The ABC's of prospecting: Attract better clients

Jim Brogan How's your prospecting business? Are you finding success, or are you stuck sifting through fool's gold?

Jim Brogan, president of Brogan Financial Retirement and Legacy Planning, will be speaking on that topic at the Senior Market Advisor Expo this August in Las Vegas. He was kind enough to send along some early thoughts on that topic.

Following are Jim's thoughts on prospecting. Let us know if you have additional insight that you want to add on the topic.

Pictured: Jim Groban

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The lifeblood of any financial advisor's business is marketing. Without attracting the right type of prospects into your office, it will be very difficult to grow a successful practice.

In 2004, I captured approximately $5 million in new client assets. In 2009, I captured over $35 million. The two most influential factors in exploding my business since 2004 have been No. 1 attracting the right kind of prospects into my office, and No. 2 knowing exactly what to do and say in order to convert those prospects into loyal clients.

My marketing model has always been to attract business, not pursue it. Whenever a prospect meets with me, it is because he or she has asked to be there. How do you build a brand so compelling that the prospective client is already over 70 percent of the way toward hiring you before he or she steps foot into your office?

My brand in the community is all about education. I teach people how to use their life's savings to achieve their life goals in retirement and beyond. I'm an advisor, not a salesperson. I focus on process, not products. Ultimately, as Ed Slott likes to say, your outflow determines your inflow. If I teach people about concepts they haven't heard about, I do it in a way that makes complete sense, and I sound different than the broker on every street corner. I'll be mentally hired before a prospect ever meets with me.

Now, once they're actually in my office, I have to know exactly how to present myself. You only get one chance at a first impression. Everything in my office is arranged with a specific purpose, and that purpose is to gain confidence and trust from both prospects and clients.

Once a prospect steps into the first meeting with me, I have to know exactly what to say, how to say it and when to say it. Ultimately, I have to help prospects understand the problems with their current plan, and they have to see it for themselves. If you ask the right questions, people will discover the problems for themselves, and then they will own the solutions to their problems.

For more on marketing, see:

Top 10 ways to fail at prospecting

Brian Tracy on discipline and prospecting

Prospecting pointers: Don't give up