Built for growth, a 5-step process that drives results
Many advisors spend time and money on marketing efforts in hopes of growth. Yet, few have the sales infrastructure and processes in place to effectively capture, manage and convert leads into clients (and then turn those clients into advocates).
A sales process doesn’t have to be complicated. You likely have an ad hoc system in place. By formalizing your approach – aligning your marketing and sales efforts and resources (technology, data, people, etc.) around an ideal journey – you can improve outcomes.
There is no reason to leave your prospect and clients’ experience up to chance. First impressions matter and resources are limited.
I spent years at an RIA and then a fast-growing asset management firm with over 30 sales territories, below are the best practices that large distributors use to sell and how you can replicate them in your advisory business.
Before you invest time and money on marketing ensure you have these five things in place:
Clear and measurable goals
Target audience profiles (be specific)
Marketing plan – how to best reach and engage your target audience
Sales process – what you do once they are in your pipeline to convert them to a client
Client service model – the consistent, ongoing client experience you want to deliver
Determine your marketing approach
Your goals and prospect profiles should drive your marketing approach. Marketing is meant to increase awareness and engagement with your target audience, and support and validate client relationships.
When looking to grow your marketing efforts focus on content and tactics that are relevant to drive your ideal targets to take action. No dead ends, always have a call to action (CTA) to lead prospects to a deeper level of engagement. Ultimately your marketing efforts should inspire them to connect with you.
If you’re focused on a referral-based approach your marketing should serve to validate your credibility and value.
Define a sales process
Before you invest resources into marketing establish a sales process to make the most of the opportunities generated by your marketing efforts.
Your sales process captured the key steps to move someone from prospect to client. A pipeline is an easy way to break a client’s decision-making journey into a handful of trackable and actionable stages. These stages help you know where a prospect is in their decision-making and what you need to do to progress them to a decision.
There are two steps to establishing a sales process, outlining the stages and implementing the process.
When it comes to building a pipeline, the simpler the better.
Outlining your pipeline
I like to use the following stages, you can rename and add or remove stages as appropriate:
Qualified
In consideration
Proposal sent
Close won or lost
To outline your pipeline requires you to define what each stage means so your team is aligned when you implement. For example, Qualified may require they have a minimum of $500K in investable assets, earning potential, investment and planning needs you can serve, and you want to work with them. In consideration may mean that they have met with you and have acknowledged they need help and are in the process of deciding how to proceed. Proposal sent means they have what they need to make a decision, the ball is in their court. Closed won or lost indicates they have made their decision to become (or not become) a client.
In addition to clarifying what each stage means also be clear about the key intel you need to capture to quantify an opportunity and who owns what in the process. In addition to their stage, track metrics such as the size of the opportunity, when the engagement started, when you expect it to close, who owns the relationship, and important notes you may need to reference.
Implementing sales process
Implementing your sales process is easiest when you leverage existing systems. If possible, build your pipeline and processes into your CRM or the tool(s) you use to track and manage relationships.
Many CRMs have pipelines (sometimes called “opportunities”), reminders, and workflows. If you can use out-of-the-box functionality that’s the easiest way to get started quickly. Customizing your process in your CRM may require development work. Check with your system(s) and team before creating an elaborate process.
If you don’t have a CRM you can use an excel worksheet or other free tools to track and manage your pipeline.
Establishing expectations by stage such as length of time between contact and time between initial engagement helps you keep an eye on stagnant opportunities and to identify areas where you may need to refine your process. For example, if it’s been two weeks since you’ve interacted with a prospect at the Research stage you may use reminders to reach out.
Pipeline helps you stay focused on the highest priority opportunities, those that have expressed or acknowledged interest in your services. These are the people you and your team should be spending the most business development effort on.
Keep your pipeline visible and focus on it daily.
Build your client service model
Once someone becomes a client how do you ensure they receive the quality of service and experience you aspire to provide (and they expect)? Clients are often your best source of marketing and growth.
Just like pipeline, define the key stages to progress a client from client to advocate (i.e. trusted and loyal partner, and referral source). A client service model ensures consistent, high-quality service and enables you to delegate and automate – to scale.
Marketing is important to help identify and attract new target clients but alone it’s not enough. The best sales-focused organizations have a sales infrastructure and processes to efficiently manage and deliver consistently excellent experiences to prospects and clients. Aligning your marketing, sales, and service efforts help you and your team focus on the right opportunities with clarity around what’s needed to close more business.
