As a successful retirement plan advisor, you understand the business and how to service clients. However, from time to time there are opportunities to improve your win ratio. Here are seven ideas to help you earn more business.
1. Enhance your proposal response. As you know, most advisor RFP requests follow the format of the Retirement Advisor Council’s Template Advisor Search RFP Request. Take the time to fill this out. Save it.
Then go a step further and create a service brochure that provides a what-to-expect scenario when a prospect onboards with your firm. Make it an experience! Use pictures, icons, and arrows; show and tell how you’re different. Use the RFP opportunity as a sales tool to stand out from competitors. Immediately jump to the top of the leaderboard with a visually interesting approach.
2. Make your pitch deck consistent. When you pull a slide from here, another from there and “Frankenstein” your pitch deck, your prospects may be receiving the wrong story.
Take the time to review the fonts, colors, layouts and overall feel for consistency. Your presentation is a visual of what to expect as a client. Is it a smorgasbord of slides or an organized professional presentation? This experience sets the stage for what the prospect can expect if they hire you, so make it your best organized shot.
3. Update your blog. When was your company’s last blog post? Oftentimes, we notice that at one point an office had great intentions to start a blog. Then something happened and they stopped. That’s okay, it happens! But if your company’s blog section isn’t being tended to, for curious site visitors, it may look like a lack of commitment.
Your blog is the third most visited page (after Home and About Us), so do your best to stay consistent with posting.
Read more commentary by Rebecca Hourihan here.
4. Add a LinkedIn banner. The majority of advisors have a banner image. (Yay!) A few still don’t. LinkedIn is a quick way of showing that you’re aware of social media, and this little addition can significantly improve your first digital impression.
5. Enrich your biography to clearly explain what you do. Share your biography (LinkedIn and website) with your local wholesaler and ask them for feedback. Do they easily understand what you do and your retirement plan specialty? If not, seek help to accurately reflect the services you provide clients. In our experience, it can help to have a colleague or co-worker write something about what makes you different and unique to work with!
6. Send regular email communications. How frequently do you email your contact list? Whether it is quarterly, monthly, or weekly, set a cadence your clients can expect. This consistency creates trust and keeps you top of mind.
7. Invest in marketing. Marketing is never one and done. It’s a process. It evolves and adapts over time. When you started your business, did you do some marketing? Have you ever stopped marketing your firm? Of course not. Whether by nurturing referrals or centers of influence introductions, businesses need new sales to grow.
Marketing is a tool to increase new sales. It’s a long-term investment that strengthens your local reputation as a retirement plan expert and builds awareness that leads to new retirement plan opportunities. The key here is that marketing takes time, just like building your business took time. It’s not a transaction; it’s a transformation.
Overall, you’re doing great! These are a few ideas to help you look into your business from a different perspective to see if there are any opportunities for improvement. Take a lens to sharpen your digital presence and increase inbound leads and increase referral introductions.
Thanks for reading and Happy Marketing!
Rebecca Hourihan, AIF, PPC, is the founder and CMO of 401(k) Marketing, which she founded to assist qualified experts operate a professional business with professional marketing materials and ongoing awareness campaigns.
