| How are you marketing your financial
business, when financial advisers are commodities?
- We all sell the same products.
- We all sell them for the same price.
- We all offer our clients good service.
- We all have a good handle on how to help our clients best.
So how do we get a prospect to choose us over someone else?
How to Get Prospects to Choose You
Well, we can all take a great lesson from how billionaires
Stewart and Lynda Resnick marketed over hundred acres of unwanted pomegranates. All the
way up to 2002, pomegranates were rarely eaten in the US. Less than one in 20 had ever
bought a pomegranate, and most of those people use them for decorations instead of eating
them.
So the Resnick's had a problem…
They had lots of a fruit that very few people wanted.
So what did they do?
They created a fantastic USP (Unique
Selling Proposition).
Five years ago, they began selling their pomegranates as
juice in unique double bulb bottles, at four dollars a bottle. It was a smash hit! They
took a fruit from utter obscurity to charging four dollars a bottle and have people buying
it by the case.
How?
They simply did their homework. They framed the pomegranate
juice as the healthiest drink available to the US public. I don't know if you've tasted
it, but the stuff is awful.
The Resnick's flooded the market with information about how
healthy pomegranate juice was. It cures heart disease, ED and more. You name it.
Pomegranate cured it. It became the new, must have "super food".
So what can you learn from this example?
Go out and give advice that is the completely opposite of
what everyone else is providing in your industry? Yes, if you can.
Unfortunately, that is probably not an option.
The advice the financial industry gives, is generally very
good advice. But let's think about this for a second. All fruits are good for you. You can
find the "super food" characteristics in any type of fruit. All the Resnicks did
with pomegranate, was showcase pomegranate's particular attributes, versus trying to be
the "me too" of fruits.
So, here's what you should be doing now.
How to Find Your Unique Selling Proposition
You need to find the thing that makes you better than your
competitors.
- Maybe you are an expert on "green" funds.
- Maybe you're an expert on the stocks of companies run by
women.
- Maybe you understand the need for financial planning for
families with special needs.
- Maybe you are an expert on the retirement plans of a large
corporation in your city.
- Maybe you're an expert on Medicare part D
There's a high likelihood, you are already an expert on a
particular topic. You may not require a whole heck of a lot more research than you've
already done. Sit down and figure out what it is that you know more about, than your
competition.
It doesn't matter what it is, just become an expert.
3 Ways to Become an Expert and Gain Instant Celebrity
Status
1. Write articles and submit them to targeted print and
online publication. For submitting articles to the top websites, ezines and article
directories, I recommend using PR Leads Article Marketing Experts. They also have a great
A to Z product that will teach you how to write articles at www.BroadcastYourArticles.com
2. Issue press releases to your local paper, radio and TV
stations. You can also submit press releases online using services like
PublicRelationsSoftware.com.
3. Make sure groups that may be interested in your
expertise know that you and your expertise exists.
By being the expert on any issue, you tell your prospects
that you are different from your competition. You give both your clients and prospects
something to hold onto, a handhold that describes who you are as a financial planner.
Your Next Steps
Take a hard look at your practice and ask yourself the
question, "Why would someone work with me, versus my competitor?"
If you don't have a very specific answer to this question,
you are doomed to mediocrity. You are always going to be looking for your next client.
You're always going to be spending money on marketing. You're always going to be losing
some of your clients to competitors.
The only way off, the gerbil wheel is to become an expert.
When you are an expert people seek you out, rather than you endlessly seeking them out.
Don't you think, it's time to make yourself into an expert
so you can lock-in your difference and bury your competition? |
