that prepares spreadsheets of five to ten, (yes, TEN), products from which the prospect is expected to select one solution! Two problems exist with this approach.

First, just as my grandson has so many toys that he can’t decide which to select, and ends up selecting a non-solution solution (the box), our prospects can’t decide upon the best solution from those offered. A confused mind never buys! Second, if you are truly a professional salesperson, your opinion is of tremendous value to the prospect. They expect you to have an opinion, and you better have one!

So, how can multiple options help you close more sales? First, if you use the Choice Close, limit your choices to two solutions or, in any case, never more than three. However, always have an opinion of the option that best serves your customer, and the reasons for your choice. Second, if you did a spreadsheet analysis for the prospect - keep it in your file. Tell the prospect, “I reviewed X number of options, and I feel the one I am presenting to you today best meets your needs.” Another tactic is to use the same approach, but tell them you reviewed multiple options, and boiled them down to two, and then point out the advantages and disadvantages of each offering. Once again, have an opinion about the better choice for the prospect.

Don’t let your prospects play in a box – a competitor’s product. They deserve the benefit of your expertise, so make your recommendations with conviction based upon your experience, research, and facts. The client will be well served and your sales will go up!

Happy Holidays – and Good Selling!

Technorati Tags: persistence, sales trainer, sales coach, sales principle, professional salesperson

This weekend I was looking over some notes from an old sales meeting, and I found the following statistics. People comprehend and remember:

• 11% of what they hear
• 32% of what they see
• 73% of what they see & hear
• 90% of what they see, hear & discuss

My personal experience has shown this to be true. Whenever you use different presentation modalities so that your prospects hear, see, and discuss what you are presenting, the more effective the presentation will be. In short, YOU WILL CLOSE MORE SALES! Selling is not telling! You must engage your prospects on multiple levels once you enter the presentation mode of the sale process.

I did not have a source for these statistics so I googled them, and found the exact statistics in several articles, all without attribution. Hence, they may be antidotal, but the percentages don’t really matter; the fact remains that closing rates go up with a combination of sales techniques, especially when you match the techniques to your client’s preferred mode of learning, AND the prospect is involved and engaged with your presentation. An excellent way to MAKE CERTAIN they are involved and engaged is to ask questions throughout the presentation, such as:

• Which benefit can you SEE as being most important to you?
• Why do you FEEL that way?
• Is there anything that you have seen or heard that causes you concern?

Once again, make certain that even as you enter the presentation phase of the sales call that the presentation is a dialog that helps your prospect understand why your offering will solve their problem, and provide worthwhile benefits. Engage them in every sensory manner to improve your success rate.

Good selling!

“The pen is mightier than the sword.”

Edward Bulwer-Lytton; 1839

Forget the pen if you are in a knife fight, but if you are selling, the pen IS a mighty tool indeed, and not just for signing the contract!

Have you ever been in a sales presentation where it was a struggle to keep your prospect on track with your presentation as you went through sales material or a proposal? If so, get out your pen.

Speakers and seminar leaders use pointers much less frequently than in the past. We are taught it is impolite to point anyway, and when we do, we use lasers. However, if you need to get a prospect back on track with your presentation, use your pen to help them “follow along.” It never ceases to amaze me that when you point at something… ANYTHING… people will look. Point at the specific part of the presentation materials you are covering at that time. Your prospect’s eyes will leap to the spot at which you point…I guarantee it.

Another word about your choice of writing instruments; you will never close a million dollar deal with a $2 pen. Use a writing instrument that shows you mean business.

Good selling!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN - “Own What You Sell” Podcast
“What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do you own what you sell? Click above to listen to this message on sales commitment and conviction. If you are is sales or sales management, feel free to forward the ling to your sales associates.

Fact Finding Tips - Five Questions To Ask a Prospect About Their Business

Tired of indifferent prospects? It may be because you interrogate instead of fact-find. Want your prospects to open up? This podcast will give five questions that I guarantee will keep your prospect engaged, and help you close more sales. Click the link above to listen!

When we interview prospects (and for that matter clients) sometimes we go into “Interrogation Mode.” Gathering information dominates our mind and becomes our sole objective. In a staccato-line manner we reel off a barrage of closed-end questions like:

• When did you start working here?
• When did you start the business?
• How many employees do you have?

One of my mentors, Jack Perry, taught me a brilliant way to really dig deep when having a conversation with a business owner or executive. He asked this question of a bank CEO that had been my client for several years. The question is:

“What made you successful?”

We sat back and listed to the CEO reminisce for fifteen minutes about the people and events that had brought him to this place in his professional life. In spite of my long relationship with the CEO, I learned things I had never heard before! As a result of Jack asking him that question, (and his truly being interested in the answer) the CEO was totally receptive to our conversation. They were like old friends.

Getting the information is so important; finding the feelings behind the information is golden!

Good selling!