If you contact your prospects with nice, friendly, and NON-FINANCIAL touches 10 times they think that you are a nice, helpful person. Then when you touch them with a helpful, financial message, they know you are doing it to be “nice and helpful,” not doing it to sell them something.

You can use this ratio over and over and people will never think you are being pushy. Instead they will know you are helpful, friendly, and a caring person.

How often can you send a financial message*? After every 10 NON-FINANCIAL or what I call caring contacts.

Would you spend $7 – $15 to have a prospect WANT to talk to you?

10 handwritten cards — $7 – $15 dollars if you want to write them yourself

If you send out 10 handwritten notes and follow-up with a financial offer* via mail, you will get a 7% response rate. If you are motivated enough to phone after the financial offer, you will get a 90% response rate (these are people that are going to say, “I was wondering who was sending me the cards. They are wonderful! Thank you! How did you get my name? You simply say, “Some of my best friends who are also my best clients live near you so I thought I would get to know the people in their neighborhood. I hope you don’t mind?”)

*The financial offer that occurs after the 9th or 10th caring contact would your professional request from the client. That could be:

1. A request for referrals
2. An invitation to a special seminar
3. A new product or solution you are offering
4. A timely product due to interest rate environments or some such
5. Anything where you could begin or extend your professional relationship with them.

If you want to hit them up for a financial offer every 6 months, then give them 2 contacts a month and on the 6th month make an offer.

Why leads rarely work – Finances are a VERY private thing. Most people do not want to discuss their finances with strangers (definition of a stranger: people you don’t know or trust.)

People know that you are smart – People know that if they ask you for some good ideas that you would give them lots of good ideas…Then why don’t they respond to our marketing or ask us for our ideas?

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care – People that sell for a living know this…they may ignore it, but they know it.

You can’t demonstrate how much you care in a marketing piece – You can say you care but what do you think when someone says, “Trust me.”? Do you?

You can show that you know a lot…BUT SO WHAT! – So does every other financial advisor as far as the public cares. They really don’t think that one financial advisor is smarter than the other…the only way to demonstrate the difference is to show how much you care.

How does your mother know if you care? – Simple, by how much contact you have with her (more is better) and what kind of contact. If the only time you contact her is to borrow money what does she think you think of her?

If all that you do is talk about money to a client or prospect, what do they think you care about: them as a person or getting at their money?

Create a friend and you have a client – What do friends and family want from you? They want you to demonstrate that you care about them. What is the easiest way to demonstrate it? Phone call or email maybe? Aha! In this case easy is bad!

We’ll all do something for someone when it’s easy. Only if you really care about someone will you do something more difficult.

Email:
– No cost
– Simple
– Easy and effortless

Versus the perceived difficulty and time involved with a card:

Sending a card:
– You have to go out and look at cards and choose one
– You have to buy it. You know, actually spend money
– You have to sit down and think about what you want to write because once you write it with a pen you can’t simply delete and fix it
– You have to write it
– Address the envelope, lick and affix a stamp
– Drop it into a mail box

Who responds to Lead Generation pieces? – 2% to 3% of all lead generation pieces sent out respond that they want more information. That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

Bad News for you-Most leads you purchased are worthless. 87% of all people that respond to lead generation pieces have responded to at least 3 other lead generation pieces in the past-that means that collecting free stuff is their “hobby.” They aren’t interested in making changes or talking to someone.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT BABY!

How much would you spend to have a prospect who:
– Feels like they know you
– Likes you
– Wants you to contact them again
– Talks to their friends and neighbors about you
– Are happy when you call
– Actually pick up the phone to call you just because they want to meet you

Well for the time and pennies it takes to write and send ten postcards over the time period you choose, 82% of the people you send these handwritten cards to will feel all of those things for you. They sure did for me.

I used to spend 6 hours a week writing handwritten notes. That may seem like a lot of time but IT WAS WORTH IT!

Author Bio: Mike Kaselnak is considered one of the top marketing and sales experts in the financial services industry. He has personally mentored over 300 financial advisors in the past 10 years. These financial advisors saw their average production increase by 62%. Many saw increases of over 300 percent. He writes articles that have appeared in many mainstream magazines and has written the popular report 300 Financial Headlines that sell. MikeKaselnak.com

Category: Marketing
Keywords: business,marketing,financial,advisor,client,prospect,handwritten,roi