One of the things that was said in my introduction is that I won the local Comic Idol contest in my city. The truth is I’m not very funny. This was confirmed for me when I spoke at the MDRT Experience in Thailand several years ago. I was telling what I thought were some very funny stories. The audience was laughing really loudly. Afterward, I said to the interpreter, “Those jokes went really well. What did you say to the audience?” The interpreter said to me, “Ladies and gentlemen, our speaker has told a joke; please laugh very loud.”

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. That is a fact. But here’s another fact: You can add salt to the horse’s oats to make the horse thirsty. Today we are going to make you significantly more excited and thirsty about this business by implementing tangible ideas you can use with your clients, your prospects and your niche to make them substantially more excited and thirsty about dealing with you and the products and services you offer.

DNA defined

Let’s get started by defining the DNA of a prospect and the DNA of what makes you successful. DNA is a blueprint or code containing instructions on how to build and maintain a successful financial services practice. Think about all of the information and knowledge that you have gathered over the span of your career. There is not one person here who needs more ideas on how to be successful. If you are like me, you probably have boxes and boxes of really good ideas that you have collected over the years. We should seal up those boxes and label them “a bunch of really good ideas that we will never use.”

What you actually need to do is to transform knowing into doing. Without the doing, everything is just wasted knowledge. You are going to leave here today with at least 10 really good ideas, marketing campaigns that I have used in my own practice with my clients and ideas that ultimately led to my winning a grand prize in the National Best Ideas Contest. These are real ideas that real financial advisors use on real clients in the real world. These are ideas that you can use right away to make you more successful and, more importantly, to help your clients to be more successful and reach their goals.

The goal is that you will leave here with easy-to-implement, one-of-a-kind marketing strategies that you can pick up, touch, hold and feel, and that are tangible to your niche market. These are ideas that you can use right away to grow your business. It does not matter if you have been in this business for one year or 20 years. We are going to set up the framework for how to develop your niche, and, once we have that, most of the ideas that we will discuss are universal, regardless of your market.

Niche

Regardless of our specific niche, we all need easier ways to get and keep clients.

We are here to discuss innovative, implementable ideas for your niche. Since we are here to discuss facts, let’s start with the dictionary and define these four words:

1. Innovate — to invent or begin to apply methods and ideas
2. Implement — to fulfill; perform; carry out; to put into effect by means of a definite plan
3. Idea — a plan of action; an intention; any conception existing in the mind as a result of mental understanding, awareness or activity
4. Niche — specializing in a distinct segment of a market by product or service; can also be defined as a position or activity that particularly suits somebody’s talents and personality or that somebody can make his or her own

For financial advisors or insurance professionals, there are about six different niches that you could have in your business. Let’s dig deep right away and simplify exactly what niches could be in your business.

Benefits of a niche

Most advisors, including myself, face so many challenges just staying organized. Look at some of the benefits to clients and advisors by focusing on a niche. People are also more trusting of you since you likely have name recognition within your niche. Referrals are easier, and you are taken more seriously as an expert and partner rather than as a salesperson.

Advisor

• Shorter sales cycle
• Turnkey presentations and solutions
• Increased trust
• Higher client retention
• Higher-quality referrals
• More expertise (better advice)
• Organized and focused marketing

Clients

• You solved their problem. (They had no advisor.)
• You gave better advice due to a deeper understanding of the issues they faced.
• They have increased confidence in you.
• They have increased confidence in the decisions made.
• You can provide more realistic examples of scenarios since you have other clients who have gone through the same issues.

Does this mean that we only work our niche? No. We help everyone. Everyone has enough time to spend 30 minutes with someone who calls you with a financial question or challenge. If it is not an area that we work in, then we send them to someone we know who can help them.

Working your niche simply means that you focus most or all of your energy, efforts and marketing on one or two specific areas.

Four steps to establish a niche market

1. Decide on your niche market(s).
2. Position yourself as an expert in your niche.
3. Set up a 12-month marketing plan. Develop campaigns and marketing materials to attract and retain your niche.
4. Master a systematized sales process.

Deciding on your niche

If we really looked at our business the way that it is right now, we would see that we all have niches already within our business. This is basically the two or three products, services and markets that currently make up the bulk of our business.

We may feel that we are generalists in many ways because we sell many different products to many different markets, but I think that, for most people who feel like generalists, most of your revenue comes from a few different markets and a few different products.

Some people make most of their revenue from life insurance; for others, it may be investments or financial planning fees. In the big picture, we could call that our niche already. For example, let’s take an advisor who has a focus on accumulation products. The advisor sells a bit of everything, but most of his focus is on money products. It could be anywhere from 50 to 75 percent of his business. I guess it could be 100 percent of his business, but for this example we will assume that accumulation products are 75 percent of his revenue.

If we look a little deeper at his niche, the bulk of that money may be in managed solutions. It could focus on mutual funds or insured investments. The age of most people is likely similar, or even where they work. There could also be more than one niche.

In my situation, I focus on money products for individuals who are approaching retirement (or who are now retired but were working when they became clients). I also have spent approximately three days per quarter driving to a community of 5,000 people that is three hours away and is in the middle of nowhere. Most of my clients work for the same large employer. This is an example of a niche. There are also many niches within that niche.

Think of how much easier it is for me, and all the benefits to the clients, that I understand their pension plan and employee benefits as well as the unique challenges that they may face, such as falling real estate the day the employer closes.

You can focus all of your efforts and marketing toward building your niche. You can target market and develop the specific knowledge needed to build a powerful business model.

List of niches

We could list 100 different niches and still not cover them all, but here are just a few examples. The most important thing is that you feel comfortable with the people you are dealing with and that you have the skill set to match your niche.

• Occupation niche: These include physicians, doctors, accountants, state employees, business owners, police officers and high-net-worth individuals.
• Specific companies niche: You could be an expert in how the pension and health benefits work for the largest employer in your town. This is also an ideal niche for advisors who specialize in employee benefits, by simply working the members of your benefit programs.
• Specific products: These include generalist, life, investments, employee benefits, complex cases and simples cases.
• Life transitions: You could be the expert in your area on so many different transitions that individuals face during their lifetime, such as marriage, divorce, death of spouse, birth of child and retirement. You could also have niches by age groups: Young adults, retirees, young families and mature families are a few examples.
• Financial transitions: These are the key times in a company’s or an individual’s life, such as buying or selling a business, inheritances or even lump-sum retirement benefits. This could also include insurance settlements for accidents or even people who live in expensive cities and are downsizing their real estate holdings.
• Geographic niche: The most obvious would be an advisor who lives in a small community. This could also include a hometown that you or your spouse grew up in or a community that you focus on that is a few hours’ drive from where you live.

If most of your time is spent in a specific niche, you could easily systematize a presentation. Getting a new client and processing all the paperwork could be turnkey. Errors would be reduced, and you and your entire office would be more productive.

I think that financial planning is a huge niche. Everyone says that they are a financial planner, but how many people actually do financial plans for clients? Not as many as you think. You could be the expert in financial planning just by focusing on it as a niche.

DNA of a prospect

You are ultimately in the prospecting business. Regardless of your niche, the broad-based definition of a prospect for all of us is the same. What exactly is the definition of a “prospect”? Prospects have four qualities:

1. Have a need or a want
2. Have money to act
3. Must match your profile
4. Be willing to meet with you

If I find someone who has a need or a want, the money to act and who matches my profile but is not willing to meet with me, that person is not a prospect.

Loyalty ladder

Everyone in society falls into one of five rungs of the loyalty ladder. At the bottom of the loyalty ladder we have suspects. There is a question mark with this group. We don’t know if they have a need or a want or the money to act. Though they match our profile, they don’t want to talk to us.

We move up to prospects. These are people who could work with us but deal with someone else.

At the next level, our first revenue-generating group is our customers. They are dealing with you and two to three other advisors. They are practicing advisor diversification.

We then have clients, or someone who is dealing exclusively with you.

At the very top are advocates, people who deal exclusively with you but who are also out there waving your flag. They become part of your sales force.

You are in the business of attracting and acquiring clients and graduating your clients up the ladder. Your suspects graduate to prospects, your prospects to customers, your customers to clients and, finally, your clients to advocates. Our best opportunity is with our customers, to graduate them to clients.

As we want to squeeze as much juice as we possibly can out of an orange, we also want to generate as much revenue from each client as we can. Would you rather have 25 percent of the assets, 25 percent of the insurance sales, 25 percent of the revenue of 1,000 people, or 50 percent of the possible revenue from 500 people, or 100 percent from 250 clients? Which way are you going to be more successful, but also which way are your clients ultimately going to be more successful?

Client retainer

Clients are going to leave for all kinds of reasons. Maybe they have passed away, moved away, leave because of perceived non-performance or have a friend in the business. But the No. 1 reason, the dominant reason, that people leave is ultimately lack of contact from their advisor. If you want to improve retention, improve your revenue stream and improve your bottom line, you must contact your clients in a frequent and effective manner. As a result, you will see a significant change. Should you choose not to, a small leak will start, and a small leak can sink a large ship eventually. In our business, we strive for 100 percent retention, and we can achieve this only by contacting clients regularly and effectively.

Let us focus on the power of retaining clients. For this example, let’s use a financial advisor who brings in $4 million/year of new money. This example relates to money products. [visual] She has an 8 percent rate of return and retains 100 percent of her clients. In 15 years, she has $116 million. Now, let us imagine this same advisor lost 4 percent of her clients every year, so instead of having $116 million, she will have $84 million at the end of the 15 years, and one-third of the business is gone.

We have another advisor who brings in $4 million a year, and 8 percent of his clients leave each year. How much does he manage at the end of 15 years? $60 million, half as much. Client retention is like gaining weight — everything counts. You can choose to have an extra dessert; you may not count it, but your body is going to count it.

Business obligations

Financial advisors have three business activities. These are the three activities you need to do in order to run your business successfully: You attract clients, retain clients and do the required activities of running your business. For simplicity, let’s say you, as an advisor, work 1,800 hours in a year, and let’s break these 1,800 hours into each of these three areas: 600 hours running your business, 600 hours attracting clients and 600 hours retaining clients. The 600 hours spent running your business is important and must be done, but it does not generate any revenue for you or your firm. You are left with 1,200 hours for revenue-generating activities, which are attracting clients and retaining clients. If you look at your business as a 1,200 hours/year business, every hour becomes much more valuable, doesn’t it?

By focusing your time, effort, marketing and energy on a niche, you can be much more effective with the limited amount of time that you have.

Positioning yourself as an expert in your niche

There are many things that you can do to position yourself as the go-to advisor for your niche:

• Website (Does it talk to your target?)
• LinkedIn and Facebook profiles
• Business cards — company name
• Writing articles for journals, community papers
• Special reports
• Emailing newsletters targeted to your niche
• Joining trade associations
• Blogging (It really works.)

Set up a 12-month marketing calendar

Marketing investment/expense

When you look at marketing, do you look at it as being an investment or as being an expense? When a client asks you to sponsor his son’s team, at a cost of $500, and you get your company name on the back of the jerseys, you are happy to do it, but this is not marketing.

Marketing is an investment to protect your investment. Ultimately, what you have is the best pension plan that anybody can ever dream of; it is called “your clients.” If you keep your clients happy, you will be able to work less and less and make more and more money by keeping these people happy. Marketing is an investment to protect your pension plan, your pension plan being your clients.

Marketing is part of your brand. You may feel that you don’t have a brand, but every single person in this room has a brand. Do you know advisors who are always late getting to work or to an appointment? Unfortunately for them, being late becomes part of their brand. What is your brand with your clients? I want my brand to be that when you come to see me, we will pay attention to details. I want my clients to know and understand that, every day, I am fighting the fight on their behalf.

Marketing questions

Before I design anything, I always stand back and forget that I’m in the financial services business. I try to think like my clients and ask myself what they would think if they received any particular marketing piece. First, ask yourself, Is it different and better? It must be both different and better than your competitors. In addition, ask, Is it going to have a long shelf life and a high impact? Is the information going to help establish me as a credible source in my clients’ eyes? Most importantly, is it going to attract additional assets/revenue to help generate quality inbound referrals from my clients? Is it going to improve my client retention?

So, again, the key things here are differentiation, high impact, long shelf life, credible source, attraction of additional assets/revenue or referrals and improvement of my client retention. If my marketing piece is not going to do any of these things, why would I send it out? Let’s say hypothetically that on these different criteria I score myself from 1 to 10. I say to myself, Is this going to differentiate me from everyone else? Maybe I’m going to get a low mark. Is it going to have a high impact? Perhaps I can get a high score on that. Is it going to help establish me as a credible source? Maybe I will get a high score on that. And I will end up with a little composite score that I make up in my head, which helps me come up with a decision on whether to send a marketing piece out as is or to improve it.

Marketing calendar

Regardless of your niche, we all need some form of a 12-month marketing calendar. You can build you calendar by asking your clients a few simple questions, and all kinds of good things will happen to you and your career. The best question to ask any client is “What is the one thing that I can do to make a difference for you?” or “Why do you do business with our firm?”

Your calendar needs to cover these three areas:

1. Ongoing activities for clients and prospects
2. Timeline activities for clients and prospects
3. First year for client

Small-town advisor

Imagine for a moment that you left the city that you do business in and moved to a small town. You have all of your skills and abilities and now live in a community with 5,000 to 10,000 people. Imagine all the things you could do to basically own the town for whatever niche you have. You could target the town any way you wanted to — target the largest employer, for example.

If I moved to a small town, I would start with all the tried-and-true things that are so obvious that none of us do them anymore:

• Pens (The pens that light up are the best.)
• Coffee cups (You could even give them to the local coffee shop for free to use in the restaurant.)
• Hats, shirts, jackets
• Sponsorship
• Trade shows
• Seminars
• Newspaper articles
• Billboards

Many of these things used to be expensive to do years ago, but today can be done at a reasonable cost.

What if you don’t live in a small town? You could still do almost all of these things in your niche, regardless of where you live or what niche you have. Just think through some of these ideas and see how they apply to your business.

What extra value added do you bring to your niche?

I focus on the retirement market, where most clients are over 55 years of age. We provide them with a few additional true value-added benefits. Most people have no idea how their Canada Pension Plan works until they retire. We hire a company to do special reports for approximately $100 per report. They truly customize the report, so they know exactly what they will get when they retire. No one else is doing this, and we tell our clients that. If they find value in the report, they certainly can refer anyone to us.

Drive for show

There is a saying in the golf world: “You drive for show, but putt for dough.” For the average PGA golfer in 2018, 26 percent of the shots were drives, and 47 percent of the shots were putts — that is, for the best golfers in the world, the ones who earned their PGA card.

When you go to the golf course, where is everyone? Are they at the driving range, or are they practicing their putting? The answer is that everyone is at the driving range. I actually have a client who’s a professional golfer on the European Tour, and I asked, “What’s the best way to improve my putting?” He said, “The best way to putt well is to get the ball as close to the hole as you possibly can.” I asked, “So what’s the best way to do that?” His reply: “The best way to do that is to have a really, really good chip shot.” And I asked, “What’s the best way to have a really good chip shot?” He replied, “Have a really good approach shot.” So naturally I asked, “How do I have a really good approach shot?” To which he replied, “Have a really, really good drive.” So, I know that a 1-foot putt actually starts 300 yards back on the tee box where I use my driver. For the marketing campaigns that I will be discussing, some are putts, some are chips, some are approach shots and some are drives, but they’re all really, really important. And if you’re golfing, and you get the ball an inch from the hole, it still counts as a stroke. When you get a referral, you create a need, you create a want and you get an appointment, but if you’re already an inch away from the hole and you can’t close that person, how much money will you get paid?

Handwritten card

So here is a putt. The question I get asked the most is “If you were to suggest one strategy that I can add to my current system that will have an immediate and positive impact on my business, what would it be?” My answer, “Close your door for a half-hour each week and send out four high-quality handwritten cards or notes of appreciation. When is the last time you received a handwritten card of appreciation? If you remember, it is because of the impact it had on you, the way it made you feel. I came here to help you grow your business.

A handwritten card is going to grow your business. In my experience, the timeless handwritten note of appreciation is the most powerful business tool for financial advisors today. Doing this for new and existing clients will provide you with your biggest return of your energy. Buy a big box of cards that includes not only thank-you cards but sympathy and wedding cards and even blank cards. I send thank-you cards out on a regular basis. I send them out after a client meeting. I send them out when I get a new client. Sending out a card after a client appointment makes a big difference.

The mother of one of my clients passed away just last week. I went into the storage room in my office where I have about four baskets made up and put one on my desk. I reached in my drawer and grabbed a sympathy card. I filled it out and dropped both the basket and card off at my client’s home. If I didn’t have the baskets and the cards ready, I would have had to shop for the stuff for a basket, put it together and look for a card. It wouldn’t have happened.

This is easy to do, but activities that are easy to do are also easy not to do. You can use this template for cards for the rest of your career, whether you are dealing with rich people, poor people, male, female, young, old, or investment or insurance clients.

For new clients:

Dear David and Mary,
I wanted to send a brief note to let you both know how much I enjoyed our meeting. [Here you can add one or two sentences.] I look forward to the opportunity to work with you, and I appreciate your confidence.

For existing clients, just change one or two sentences:

I really appreciate all the confidence that you have placed in me over the years. Please feel free to contact me anytime. All my best!

Easy to do or easy not to do? Things that are easy to do are easy not to do. I weighed 80 kilograms my entire life. Over the past five years, I gained about 10 kilos. I have a friend who is a personal trainer. I asked him what I can do to make it easier to zip up my pants. He said 20 sit-ups every day. But you know what I found out? I found out that it’s actually easier to walk around all day with your pants too tight than it is to do 20 sit-ups every day.

Specialty cards

There are amazing cards today compared to many years ago. There are all kinds of unique pop-up cards that gain tons of attention. They cost about $10 but are worth it in the right scenario. There are also cards where you record messages. Ask yourself how they might work in your niche, and remember that no one sends cards anymore.

Business cards

We have two different business cards: one for our investment and financial planning clients and another card for our employee benefit clients. They both focus on different strengths. Also, how does the quality of your card rank against others in your industry? Consider business card specialty companies like moo.com for cards that really stand out. I know one MDRT advisor who has stainless steel business cards. They cost him a few dollars each. He only gives out a few hundred of them every year, but he sure stands out.

Book library

Many advisors in this room love giving books to clients. Consider a book library. Books are so cheap that it does not matter if you get them back or not. You are perceived as an expert in whatever topic of book you give your clients.

Retirement business card

If I was to ask you for your email address or phone number, what would you do? You would give me your business card, or you would you write it down on a sheet of paper. Your clients would do the same thing. In fact, most of us spend our careers walking around giving out our business cards. Let’s jump ahead to retirement. What will you do then? What will your clients do? My solution is a one-of-a-kind campaign that is a perfect way to acknowledge a client’s retirement.

Deliver a box of 250 retirement business cards to your clients that look like this:

Joe Client, Retiree
222-333-4444
JoeClient@hotmail.com
JoeClient@facebook.com
no meetings
no deadlines
no boss
no worries
no responsibilities
Available 24/7 for fun. Planned Ahead.
Compliments of Joeadvisor.com

I want to draw your attention to the bottom of the card — “Compliments of Joeadvisor.com.”

Your clients will hand out these business cards, and your name will be shared with every person whom they give it to. Your website traffic will increase — you will generate referrals with this idea. This marketing idea can be done with every client.

Letter of introduction

By far the best way to reach prospects is through referrals. And the best way to contact referrals is with a referral letter. Let’s talk about the perfect referral letter. Let’s start at the top: “Dear David and Mary.” The body of the letter should be a benefit to them and a call to action. You need only answer one question in the letter: Why should the prospect give up an hour of their time to see you, an hour of their life that they will never get back? The benefit of seeing you needs to be clear and compelling. At the bottom, probably the most important part of the letter is the carbon copy to the client who gave you the referral. This increases your chances that your client and the referral will talk favorably about you prior to your contacting the referral.

Dealing with price

Let’s talk about price for a moment. If you are like me, and if you are like all your clients when you buy something, you want the best product and the best service at the lowest possible price. The truth is we can’t get all three. Which one do you want to give up in order to maximize the other two? Tell me one product or one service in any industry anywhere in the world where you can get the best product at the cheapest price — just tell me one.

We all have clients who want the cheapest mutual fund with the lowest fee; it’s just about price — price is everything. The cheapest term insurance. This person is very price sensitive, someone I call the “The Georgetown Investor.” The story of The Georgetown Investor is about a fellow who walks into Grand Central Terminal in New York and says, “Quick, quick, get me the cheapest ticket to Georgetown.” The attendant behind the counter asks, “Which Georgetown do you want to go to?” And he answers, “Whichever one is the cheapest.”

Do you want to go to Georgetown, Alabama; Georgetown, Arizona, Colorado, California; Georgetown, Connecticut, DC, Delaware, Florida; Georgetown, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Georgia; Georgetown, Indiana, Kentucky, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts; Georgetown, New Jersey, Montana, Missouri, Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia; Georgetown, PE Island; Georgetown, Wisconsin? The cheapest ticket to Georgetown is only the right ticket when you are going to that Georgetown, or it is a waste of your time and money.

Like all of the cheap products, if it doesn’t do what it was supposed to do, then it was a complete waste of money. Though we can’t discount price, we have to remember that it is only one of the many components that make up value.

By being the expert in a niche, you make price secondary to your clients and prospects.

Here we have Dr. Iris, who owns Expert Eye Surgery. [visual] She has been running a laser surgery company for years. She has a great business, loyal clients, lots of referrals, and her fee is $5,000 for laser surgery. One day a new business opens offering discount laser surgery. They put up a sign that says, “Laser surgery $1,000.” Now Dr. Iris is in a difficult position — does she drop her price, or does she have to take less business? Instead, she decides to paint a sign on her window: “We fix $1,000 eye jobs.”

We can take the cheap route when it comes to purchasing incidentals such as paper, but for the important decisions we need an expert. Price becomes secondary when it comes to significant decisions in your life. Who would spend $1,000 on laser surgery if the going rate is $5,000? I was talking about this with a friend who actually had laser eye surgery. He paid $5,000, and he said, “You know what, Mike? I use my eyes every day.”

Christmas emails

This is a sure fire way to spread your name instantly to all your clients’ friends, colleagues and family members. In this campaign, it is as simple as emailing your clients a link, a link to an absolutely amazing website!

Once there, it just takes a moment to upload a child’s photo, some personal facts and an item from their wish list. I did this with my daughter. I said, “Micaela, we just got an email from Santa.” We clicked on the picture, and suddenly Santa is sitting in front of us, live video footage of Santa in his workshop, opening his book — and my daughter sees a picture of herself in Santa’s book. Santa says, “You’ve been a good girl, Micaela. I have been checking, and you have been playing really well with your brother, and you always go to bed on time. It says here in my book that you want a red velvet dress.” My daughter, Micaela, was so excited. The impact with this is huge. Not only will your clients appreciate your email, but they will forward it to everyone they know, and your name and contact information will be at the bottom of the email.

To save time, here is a sample email letter to send your clients:

Dear Valued Client,
Either you have children, or you know of someone who has children. I have discovered a Christmas website that is truly AMAZING! portablenorthpole.com.
This site allows you to launch your child’s photo and personalize the most magical video featuring Santa speaking directly to your child. Children are amazed when Santa knows exactly what they want for Christmas.
May the magic of Christmas be with you this season!

Sincerely,
[your signature and your referral tagline]

Quick tip for success: Ensure that you have a very professional signature at the bottom of your email. Include professional designations, company name, all contact information and your website. Include a referral tagline: “We would like to thank all of our clients who demonstrated confidence in us by introducing their friends, colleagues and family members to us over the past year.” (This makes certain that when your clients forward the email to others, they will know exactly what you do and that you are open to new clients.)

When they experience the wonder in their child’s eyes, they will think of you and your thoughtful email and will forward this incredible idea. Everyone will know that you are their financial advisor as your signature will be at the bottom of the email.

Here are a few other terrific websites: virtualsanta.com (Santa will answer the questions that your youngster wonders about every year) or emailsanta.com (watch Santa as he interacts with people in his own home).

Here is another site: noradsanta.org. (Track Santa’s journey — perfect on Christmas Eve. The site becomes active in mid-November.) This incredibly good campaign is only good for the month of December.

Historic newspaper

This is a campaign that works with real advisors, with real clients, in the real world, to generate results. To set this up I will share a success story: A financial advisor arrived at the retirement party of a client with a newspaper, but not just any newspaper — an authentic, real newspaper from the day the client was born! Sound simple? It was. The result: He opened great, new accounts with targeted clients but, more importantly, connected with everyone at the party on a very personal level that day.

The advisor demonstrated extreme forethought and was seen by everyone as thoughtful and competent. Sound simple? It was!

The newspapers come with a certificate of authenticity. You can buy newspapers from all over the world. My suggestion would be to buy old newspapers like The New York Times, The Boston Globe or The Globe and Mail. Some business papers will have only financial topics. It is more interesting to get a newspaper that has a little bit of everything. This is perfect for 50th birthdays, 65th birthdays, 75th birthdays and retirements.

Next, buy 100 sheets of old-looking paper for about $6, and write a letter to your client relating to the newspaper. Be sure to include all kinds of interesting references in the letter. For instance, make mention of actors and actresses in their starring roles and product advertisements, and draw their attention to certain parts of the classified section.

I also suggest that you order your own historic newspaper from the day you were born. This tool will serve as a great office conversation piece but, more importantly, a powerful example to illustrate what the markets have done over your lifetime. Your presentations will be much more compelling when you use this tool as an example of growth and compounding. It’s the perfect meeting-room marketing piece.

Here are several websites that you can go to for more information: simplypersonalized.com, anydate.com, birthdayandanniversarygifts.com and usedmagazines.com.

So let’s review how these campaigns measure to our marketing criteria. Are they different and better? Do they have high impact and a long shelf life? Do they establish you as a credible source? Will they attract additional assets, generate referrals, improve your client retention or demonstrate your value?

Season tickets versus corporate box

Companies in all industries, including ours, spend millions of dollars every year on season tickets to sporting events. This can be very expensive since you are buying tickets to 40 games for basketball or hockey, or more than 80 games for baseball. Every client thinks he or she is the most important client and all want tickets to the very best games like the New York Yankees or Toronto Maple Leafs. How do they feel when they get tickets to the poorest team in the league?

Instead of buying season tickets, you can likely save more money and get a better bang for your buck by renting a corporate box a few times a year and bringing a whole group of clients to a marquee game a few times a year instead. Plus, your clients can meet other clients.

Client binders

All of my clients receive client binders from me. They receive a 3-inch binder, with their name clearly on the front of the binder. Inside there are many tabs: Life Insurance, Investment, Mortgage, Wills. Inside the tabs I include an assortment of my financial concepts and product information sheets. Along with the binder, I give them a paper punch to make it easier for them to add their statements to the binder. I mail the binder to the client. I mail the binder because it adds to the impact of receiving the package. How do you feel when you receive a slip from the post office requesting that you pick up a package? Everyone has a degree of excited anticipation. The cost is $7 for the binder, $7 for the paper punch, $7 for the content, another $7 for postage — $28 for the lifetime value of the client.

Now, what do people do with the binders? One-third of the people say, “Oh, that’s nice!” And they put it away, to never touch it again. The second one-third have good intentions — they use it faithfully, and then somewhere along the way, they stop. The last one-third of the people come to every appointment with their binder. All of their statements are up-to-date and included in the binder. The appointments are far more effective, and I have the opportunity to squeeze the most juice out of this client with all of their statements in front of me.

Solid oak policy boxes

About five years ago, we started giving our best clients policy boxes. This was a huge step up from our binders, and clients absolutely love them. One of my retired clients is a carpenter, and he makes them for me. They are large enough to hold legal files. We put in hanging file folders with tabs, and the policy box also has a compartment to hold personal items such as a USB drive or portable hard drive.

On the outside of the box, we put a brass plate. Usually we write, “Especially for David and Mary Client” on the brass plate. These policy boxes cost me a few hundred dollars, but when you consider the lifetime value of a client, the price is very reasonable.

Gift baskets

We do these at Christmas every year for our best clients. Each year we go with a different theme. Sometimes it is chocolate-based. Other times it is cheese and pasta. There are so many ways to make a basket. We always buy as much as possible for the baskets from the local markets. This way the “buy local” theme is known and appreciated by our clients. Most years, we include a family photo with the Christmas card.

Calendars

Everyone uses a calendar. The next marketing campaign that we are going to look at is calendars. However, these are not ordinary calendars that you get your company name stamped on. For these calendars, we use my financial concepts. I use my financial concepts because they communicate financial concepts in plain language. In addition, the financial concepts pictures are interesting and thought-provoking and will spark a conversation with anyone who looks at them. These calendars can be done in several ways. There is a 12-month, one-page, laminated version. I have a $2,000 color laser printer in my office, and it costs 11 cents per page to print in color. So, printing 100 calendars costs $11. Laminating is less than $1 each. I place refrigerator magnets on the back of the calendars and send them out to my clients every year. The calendar then is attached to their refrigerator all year long. It has the interesting financial concept picture on it as well as my company logo. In addition to serving my client, the calendar provides an opportunity for him or her to talk about the concept picture and then for my name to come up.

Sports pools

Do something like this for your clients for the Super Bowl or some other big sporting event: Start a sports pool. Your clients will get an email every week over the season updating them on their stats. You can send all your clients an email inviting them to be part of the pool and allowing them to invite one friend. The prize can be something simple like a sports jersey from the team of their choice. Think of how little the cost is compared to the fact that these people get an email from you every week.

Meeting Mr. Big

Does anyone here have a prospect who you know would make a big impact on your life and your career if you could just get in but you never seem to be able to get in? Go out and buy a box of chocolates, and send it to that person’s personal assistant.

Write a really simple note saying, “I know that you and Mr. Big are both very busy. Would you please deliver this letter to Mr. Big? Thank you very much, and for your efforts, I have included a box of chocolates.

Ticket to ride

Here is another way to actually get in front of really successful people. If you call someone and he tells you that he is going to be leaving town, ask if you can buy a ticket on the same flight. Think about this for a moment. You can pick the client up at his house and spend at least an hour with him at the airport and then the time on the flight. You can then just turn around and fly right back. How much does something that that actually cost? $400, $500. Let me ask you this: If I came to you and told you that I could give you a two- or three-hour appointment with the most successful person in your town for a finder’s fee of $500, would you take that deal? I can almost guarantee you that almost everyone in this room makes more than $500 per appointment.

Selling to your niche market

Let’s now look at a few sales ideas that you can use in your niche.

Young to middle-age markets niche

Paychecks to retirement

The most important thing to remember about young people is to understand how little time they really have to prepare for the future. By showing the number of paychecks that an individual will have during his or her career is a truly compelling way to win that person over.

In my country, the average person is paid twice per month, or 24 times per year. Here are all the paychecks that you will have between now and age 65:

• Age 25 — 960 paychecks
• Age 35 — 720 paychecks
• Age 45 — 480 paychecks
• Age 55 — 240 paychecks

Child binder

Here, go do this: Every time you sell insurance or some sort of a savings program on a child, give them a child binder. I have all of these poems and quotes that I have collected over the years. Then I put in a few illustrations showing the advantages of saving early. Put everything in a 1-inch binder, and then get a picture of the parents with their child, and put it on the cover. This has gone over amazingly with all the clients we have done this for.

Financial planning niche

This is a huge niche, and there are very few advisors who actually do financial plans for their clients. You could easily become an expert in financial planning, and this is a true value that we provide to our clients.

Tailor tape measure

When you do a financial plan for your clients, consider buying a bunch of cloth tailor tape measures. Roll the tape measure out to its full length. Next cut off the tape measure at the client’s life expectancy. For this example, we will use age 90. After that, cut off the tape measure at the client’s current age (say, age 40). Ask the client when he or she wants to retire (say, age 55), and then cut the tape measure at that age. The client will easily see that there are very few years to save and many years to live off that money. It will compel the client to get much more serious about the future.

Time + amount saved + return

This concept puts together the three most important components of a financial plan. If people do not have enough money to reach their goals, there are only three things they can do: increase their time, increase their return or increase amount saved.

On the back of a napkin

One of the best ways to do a quick financial plan is on the back of a napkin. The next time you are at lunch with a client, draw 12 boxes on a sheet of paper. Tell your client that money is available from only three sources at retirement:

1. Employer
2. Government
3. Their own money

Next, tell the client that money is required at four major life events:

1. Death
2. Disability
3. Critical illness
4. Retirement

Quickly write down all the funds that they have available from their three sources for each of the four financial issues that the client will face over a lifetime. This is a very fast and easy way to get a client’s attention and move him or her to action.

Life insurance market

People buy life insurance for two main reasons. They buy it for either estate creation or estate conservation. They either need it or want it. As a general rule, young people buy it because they need it for estate creation. Older people buy it because they want it for estate conservation. The premium is looked at as an expense by younger people and as an investment by older people. Young people buy insurance for if they die, and older people buy if for when they die. Life insurance becomes much simpler to sell when people understand why they are buying it.

Investment clients

Reasons to diversify

This concept with two elevators is a great way to show how asset allocation and diversification works. [visual] You can use these elevators to explain all the different products in a financial portfolio such as insurance and investments.

World at night

This picture of the world at night is amazing to show how wealth is distributed around the world. [visual] Anywhere you see lights, you see some form of wealth.

So we discussed the four steps to establish a niche market:

1. Decide on your niche market(s).
2. Position yourself as an expert in your niche.
3. Set up a 12-month marketing plan. Develop campaigns and marketing materials to attract and retain your niche.
4. Master a systematized sales process.

We are at a time right now where you are needed more than ever by your clients and prospects.

Are these ideas too simple? Think about this for a moment. The Beatles are rock ’n’ roll legends. Most Beatles songs were three or four chords. So go out and have a three- or four-chord marketing plan with three or four sales ideas, and put these ideas to work for you.

So here is what we covered. The DNA of your business is a blueprint or code containing the instructions on how to build and maintain a highly successful financial services practice. We talked about the DNA of your success and the DNA of a prospect.

You have about 10 really good ideas that you can pick up, touch, hold and feel, and use right away to help grow your business and, more importantly, to help your clients become more successful. But don’t ever forget that the secret is to transform knowing into doing.

Michael Morrow, CFP, is an 11-year MDRT member, as well as speaker, author and commentator who has been pioneering clients to their financial goals for 30 years. Industry peers recognize him as an expert on client engagement and loyalty. His industry experience, coupled with a passion for client appreciation, led him to develop strategies proven to attract and retain high-quality clients.