I’m going to remind you to join Tom and me in our online community for financial advisors who think differently – We think differently about business development, human connection, the purpose of our work and how to attract and keep great clients for life while enjoying running your own practice.
So far over these last blogs on business development, we have covered …
Narrowing your focus
Persona vs. Person
Social Media (Lots of cool stuff in our Green Membership inside www.seriousshift.com and more to come)
Confusing wants and needs.
Stories and how we relate.
Time, attention and money.
Away we go …
1. Be. More. Human.
If you want to reach more humans, act like one. That is far easier said than done. Speak like a real person, even if it means breaking a few rules. Respond to people’s emails. I send a note to every new member of our community, and I’m telling you the responses I get are wonderful.
“I assumed this was an auto-response until I read it, WOW, thanks for taking a moment to say hello Dennis, I saw you speak … “ I took a moment to sincerely thank someone for signing up, I turned a fan into a friend.
Chew the dirt and share it. I learned this from Kasey Jones (A better Jones) who said this to me. She was relating a story that Gary V shares, the gist of it being that later on when you’re perfect, it’s these less than perfect attempts that will make you relatable. The keynotes that didn’t hit. The idea you wrestled with. The mistakes you made and how you learned from them.
People want to work with people, not perfect people.
2. Community, not a client base
What people really want is the ability to connect with each other.
I don’t have all the answers, but I know someone who does. There are zillionsish of advisors in the world, almost none of them know about me. All of those of you who do think the same way.
I write a blog for free, although sure, you have to sign up for our free for the most part community to get the 2nd blog and to get access to all our other free stuff. I post in there for free, I share my thoughts and comments freely and more importantly, I’ve connected with a lot of people who think the same way.
Find a niche with a worldview – my niche is advisors who believe in guiding transformation, don’t kid themselves about their value and believe that there is an easier, more enjoyable and effective/genuine way to attract and keep great clients for life while having more fun. I am especially clear about this because I don’t want anyone but these advisors to be here.
Speak directly to ONLY THOSE PEOPLE.
Tell everyone else to beat it. There is this great story I read about the Canadian band RUSH. After struggling for a while as all bands do, they caught a break. A radio station or music mgmt. the person said, “You have to write 3-minute songs, your songs are too long for radio.” RUSH replied, “But we only write 7-minute songs.”
RUSH never wrote a 3-minute song. You probably don’t listen to or appreciate RUSH. Go find a RUSH fan and ask him (99% it will be a him) if he cares what you think.
Find your niche. Play 7-minute songs for them. Tell everyone else to move along. Do that enough, the world is your oyster.
3. Create mind-numbing anticipation
One of the reasons we started our community was because we realized that we were SPAM. I didn’t’ think I was, I realized I was.
I was the flyers showing up in your mailbox. Sometimes you read it because sometimes it hit right on time, but other times you stepped over it. What I believed before was that if I kept showing up, you’d want to be part of the party. Maybe 35 years ago, but not since the world wide web went active.
Now consider an Amazon package … You know it’s coming. You track it. You’re excited about it. Because in that package is something you asked for, not something that showed up.
Only invest time with the people who care about what you do. Who wants 7-minute songs.