Your path to growth depends on following up and following through.
After you’ve successfully hosted your tax-efficient retirement seminar, how do you get the attendees into your office? Your next focus should be on continuing to demonstrate your value. As much as you want to get prospects to invest in you, at this point, it is crucial that you avoid pushy sales practices and focus on adding value for the prospective client instead. Follow-up and follow-through correctly, and you’ll earn their business for years to come.
Here are some tips for turning seminar attendees into clients.
At the beginning of your seminar, distribute evaluation cards. Ask attendees to rate your presentation and gather their name and contact information. Leave a space for questions with a note offering a free consultation. Attendees who turn in their card with a question are qualified leads to follow up with and have provided helpful information for making your first conversation a success.
Soon after your event, follow up with attendees at the contact information they provided. If you don't get in touch, commit to following up once more. Aggressive follow up can tarnish your ability to be perceived as a trusted professional advisor and not a sales person, so now is not the time to be relentless.
When you call, use these three phases to move a prospect to action:
1. Open the conversation by answering their question from the evaluation card.
2. Transition to a conversation about the impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on retirement income streams.
3. Conclude by suggesting that they set up an appointment to discuss their situation further, since there are simply too many interactions between assets to discuss via telephone.
Add attendees who don’t set up appointments to your newsletter list or drip campaign to stay top-of-mind with prospects.
Two weeks out, send your prospects:
Two days out, prepare your client packet:
Building a strong connection is the most important part of on-boarding a new client. They need to trust you. New clients may be skeptical of how much value you can offer, or they may already have ideas about what's best for their financial plan. In your first meeting, make a point to listen more and talk less. Discover their goals, successes and challenges. Let them ask questions and answer them honestly. Again, you are building a relationship, not “closing a deal.” You build trust with this mantra: helping, not hustling.
Since they were initially attracted to your services from your seminar, make sure you address how you can help them with tax-efficiency in retirement planning. Reiterate that even with the recent Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, middle income retirees can face federal tax rates as high as 49.95% on each additional withdrawal from a retirement account.
Login to Tax Clarity® using the login credentials that you used to access the PowerPoint for your seminar. You can run an example case that your prospective client can relate to – show them how their income streams could interact and negatively impact their retirement strategy. And then show them how, with your expertise, you can help build a strategy that is tax-smart, keeping more money in their hands.
The client-friendly Tax Map graphic clearly shows how ordinary and capital incomes interact and the value you can add by helping them make better income withdrawal decisions.
Run a Customized Report in Tax Clarity
You can even enter the information from their1040 into the software (it takes about five minutes) and run an analysis of their current situation. The report will help you quickly and easily identify places where you can add money to their retirement. Simply click the PDF tab above the Tax Map and generate a customized PDF. Show the potential client their personalized report during your first meeting or review the custom report in your second meeting, after they become a client. The client-facing report is a great take-home document that demonstrates very clear ways that you can add immense value to your client’s retirement plan.
Add Value at Every Step
Provide even more insightful information on the topic that attracted prospects to your seminar in the first place, and tailor the information to the potential client’s specific situation. This will help them see the unique value you can deliver.
Written by: Lauren Laferla, PR & Content Marketing Manager at Covisum
Lauren is a content marketing enthusiast with a love for storytelling - on camera, in writing and through others. She has a robust communications background that includes: public relations, content creation, internal communications, digital marketing and copy editing. She is driven and motivated, Lauren holds a bachelor's degree in English and is an avid reader.
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About Covisum®
As a business dedicated to helping advisors grow their practice, Covisum does not simply provide seminar content and leave you to your own devices. Covisum is here to help you along the entire journey, not just the seminar.
Covisum’s Tax Clarity software visually illustrates the value of a good decision. To learn more about the capabilities of the software, watch this Tax Clarity demo. Plus, as a subscriber, you have free and unlimited access to support. Reach out to help@covisum.com for software or subject matter questions.
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