Be an entrepreneurial advisor
The following is based on one of The Covenant Group’s clients. All of the names and telling details have been changed.
Ben Hamlin earned about 140K annually as an advisor but believed that if he could master the art of selling he would eventually reach the 7-figure revenue of his mentor, Walter. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Ben told us, “Walter’s close ratio is 90%. He can make people fall in love with him. They trust him instantly.”
"We work with Walter,” we said, “and we can tell you his closing ability has little to do with his success. Top advisors, like Walter, are not the world’s best salespeople; they are the world’s best entrepreneurs. Over the past thirty years, our industry has witnessed three paradigm shifts. Thirty years ago, we were in the sales paradigm. In the ’70s and early 80s, Walter was a great prospector who excelled at face-to-face selling, but when the paradigm changed in the late ’80s from one of sales to one of marketing, Walter transformed himself into an expert marketer.
“The ’80s was a time of great change for financial services organizations. The barriers that separated all the players - the trust companies, banks, securities firms, insurance companies - blurred. The key challenge advisors faced was no longer “how do I sell?” but “what do I sell and where do I make my next sale?” The focus moved from selling a product to marketing a service, i.e. ‘planning’ - financial planning, retirement planning, estate planning, investment planning, etc.
“Walter began developing marketing plans and implementing six to eight robust marketing activities that created separation in the marketplace and established his brand. Walter’s closing ratio was so high, not because of some unique persuasive power he had during his appointments, but because the close was the natural result of everything Walter had done up to that point. All of his marketing activities established confidence and trust which Walter built on during his meetings.
“But remember, we’ve moved from the marketing paradigm into the business paradigm, where the key challenge isn’t establishing brand, it’s ‘How do I build a sustainable practice with growing revenues and increasing profitability?’ The focus is on utilizing systems to maximize profit. Selling and marketing aren’t any less important today; the difference is that the keys to success have changed. You could be an expert marketer and not have a profitable business. Each new paradigm puts the prior paradigm[s] in a new context. Walter isn’t just a salesperson or marketer; he’s an entrepreneur. His business is profitable because he runs a well thought out business. He has a top-flight admin assistant, a para-planner who prepares all of his casework and financial plans, and a full-time marketing person who implements his six to eight robust promotional strategies. He runs his practice as a business and measures his success based on the profitability of his practice. He is fully attuned to his balance sheet, his income statement, his proforma analysis. And he’s mastered the five financial levers of his business - average case size; number of cases; product mix; seasonality; and cyclicality. For example, one of his primary target markets is seniors; he works with them during the spring and summer. But in the fall and winter, while many of them are down south, he focuses on his other major market - aging boomers, who are receptive to financial advice at this time because its retirement planning season.”
By now Ben was convinced Walter’s success was due to much more than his ability to close. He refocused his efforts on building a profitable practice and operating as an entrepreneur. By the end of the year, his business was up 40%. But more than this, he could now see clearly how to grow his business over the next few years by continuing to build systems and hiring resources to execute those systems.
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The Covenant Group is referred to by many as where entrepreneurs go to become Business Builders. They are considered to be thought leaders and authors of the best-selling books, The 8 Best Practices of High-Performing Salespeople, The Entrepreneurial Journey, and The Business Builder.