SALES AND MARKETING

SALES & MARKETING

By Paul Watkins

Money is the currency of transaction: Trust is the currency of interaction

Trust is important for any relationship. Paul Watkins talks us through gaining trust and turning a prospect into a client.

This is a quote from Rachel

Botsman, author of a recently released book called "Who can you trust?". In her book she argues that trust has become the single most important factor in any business or personal relationship.

When a movie studio shows a trailer to a new movie, it's designed to impress with key scenes from the movie. Then when you go and see it, you realise that the three amazing scenes shown in the trailer were the only good bits.

We are now far more likely to go into IMDB. com and see what strangers thought of it. You note that 8,000 people rated it a 5.5 out of 10, meaning mediocre, so you don’t go to it. We are now more influenced by strangers than institutions. We have lost faith in the big brands and their promises. Highly respected car manufacturer Volkswagen got it very wrong with the emissions software in their cars. Trust in the brand was badly hurt.

There is a joke circulating on Facebook right now, that says in 1998, the word was, "Don’t get into a car with a stranger". Then in 2008, "Don’t meet people from the internet alone". Now in 2018, "Order yourself a stranger from the internet and get into their car with them alone." This refers to Uber of course. Airbnb is the same, in that we stay in stranger’s homes, often with them in the house as well.

Why do we trust these services? In Europe ride-sharing is growing fast. You want to go from one city to another, so go to an app to find someone else also going that way. You then get into a car with the stranger for the long ride. Really? We still choose these options first in a lot of cases. Why? This change has come about through the advent of the internet and more specifically, social media.

A SAD FACT: TWO-THIRDS OF AMERICANS GET THEIR NEWS THROUGH FACEBOOK – Rachel Botsman Yes, that almost totally unmoderated and free-posting platform where people rant and rave about their peeves and gripes, is where Americans and many others in the western world get their news. This is helping cause the traditional press to fail. We take it at face value and accept it as news. We have stopped trusting the established and professional press and television and gone for the "real news" from people out there on the ground. “Fake news” in the traditional press has struck a chord with many.

Trust is the new currency. Interaction is what you want. If you trade on price, such as “I can get you the lowest interest rate”, or “I compare all insurance companies to get you the best deal”, then you are offering a transaction-based relationship. Prospects can find those themselves on the internet. But it’s not what most clients want. If they want a better price, its due to a deeper reason.

I recall visiting a broker to help with ideas for prospecting and he showed me how he compared every available mortgage option under a range of structures and presented all of these to his clients. He then

admitted that most said, “which one do you recommend?” so the work was wasted. It’s never about the price or features (unless it’s something they genuinely can’t afford), it’s about YOU. They want you to make the decisions for them.

A fascinating experiment was undertaken by the American Certified Financial Planner Board. They dressed up a local party DJ in a suit and called him a financial planner. Named Azymyth Kaminski, he normally has long dreadlocks, piercings and eyeliner. He was given a haircut, dressed in a suit and was schooled-up on a few financial markets phrases to use.

He then sat in a room where he tried to sell financial planning services to potential clients. Little did they know that his real skills lay with music and he had no skills whatsoever in financial planning. All but one prospective client decided to go with him after the consultation. This is because he came across as personable, credible and trustworthy. These qualities trumped any qualifications or track record or skills in managing money. The experiment was staged to encourage clients to ask their financial advisers for their qualifications and backgrounds. But none in the experiment did. Trust was the critical factor.

So how do you engender trust? There are a few hygiene factors that should be part of your dealings with clients and then there is the way you go about prospecting. Here are some negative things that break trust with clients.

Transparency: Never hide things, always keep them informed, disclose any personal preferences for a lender and answer all questions truthfully and in full.

We are now more influenced by strangers than institutions. We have lost faith in the big brands and their promises.

The second is reliability and dependability: Never let them down and keep to your commitments.

Be personable: You are in sales, but don’t act like you are. Act like you are working in their interest and not yours. This is hard to do for some. The particular deal in front of you is not the make or break of your business, so don’t push too hard. It will break trust.

Authenticity: Do what you say you can do. Never make claims you can’t stand behind. Don’t word your website such that you sound like the world’s best, word it in genuine tones that can be taken as authentic statements of fact that you can justify. I have seen some rather overblown claims on some websites. These do not win you business.

At client meetings, don’t say things like, "piece of cake", "easy-peasy" (I know some do this), as these make the client think they are just a number to you. And don’t say "you are like a lot of other clients I have, so this should be easy". Once again it makes the client sound like a number and a quick buck to you.

You are human – apologise when you must and listen to the client. As the saying goes, you have two ears and one mouth so listen twice as much as you talk, which sure doesn’t happen from what I hear friends say who have had dealings with some mortgage brokers.

The list above is not a beat-up, it’s designed to remind you of things that you may be doing unconsciously.

In terms of how you develop trust in your prospecting, it’s called "Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook" and is why Facebook works so well. In simple terms, you run a video ad on Facebook, that links to a landing page, which in turn gives them something for free in exchange for their name and email address. Then you set up a "funnel" of emails that progressively take them down a path to increasing trust in what you know, who you are and how you are clearly the only one that can help them.

I have written about this before in this column, full details being in my new book, "Financial Advisers – Disrupted" (available through the Goodreturns.co.nz bookstore). The book explains how trust has changed and its exponential growth in importance to any client-adviser prospecting. The book then explains how to use Facebook for promoting yourself in a way that engenders trust and makes you the obvious choice for the prospect.

Trust me. ✚

Paul Watkins writes blog content and newsletters for financial advisers.

What used to work is always the thing

that is going to put you out of business - Gary Vaynerchuk

A new book from Paul Watkins.

Uber disrupted the taxi industry, Airbnb disrupted the accommodation industry, and social media is disrupting how financial advisers gain clients.

IN THIS BOOK YOU WILL LEARN:

How the old ways of prospecting for clients have been seriously disrupted by social media How trust is the new currency Why websites don’t generate leads The 5-steps to growing your perfect client-base using social media

WANT TO BUY?

Buy from: intelligentinvestor.co.nz or direct from Paul at: paul@paulwatkins.co.nz