Strong Financial Advisor Speaking Fees Are A Must

“Now go out and tell 10,000 financial advisors” said my friend and business coach Chris Barrow after I finished our first web site back in 2006.

Since then I’ve surpassed that number to 15,000 financial advisors and it will exceed 20,000 financial advisors nearing 200 financial speaking presentations by the end of 2010 since the beginning of 2006.

While these numbers are fast becoming a reality, I still have to pinch myself when I say that we have booked nearly 20 financial advisor speaking presentations in the past 60 days and I believe this is because I add value and practice what I coach, speak and write about.

At the same time, many people don’t realize that for the vast majority of these past financial advisor speaking presentations were sponsored by ourselves by paying our own expenses and we even paid a fee at times to be there.

The cost to sponsor ourselves has been enormous and I would venture to say the investment has been $250,000 in accommodation, fees, meals and travel not to mention my traveling hours.

I’m writing this blog on Saturday, March 27 and it is 5pm ET and I’m three hours into a flight home from Toronto after an 8am ET wakeup in London, ON after investing a week in Ontario speaking at Advocis London & Sarnia and visiting with financial advisor speaking decision makers.

That is the price that one pays to get known in an industry or niche because who is Simon Reilly without a speaking resume.

I’m reminded of Ron James who in my opinion is the funniest man alive presenting on his CBC TV special talking about when he used to do the “bar scene” in Toronto and driving home at 4am in the morning. It dawned on me that he had done his hundreds and hundreds of gigs and his payment was a couple of beers and a hot dog.

That  is what it takes to become a good speaker … doing hundreds and hundreds of speaking presentations for little or no money … it is for the love of the message and if you want to be a speaker and you don’t love what you are talking about then get out.

Whether we sponsored ourselves or not, I have done my absolute best to add value to the audiences via cutting edge information that has taken me 20 years to synthesize via Clear Your Roadblocks and Curing The Unmet Needs Disease and the quality is demonstrated through these speaking testimonials.

It is bad taste to spend 59 minutes of a 60 minute financial advisor speaking presentation selling your book and coaching program. 

It is not acceptable to me to use the old “take away game” by saying I’m here to teach you the top ten steps to being a successful financial advisor and then speaking about steps 3, 5, 6  and 9 and then telling the audience you will have to buy my book or coaching program to get the rest.

I’m fortunate to have very strong values about adding the best value to the audience and am very aware that selling in the room decreases the value of the message that I wish to deliver.

I was reminded of not selling in the room this past week when the owner of a financial advisor firm that was considering hiring me told me about his past experience with a Red Bull swigging financial advisor speaker overselling in the room and alienating their audience and clients in the process.

At the same time, it is incongruent for financial advisor firms that want a value added financial advisor speaking presentation and at the same time they want me to speak for free or to reduce my fee.

Paying and charging Strong Financial Advisor Speaking Fees also contributes to adding value because the financial advisor speaker can concentrate on adding and giving as much value to the audiences without having to waste time during the presentation trying to sell books and coaching to pay their way.

Paying and charging Strong Financial Advisor Speaking Fees demonstrates the following congruent message that Advocis wishes to get across to financial advisors about Marketing versus Selling.

Financial advisor firms must walk their talk and invest in their financial advisors by paying Strong Financial Advisor Speaking Fees so that their financial advisors get the value.

Marketing is values based and it is about adding value. When one is values based they take the time to uncover the client needs and then create a solution based customer satisfying product that the customer actually wants. Paying the financial advisor speaker a Strong Financial Advisor Speaking Fee allows the financial advisor speaker to research what the audience wants and then deliver the solution.

Selling is about getting the company’s needs met versus their customer and it is all about converting and pushing products into cash. Failing to pay a Strong Financial Advisor Speaking Fee demonstrates that the company does not care enough about their financial advisor audience to bring in a value added speaker. The company receives complaints from their financial advisor audience that the speaker spent too much time selling their product and not enough time adding value.

Financial advisors are sick of product presentations.

They want to be treated like a valuable customer and in turn they will add value to their clients.