Select Advisors Sales Consulting Solutions
for Financial Firms
Why Sales Coaching?
Research by the Sales Executive Council shows that no other productivity or marketing investment comes even close to coaching in improving a professional's performance pertaining to growth. Yet, financial advisors spend thousands of dollars on expensive websites, brochures, technology platforms, search engine optimization, blog writing, and peer group discussions to grow their practice.
The end result? Many advisors growing at less than 10% annually, or even worse, throwing in the towel, laying off talented planners from their team, merging with advisory firms unwillingly, giving up their hard-earned independence, or being bought out prematurely.
A sales coach brings in an outsider's perspective inside your firm, providing a third party, unbiased viewpoint of your team and how you operate as sales professionals. He or she also compares you to the industry benchmark of growth, which is comprised of years of research and observation of best practices in sales strategies within your particular industry.
With a full understanding of what you're doing right and where the potential weaknesses are, a good sales coach will be able to work with you and your firm to bridge the gap and help you become extremely competitive to win and maintain more business.
How do you select a sales coach?
A sales coach is ONLY, repeat ONLY, as good as the coach behind it. If you have respect for the person coaching you, and want to emulate his/her style and approach to growth, you should hire that coach. If the coach irks you, or their style is unrealistic, trust your personal judgement.
At the same time, a sales coach should differ in their strategy from yours. Otherwise, you would be repeating the same pattern of growth, which is most probably not as ideal as you'd like.
Another way to see if you want to work with a sales coach is to see how fast they have grown their own sales coaching practice. If someone is a good sales coach, they can also sell their own business! If they have been in business for 10 years as a sales coach and still working with only 10-20 advisors, that's not a good sign. (Since launching 3 years ago, Select Advisors currently works on an ongoing basis with advisors whose collective AUM is $70 billion!)
What are the credentials you should look for in a coach?
Some factors you should look for in a coach are:
Their track record within your own industry
If they will be the person actually coaching you. Typically, most sales coaching firms will pass you on to a junior sales coach who barely knows anything about your industry, and was previously a pharmaceutical sales rep or real estate agent. If you will be passed on to a junior sales coach, you want to find out what is the selection process for becoming a junior coach at this firm
The education and schooling of the coaches
The way they carry themselves. If you were a potential client, would you select this person as your financial advisor? Why or why not?
Are they ethical?
Do they understand the investment industry on a very technical level?
Why Select Advisors as a Sales Coach?
Reason 1: For starters, every advisor who works with us gets the opportunity to be coached directly or indirectly by Amy Parvaneh, our founder and CEO. While Amy has a team of lieutenants keeping our clients on track through our accountability systems, check-in processes, and specific topic seminars, each and every one of our clients gets to know Amy on a personal level, and develops an on-going relationship with her.
Reason 2: We are not just coaches, we are sales managers. Unlike most coaches who sugarcoat their discussions with you and tell you what you want to hear, we are big proponents of being as transparent as possible with you. We have no qualms challenging you on your views on yourself or the approach you take with a prospective clients. Sometimes, our discussions can become quite heated, so be prepared! We like to keep our clients on their toes for their own benefits.
Reason 3: We understand the investor mindset, because we are still working with them! Unlike most sales coaches you hear at conferences who speak at 100 miles an hour and sounds like a used car salesman, we take great pride in having been investment professionals ourselves, having worked with billionaires and multi-millionaires. We know what really works in the real world, and are still intimately involved in working with high net worth individuals through our various other projects, including our membership-only educational clubs for wealthy investors.
Reason 4: We don't just talk theory. During our one-on-one coaching sessions, you will have your computer in front of you, and will be sending emails to prospects, finding prospective clients in real time, going through your calendar of lunch appointments, maintaining your CRM, updating your social medial presence, and systematizing your meetings with COI's. While we want to motivate and invigorate you, we think that implementation is by far more important than theory.
Reason 5: We are investment professionals first, marketers next. Our founder and CEO taught derivatives and risk management as a faculty professor. She understands the investments world extremely well. Why is this important? By knowing full well the needs and objections of clients, together we can decide how to find the best solutions for them, not only from high level, but from a granular, product level that would satisfy their needs.
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