Professional Advisors Innovation
2 Innovation
In his Annual Report, Neville Eisenberg Chair of the Managing Partners Global Group mentioned four key indicators for the Managing Partners of his Group.
Business Skills
Innovation
Productivity, and
Levelling Up
Last week we addressed Business Skills from a Client Mapping perspective.
This week, I want to talk about Innovation.
Client Mapping is the award-winning methodology I devised based on solid psychological research, which can be used strategically to win good-quality business. Still, it can also increase cash flow, improve client retention, encourage loyalty, repeat business and client referrals.
Albert Einstein famously said that insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly, expecting a different result. If professional advisers are not prepared to do things differently, they can continue to get the same mediocre results. Innovation is finding new solutions to problems.
Often, solutions are not found because the problem has not been properly identified.
I want to address why business development is so hard in this article and next week we will look at why most marketing produces only a modest return.
Last week we looked at the difference between facts, benefits and education. This week we will look at the innate fear of the influence of strangers.
Stand in line at the checkout counter of a supermarket with a young mother and her toddler. Smile at the toddler and ask their name. The toddler will not smile back and is unlikely to speak even when encouraged to do so by their mother.
This is the innate fear of the influence of strangers, or suspicion of product push.
Only three per cent of any audience will be interested in your service or product, regardless of what it is. Seven per cent may be interested, thirty per cent haven’t thought about it, thirty per cent have thought about it and don’t want it, and thirty per cent have thought about it but are unsure.
There are five ways to sidestep this innate fear of the influence of strangers.
The first is repetition. It takes between five and twelve ‘touches’ or communications before the innate fear of the influence of strangers begins to subside. This is how advertising and PR works, and why traditional networking of meeting other professionals at an event produces such a low return on investment. Most professionals don’t meet other professionals enough for the innate fear of the influence of strangers to subside so business is not won.
There are however four other more effective ways to sidestep the influence of strangers but they are not intuitive.
The first we touched on last week is education. As I mentioned before, education is not facts about your service that you want to convey to a prospective customer, it is what the buyer wants to know more about. Put another way it is what the entire audience would like to know about, such that you can actively engage seventy percent of the audience in the services you are providing.
Knowing what an audience may be interested in is a skill, but again this is where feedback is so important - ask your existing clients and then actively use their feedback to engage others.
The second addresses communication. If facts put off most people, how can you engage your audience - human stories?
Case studies with the identity of the client anonymised are compelling and can be seen used everywhere. Journalists, news bulletins, adverts, PR, shop windows, podcasts, etc all use stories to grab their audience's attention. To make them even more compelling give the stories colour with names, children their problems and how your skills resolved their concerns. Case studies are also an excellent way of determining whether that professional has the type of client which you would like to work for - if not, it is a waste of time seeing them.
The third method is reciprocation - small gifts. When professionals follow up with a professional they may have met at an event, they usually have a coffee or a drink or lunch. These simple exchanges are acts of reciprocation. The logic is that if I have given you a coffee, you may take away with you a brochure. But that does not mean that the brochure will be read or that it won’t be filed in the bin.
Research shows that a little sweet or chocolate delivered with the bill increases the tip by 20%. Of course if you are going to spend on gifts you need to be strategic, if your contact does not have the clients you would like to work with don’t waste your time or money.
The fourth method is probably the least intuitive, but is very powerful and again can be seen in operation everywhere - aggregation.
Most professional advisers want to be the only adviser of their type on the board, podium or event, but this exclusivity alerts the innate fear of the influence of strangers and a prospective client will be unlikely to engage. Ironically mixing with your competitors in front of clients is very effective way to gain attention. Fifty percent of art is sold at art fairs, most journalists will quote at least three or four professionals with similar experience in the same article, luxury goods can be seen in Bond Street and cashmere sweaters in Burlington arcade. Aggregation is very powerful means of lowering resistance which is why websites are used primarily to find an office address or telephone number and not the services you provide.
In devising a methodology which is effective in winning business, I wanted to combine all four elements to communicate your message.
Your message should be educational, avoid spewing out a list of facts, what are the benefits. Weave them together into a case study or story. Invite a few professionals to your office to listen to a talk on ‘Client Mapping’ and why it is important and to share case studies. These case studies can be recorded and stored where they can be easily accessed and shared on a neutral independent platform explicitly designed for networking by club members.
Add in some elements of social proofing which we touched on last week such as awards won, speaking engagements, and articles written as well as satisfied client quotes and you have all you need to be effective in communicating your message. Then if all parties share the recordings with their clients to engage with their clients to increase loyalty and repeat business, you have effectively delivered your message direct to your target market. More about this next week.