5 Must-Know Sales Tips for Financial Planners

Financial planners play an important role in helping their clients build wealth and secure their future and achieve their dreams. But even a great financial planner won’t achieve success without the right conversation skills.

The ability to have meaningful conversations and build genuine relationships with clients is one of the most important skills you can develop as a financial planner. As an ex-financial adviser myself, and throughout the last 10 years coaching, developing and observing financial planners, I have seen so many fail because they didn’t know how to have a structured, meaningful and genuine conversation.

In this article, I’m going to share five must-know tips for Financial Planners on how to have meaningful and genuine conversations. The six tips will help you build and develop your skills so you can help more clients, make more money, increase your conversions, get that promotion, and spend more time with your family.

Here are 5 must-know sales tips for financial planners:

1. Build rapport and trust with every client.

I know you are probably thinking “I do this already”, however, what I see is many rush this part and get straight into the business side of things. Sales is all about relationships.

People want to buy from people they know, like, and trust, so take your time getting to know your clients on a deeper level. Focus on building rapport and genuine relationships with your prospects. 

The key to building rapport is to be authentic and show that you genuinely care. You can’t fake it. It will be obvious to your prospect if you are just treating them as another sale.

Conversely, taking a genuine interest in the person sitting opposite you will be a breath of fresh air for the prospect. They will appreciate your authenticity and you’ll make more sales as a result.

2. Ask powerful and emotive questions.

Here is another area that I see many make mistakes. It is not just about asking the right questions it is about asking the right questions that allow you to go deep enough to really get down to the core of what is important to clients.  Asking the right questions not only allows you to find out what you need to know about the client, it also shows them that you are listening and understanding of their situation.

I see many with a list of questions they will ask based on what they know about the client. It is more than that though, it is listening to understand not listening to reply or ask your next question. 

Emotional questions are questions that evoke a feeling in your client; feelings your clients will have because of doing business with you; feelings they will have because of the products or services you offer them. They can be used to appeal to a prospect’s wants and desires. Drawing on these emotions will invoke a powerful response and will increase the likelihood of your prospect taking action. 

Understanding a prospect’s dream or future goal allows you to ask these emotional questions. If you can relate the outcome of your service to the prospect’s goal, such as drawing on the emotional benefits of retirement and peace of mind, you’re more likely to capture their attention, and the sale.

Reflect on this in your next meeting and assess yourself. Could you go deeper into the emotional side of what the client needs and wants?

3. Link the benefits of your service to the client’s goals and objectives.

The client has to understand, in a very concrete and practical way, how the benefits of your service can impact their life. Without this information, why would they do business with you?

The client needs to understand not just that a benefit exists, but why it’s good for them, and how it will help them achieve their goals. I often see financial planners that are great at educating clients on the strategy and how it will work, but they don’t connect the benefit with the client’s goal.

I now see more and more financial planners that have a client services manager that helps them with their admin. The client services manager is introduced at an early stage to build a relationship with the client. This helps to free up some of the financial planners time.

For example, if you tell your client that they will have you and a client services manager, that might sound nice, but it doesn’t mean much. However, if you tell them they’ll have a personalised client services manager that they can contact directly at any point if they have questions, that gives them peace of mind. 

If you tell them that you and their client services manager will be able to help them immediately if they need something, making the process stress-free, it will resonate more than simply stating the benefit.

Your ability to link the benefits of your service directly to your prospect’s goals and objectives will increase your chances of making a sale.

4. Follow a consistent process and take the customer on a journey. 

Following a consistent meeting process allows you to be more effective. If you can create a repeatable process, not only can you increase your conversion but you also make it really simple for the clients to understand where you are going.

I observe many financial planners jumping backwards and forwards through the meeting and have literally observed the look of confusion on clients faces, with where is he going with this. 

The client needs to understand the entire process so they can make an informed decision and fully understand how you can help them achieve their goals. 

The best way to develop a consistent process is to create a customer conversation framework. This framework should outline the structure of your conversation process and include important repeatable details that guide every conversation. A clear framework will help with conversions, increased client engagement, planner confidence, reduced appointment time, reduced call backs and much more.

5. Get coaching or mentoring. 

There’s a strange stigma around seeking outside help from a coach or mentor. The misconception is that it shows signs of weakness or that you’re unable to accomplish things on your own. That is total garbage. Nobody ever achieved anything great by themselves, and a coach or mentor can often identify things that you are unable to see.

In fact, seeking a coach or mentor is a strength. It shows that you’re proactive around identifying your faults and that you are able to check your ego. It also demonstrates that you are teachable and open to learning and developing your skills now and in the future.

However, the biggest benefit that coaching provides is the opportunity to be fully transparent without any repercussions. You don’t need to worry about being judged or punished for speaking the truth, which may occur if you reveal your concerns to a boss or manager.

Instead, a coach will listen without judging and offer proactive advice that can help you advance your career. A coach can help you identify and fix your faults – is it a mental block? Or do you lack the skills or tools required to be more effective in your role? Whatever it may be, a coach’s one job is to help you succeed.

These five tips will make a huge difference to your sales performance if you implement each one. Take the time to get help developing a framework, practice listening and using emotive language, link the benefits of your service to your client’s goal, and get a coach. 

If you do these things, you’ll make more sales, generate more revenue, and achieve more freedom plus you will have a steady stream of referrals coming your way from your existing clients.

Most importantly, remember that sales is about building genuine relationships. Be authentic and take an interest in your prospect’s life. Do this, and people will want to work with you. 

If you want to boost your sales, have a clear structured framework so you can move from good to great click the link below to learn more about our  online program Ignite Program – Mastering Sales & Soft Skills Self-Paced Online Learning Course or reach out and we can learn more about what you are looking to achieve.  https://performanceadvisorygroup.com.au/online-sales-and-soft-skills-program/

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