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Secondary meetings for financial advisors to grow their business

How many times have you heard that the best time to ask for a referral or an introduction is at the end of a meeting? These are people that head office or so-called marketers that have never been financial advisors. You and I know that the demands in a meeting from planning advice paperwork and follow-up are escalating rapidly making the meetings longer and more complex. So you probably do as most financial advisors do. Which is you put it on the agenda and have an intention to do it, but it never gets done.

Secondary meetings

A secondary meeting is a meeting after a meeting. Plan to have two meetings with your ideal clients. For example, meet at 11:00 AM and have your business meeting and then plan on going for lunch and having a secondary meeting. Once all the business is done and complete then you pivot to the secondary meeting and have casual conversations over lunch. You can also consider having a morning meeting and then going for breakfast. You can have an afternoon meeting and then go for appetizers and a drink before dinner. You can also plant the seed to call and follow up with them in a phone call or Zoom meeting in the next week. The best secondary meetings are usually right after a business meeting.

The purpose of the secondary meeting

At the secondary meeting, this is when you can bring up 4 different questions to grow your business. You don't need to ask or discuss all four but this will give you a guide or a template of four conversations to have over lunch. Here are the four questions to consider asking your ideal clients.

1. Introductions –” Before we begin, I would like to ask you a question. If, I were to meet a group of successful people ( specific occupation) ________ like you, where would I go to meet them? How would I find them and meet them?
2. Network- Do you know about our _____( your last name) Network of Professionals ? Build out your process to build out your network ( email us if you need help) 
3. Family -Do you know about our Family plan? Do you offer a family plan? ( remember to check with your firm or compliance officer or branch manager) 
4. Events / community “ What events or activities ( sports / clubs / volunteer / charity) are you involved with in the community? ( get out of your office to meet people this summer) 

The four questions

Congratulations if you're successful in getting referrals. This means you're delivering exceptional value to your ideal clients. If you have a referral process that is working don't change it. Here is an idea to get introductions which are easier than referrals. Your clients will introduce you to everyone but they might not refer you to everyone. So ask a marketing question. How would I find and meet more people like you? Any ideas on where I would meet or connect with people like you? You will be shocked by the answers because this is some of the best marketing ideas that you will ever get and it doesn't come from a course or a book a conference or seminar or top advisors it comes directly from your clients. For example, what are my financial advisor clients asked this question to a surgeon and the answer he got was why don't you come to my study group to meet other surgeons and I'll introduce you. Another financial adviser asked the question where would I meet more wealthy farmers and he said come to the coffee shop and I'll introduce you to a group of them that we meet with on Friday morning. Marketing strategies and ideas that you and I would never think of in a million years can come from this question. Just try it a few times and see what the answers are. I would love to hear your stories and perhaps talk about them on future blogs e-mail me at grant@ghicks.com

Network of professionals question

Find your network professionals through your best clients. It is a process of giving and getting names and then connecting with these people to eventually build out a larger network of professionals for yourself to help your ideal clients.

The family plan

do you want to work with ideal clients or ideal families? Your family plan is simply letting people know that you work with the whole family. Imagine if you had a client who is wealthy at age 55 and had three other siblings their parents and their children do you think if you got introduced to other family members would there be opportunities? Let's find out in a secondary meeting.

Events

Events are back in full swing and people this summer are out and active. Going to your client's events this year Valuable use of your time to get introduced to other people like that. In a future blog, I will talk about different events that elite advisors are doing right now. Imagine if attended ten of your client's events this year do you think you'll get introduced to like-minded people?

Time management

I understand the challenges of managing your time as a financial advisor. However, if you planned 10 secondary meetings or 10 lunches and attended 10 events This is interesting 20 hours of your time to potentially grow your business by 10 ideal clients in the next six months. It always shocks me that financial advisors struggle with time management and yet they want to spend more time with their ideal clients. Plan secondary meetings you will be happy you did this year.

How about your goals for your practice in 2023?

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We are here to serve your practice, let’s talk

Contact us to help get clarity around your goals on paper, and have the goals conversation by contacting Grant at grant@ghicks.com or click on the link to set up a no-obligation 20-minute discussion https://my.timetrade.com/book/JMTNJ regardless if we work together, let’s have a chat and listen to your biggest practice management concerns to help you get clarity around your future business.

Grant Hicks, CIM, is President of Advisor Practice Management and co-author of “Guerrilla Marketing For Financial Advisors” 1st and 2nd editions. www.advisorpracticemanagement.com for speaking, workshops, or coaching, contact Grant at grant@ghicks.com Grants combined financial advisor clients manage over 5 billion AUM, and earn over $50 million dollars combined!