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Whenever somebody tells you that they’re “not much of a salesman” or that they “don’t have anything to sell you,” I can promise you that ten times out of ten the sales pitch is already underway. Take it from me, I’ve spent time with some of the very best salespeople in the history of the financial services business, the greatest trick the salesman ever pulled was convincing the prospect that no sale was taking place.
My friend Ryan spent five years walking up to girls in Upper East Side bars saying that he was embarrassed because he really didn’t “know any good pickup lines to start a conversation”. Not having a line was his line. It worked a little too well.
With this in mind, I ask you to consider the following post at Mike Patton’s AdvisorOne blog:
On the other hand, it is my firm belief that clients are sick and tired of advisors trying to sell them products! They’ve had enough! When I meet with a prospective client, we discuss this very topic. It’s very important to me that they understand that I have no intention of selling them anything.
Mike is one of the best advisers writing about our industry today so I mean no disrespect and I don’t mean to single him out – I hear this kind of thing all the time at industry events and when meeting practitioners from around the country. Nobody in finance wants to be thought of as “just a salesperson,” I get that, but must we pretend that all of these advisers had clients simply fall into their laps?
While I admire the principle of “relationships over product” and I certainly run my practice based on it, let us at least agree that every successful adviser has some selling ability, even if only when selling himself as a credible and trustworthy fiduciary. The adviser who cannot sell himself cannot attract many new clients. I think Mr. Patton is understating his abilities at selling here, I’m sure he is utterly flawless in his prospective client meetings just as we’d all like to be.
Moreover, I think that while it is the brokers and brokerage firms that engage in selling products, we should admit here on the pages of Wall Street Journal’s Financial Adviser blog that advisers are merely replacing the selling of products with the selling of “strategies” or “asset allocation” or “needs-based planning” or whatever their particular niche is called. We sell these approaches because we believe (and have calculated) that they are in the best interest of the clients we are working with and will produce a favorable outcome over the course of the relationship.
But make no mistake, we are selling these strategies to some degree.
Why else do you think those Morningstar proposals are printed with such pretty graphs and colors?
Source:
Hey, Advisor, Are You a Sales Person? (AdvisorOne)
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Agree 100% – selling our knowledge, selling our credibility, selling our ability to help. There’s no “shame” in that.
great post josh. lov the unusual suspects allusion!
Financial Adviser covers important issues affecting financial advisers, brokers, wealth managers and their clients. Featuring lead editors Brian Cronk and Kevin Noblet and the reporting team of Dow Jones Adviser, along with contributions from leading industry voices, Financial Adviser provides insight into issues including taxes and estates, philanthropy, investing, practice management and financial planning. Write to us at wealthmanagerinquiries@dowjones.com. For more information on Dow Jones products for financial advisers, go to http://solutions.dowjones.com/wmblog.
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