It Is Not Always About The Sale

I am writing this to capture an experience that I just went through on the telephone with a prospective client.

The called ended with the client in tears and me saying that I would e-mail them in follow up and for them to call me when they were ready.

The call started by me asking the client about their background which was a total of 25 years of experience with the last 10 years in insurance sales.

The prospective client told me that these were their challenges;

1. Developing a niche market
2. Motivating their team
3. Getting more referrals

I asked the prospective client on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, how do they score themselves when it comes to asking referrals and they scored themselves a 10 when they felt a connection with the client.

I asked the prospective client about the system that they were using to motivate their team and the client explained the new system that they were going to use that included a review of each team member’s vision, plan, goals and actions.

You are doing an excellent job on these two fronts I told the prospective client and said that I didn’t think that they needed any help in these two areas.

The prospective client said what about building a niche market?

I replied that there were many pieces to build a niche market and key pieces include creating a parable, interviewing their clients asking the question of what are their three biggest challenges and then researching and writing solution articles to create a personalized newsletter that included their client testimonials.

I paraphrased one of my client’s parables about “taking care of what matters” …

I can probably best explain why I decided to become a financial advisor by sharing with you a defining moment in my life.

I grew up in a house that was a big believer in protecting what matters most, protecting myself, my family and my future.

So while my brother and I were just heading off to college with a stay at home mom, my dad passed away suddenly from cancer at the early age of 52.

What did I learn?

My dad was a firm believer in life insurance and his allowed us to work through the grieving and the stress without having to worry and he enabled all of our lives to

continue knowing that the financial support was there.

That the most important financial planning activity was not growing and retaining assets … it was taking care of an unforeseen risk.

As a result of my experience, I have dedicated the rest of my business life to help others to grow and retain their assets and use risk management strategies to protect against the unforeseen that would damage financial goals that they have worked so hard to grow and retain.

Would you like to know more?

The prospective client broke into tears telling me about their father who was in financial services who showed them at an early age the dividend cheques that would come in from his own investments and that the client’s father had the resources to fund the education of all of their siblings … and that the prospective client’s father died before their twelfth birthday.

After allowing some time for empathy I shared that I believe while there is sadness to clear, that my prospective client is living and fulfilling their father’s legacy through 25 years in financial services and that the sorrow must be cleared to reveal the passion to tell this story to more and more people that require the inspiration to take care of what matters.

The called ended with me saying that I would e-mail them in follow up and for them to call me when they were ready.

I would love to work with the prospective client to help them to clear their roadblocks because this is what I do … but it cannot be about me.