5 'Weapons of Mass Attraction' to Help You Gain More Clients

What's one more "weapon"?

Asking open-ended questions. Every one of us on the planet has the same favorite topic: themselves. So get people talking about what they're interested in. What they most want to talk about is themselves.

You write that another "weapon" in getting people to like you is to praise them.

This is where it really pays off because when we give someone an ego boost or lift their self-esteem, we're helping them meet an unmet human need. That gives them a temporary rush of joy and delight. Therefore, if it makes them feel good, they're going keep dipping into that well. If that source of delight happens to be a financial advisor, then they'll take their next call and become loyal to them.

So inspiring loyalty is another "weapon"?

Yes. Nobody is loyal to a product. We're loyal to people. If someone makes you feel good about yourself, you come back to them.

"The problem isn't that your market has changed," you write. "The problem is that your business hasn't changed." Please elaborate.

Financial professionals are still pushing product. When the decision is always hinged to a product, there's nothing for the prospect to remember about you or talk about. They feel you're not there to help them but to help [yourself].

Please talk about "Dominators vs. "Also-rans." How do you become a dominator?

The only way to become dominant and get ahead of everybody else is to stop doing things the way everybody else is doing them. The biggest mistake you can make is to look like a competitor. You want those new clients, and you want to grow; but there are obvious barriers, a lot of which the industry creates itself. Whoever knocks those barriers down first is going to crush, kill and destroy the folks that are doing things as they've always done them — like folks who push product.

What's the biggest barrier?

The biggest wall is [consumers] thinking: "Why do I need this?" That's because they don't see themselves in the marketing that firms do. They're thinking: "I'm not sure I need this; I'm not really sure what they do." And "I never hear my friends speaking positively about them."

You call life insurance salespeople and financial planners "the heavyweight champions of non-memorable language and data." For one thing, they speak in jargon.

The education, training and encouragement they get is all about the glorification of product. But at the end of the day, you need the person that you're serving to like what you're saying, to remember what you're saying and to tell somebody else about it. They have to really like you as a person, which means you need to be delighting them. You can't do that if you're talking about things they don't understand and are too embarrassed to ask questions about.

You stress that some words and terms, like "solution provider" are terribly overused.

"Solution" is an awful word. It tracks with that kind of monkey-see, monkey-do thing that businesses [practice]. When did you ever hear someone say, "solution provider," and think, "Hey, he's the one for me!"

Is it a good idea for advisors to talk about their competition when meeting with prospects?

That's a conundrum for everyone in financial services. People expect advisors to be the experts. That's why it does them no favor whatsoever to compare themselves to their competitors because prospects don't know or understand [all the nuances and complexities of investing].

"We can't easily change our product and services, but we can change what we emphasize," you write. Please explain.

After the meeting or phone call, what do I want this prospect to remember about me and talk about? What they will never remember is the product and the jargon. But what they're going to remember is, "I really liked this guy or woman, and here's why." Absent that, it's impossible to build your reputation.

Rebranding efforts "fail to generate much positive momentum … or improvement." Rebranding is no "silver bullet," you write. Why doesn't it work?

Every time someone changes the name of their company, somebody — design and logo firms — probably makes a lot of money. But if there's no change in the business behavior — how you approach and attend to clients, what your platform is — you can rebrand a thousand times, and nobody is going to know or care. You can put a new coat of paint on the barn, but it still has the same animals inside.

In the wake of the financial crisis, have you had an increase in speaking engagements for financial services firms?

Yes. It started with banks. Suddenly the banking industry realized that no one was going to push their doors open and come in like they used to. Things weren't easy [anymore]. People were nervous around them and not drawn to them, they said.

Also, people can be intimidated by banks and talking with financial advisors.

Sure. If you don't speak or understand the language that's coming at you, you immediately feel uncomfortable. You feel kind of dumb and like you're going to be taken advantage of. So you want to distance yourself and quickly move away.

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