Over the weekend I was scrolling through my Linkedin account and was rudely awakened by some posts that I personally considered yucky.
Posts from people, some who have over 100’s of thousands of followers, talking at 5,000 miles an hour on their iphone videos about sales. These people, most of whom were from a background in software or insurance sales, were going on and on using terms that made me cringe.
Do the following terms make you cringe too?
"Setting” appointments
Your “reps”
“Crushing numbers”
Getting a deal “booked”
If you’re just as grossly turned off as me about some of the terms above, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Unfortunately, this is exactly the reason why every time I survey a group of wealth managers about how they feel about the word “sales”, 99% of them say “We hate it and think it’s disgusting”.
But what seems to happen is that that disgust has turned into resistance around any efforts of business development, and many advisors refuse to go down any avenue that has to do with “sales”, given their preconceived notions of what it looks like. And yes, I agree with you, the images out there would turn me off too. They have and they did.
The good news is that the MAJORITY of sales training or sales ideas out there DO NOT apply to the investment community. Investors who are thinking about giving away their entire life savings to a financial advisor are not procurement officers, or heads of product, or Chief Technology Officers of large companies who can be “sold” to. The are seriously looking to see who they can connect with most. Who they feel has their back and can take care of them and their legacy.
Thus the importance of Consultative “Sales”. I hate to even use the word sales, but let’s face it, it’s actually a balance sheet line item. It is new revenue, it is new assets. It is new investors feeling comfortable with you.
So, if you want to grow but don’t want THAT, don’t fret. You don’t have to and it doesn’t apply to our discerning, highly examined, highly confidential industry. As long as you learn how to become a better consultant through consultative selling, how to develop better “right brain” acumen in connecting with your ideal client, how to have more empathy and powerful questions that can showcase your knowledge towards someone’s situation, you will be able to grow your practice. It’s that easy.