If I was a prospect of yours, what would be the journey towards eventually working with you? How do you get different levels of engagement and stay in touch? There is no correct answer in this article, so if you are looking for a simple solution, stop reading now. We all have prospects that we have met and would like to do business with. Each ideal prospect that we acquire, has a unique journey towards becoming an ideal client. I want to focus on making this the best journey for the client, not the easiest way for you to automate this process with software. Let’s face it, you can delegate everything as a financial advisor except prospecting. This is the hardest part of the job and pays the most, so prospecting is a critical skill ...

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“In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment". ~ Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin would love financial advisors today. In October 1838 Charles Darwin thought of a way in which one species could change into another. He noticed that individual members of a species vary. Furthermore, all animals are competing to survive. If the environment changed in some way, say if a new, faster predato...

By Bill Bachrach

There are critical conversations necessary to engage people in ways that predictably turn leads into prospects, prospects into clients, clients into people who take action on your advice, happily pay you for planning and advice and refer you to their friends, family, and colleagues.

These conversations are easy to understand but hard to master. Many FAs have a basic level of ability with these conversations, but this article is about elevating from basic ability to virtuoso skillfulness. Consider what could happen to the quality of your client service and the value of your business when you can artfully engage anyone, any time, and anywhere.

Critical Conversation #1: Mastery of the first conversation.

Every future Ideal Clie...

Every wealthy client usually has a financial advisor. But do these wealthy ( potentially ideal prospects) get comprehensive advice and planning, or just money management. We all know that some of the wealthy are lacking planning and advice, the problem is, they don't know it. Until now. in my workshops with financial advisors, it seems every advisor has a tremendous opportunity to acquire more wealthy clients from their competition. That is because when I ask most advisors these five questions, rarely is anyone doing all five things with their ideal clients.

The five questions to ask a wealthy prospect are:

Organized and planned -Would it be valuable to have your financial life completely organized and planned out in the following six a...

Financial advisors who segment their clients earn 33% more than advisors who do not segment. A key practice management metric is segmented clients. However, segmenting the right way will show you where your revenue is coming from. Don't make the mistake of building more than 2 segments. Ideal clients and non- ideal clients.

I don't have time to segment

Financial advisors who are successful at attracting ideal clients are faced with one challenge. The challenge is segmenting your clients. If you are growing, then segmenting your ideal and non-ideal clients is an annual process if you are growing at 15% or more per year. Why do you segment? Segmenting is a tremendous opportunity to grow your practice. Segmenting will help you focus your t...

How do I acquire more ideal clients starting today?
What is the best process to find them?
What is a simple way to implement immediately to grow my business?

Monday morning when you go to your calendar and you don’t see a lot of potential new ideal clients, what do you do? I would start by setting up appointments with some of your ideal clients, either for a progress update meeting or for a coffee. The goal here is to help people in other areas of their lives and become the "coordinator" and meet new centers of influence.

How many centers of influence do you work with for favorable introductions or give you referrals? Do they know how to do favorable introductions and have a process? This may be an opportunity! Would you like more? In ...

You are sitting on a dock in a comfy Adirondack chair on a hot day, with a glass of lemonade filled to the brim with ice cubes. You decide to pick up a good book. You can’t get into a new mystery novel for some reason so you turn to your business books. You are a student of the industry, a lifelong learner, and you have a library of good books. Before you sit down into that comfy chair on a hot day, consider picking up one of these books. I chose them based on practice management topics for financial advisors and wealth managers focusing on productivity and capacity. I start with my newest book on practice management. If you would like a free preview of my book click here https://freebookpreview.getresponsepages.com/

1. Guerrilla Ma...

Yes, you heard me, I don’t believe in financial planning. I don’t like the term, I think it confuses consumers and is misunderstood. I don’t believe in a financial plan either. Most people who do financial planning would agree, “ I only believe in comprehensive, quality financial planning. Now that means something.

ComprehensiveWhat is comprehensive financial planning? Wealthy people want a comprehensive strategy, a quality solution and a holistic approach to their wealth and their legacy. Most people look at financial planning negatively, meaning the plan will solve their problems and give them solutions to their problems. This is old school thinking and language. Financial advisors for years approach it as a solu...

Financial advisors all struggle to acquire more ideal clients. This is the hardest part of being a financial professional, is to get better clients. O when I ask advisors for these two pieces of data from their best clients, most advisors either don’t have this information or never use the information. After all, advisors who are great at getting data rarely get this information. Financial advisors who are great at networking almost always get this data. What are the two pieces of data I am referring to? It is your ideal client's events and their network of professionals.

Favorable introductions are easier than referralsDon’t get me wrong, referrals are better than favorable introductions, but what is the difference. I truly b...

I had the honor of speaking at a global financial conference called MDRT ( The Million Dollar Round Table https://www.mdrt.org/ ) with over 11,000 financial advisors from around the world attending their annual meeting and another 10,000 advisors attending their global meeting. I met advisors from all over the world. Learning from successful people from all corners of the planet was an incredible experience. Each person I spoke with had unique stories within their practice. Just listening to them, I could write another book. Learning where they were from, how they became successful in their country and what they did to get there was exhilarating. I tried to ask several people I met what was their big aha moment at the conference. Their ...