This Blog May Or May Not Help You Engage More Advisors
Are you still reading?
There’s deliberate language in the above headline designed to work at the psychological level to keep you reading.
Because advisors are smothered with sales pitches they are ultra selective in what they will listen to. What keeps them up at night (yet rarely vocalized) is fear of making a bad decision based on incomplete or biased Information.
For many wholesalers, this means the good old sales process needs a nip and tuck. Any hint of self-centered selling and tried and true closing techniques (both in conversations and in emails) sends advisors to a nod, smile, I’ll take a look at it and radio silence.
One counterintuitive approach that accelerates trust is explicitly letting the advisor know it is ok NOT to buy your product. And you need to mean it. Gasp. Blasphemy!
You might be saying “ When I finally get and advisor on the phone or face to face I may never get another chance – I only have a short widow convince them to buy!”
If that is working for you keep doing what you are doing! Only you can decide if you want to experiment yet many successful wholesalers have found that advisors respond more often and are more forthright when you integrate the three tactics below into your emails and sales conversations.
Stop selling.
An advisor respects a wholesaler who states (and believes) that what they have may or may not be a good fit, and may or may not be something they are comfortable with. Can you imagine a car dealer who, when you described what you were looking for suggested a car he doesn’t sell? Wouldn’t you want to send referrals to this guy?
Put them in charge of their decision.
You need to give up control to really listen and make sure they are in a decision-making mode. Probe further when the advisor suggests they will ‘take a look at it.’ Specifically, why they like your product, what is prompting a change now and what will trigger an actual buy. You may not like the answer(s) but it can help you decide where and when to spend your time, and when to circle back when the time is right,
Start focusing on the words and phrases you use.
How do you do you feel when someone says, and I paraphrase, “If I could show you… (Just how right I am and how wrong you are…). Makes you feel comfortable right? Simple changes in words and the use of certain phrases that appeal to emotions can dramatically shift wary to engaged. Communication patterns and preferences for certain words can dramatically reshape your conversations.
An example:
Here is a sample of an email you can use for those advisors who have gone to radio silence that incorporates some of the suggestions above – it has been proven to work (not 100% of the time). Use it if it makes sense for you!
Subject line: Closing the loop
Hello x
I’ve tried to reach you several times to give you information you may find helpful regarding____________.
My guess is that you are busy and I don’t want to clutter your email box. Is it safe to assume that a conversation does not make sense at this time and/or there’s no interest on your part?
If I am wrong, send me an email with a good time to talk either Thurs or Fri afternoon, or let me know when in the future I should be in touch.
We appreciate your business!
(If current client)
If you want to learn more about how to execute some of the concepts above, check out the resources at interactive-com.com or contact me. No sales pitch–I may or may not be able to help:)