Here is the second in the series of top 4 internal wholesaler skills:

Skill #2:  Email Strategy

Your email strategy is a close cousin of your voicemail strategy.  So if you’re turned off by the time required to put a good voicemail together, multiply that by 2 for emails. Sorry!

Emails need to pass the glance test, avoid the spam filter, and cause the advisor to pause, just for a moment to click and scroll. That’s not easy and yeah, not fair cause it takes time and thought.  But, the more you work on crafting the new age email, your brain will start to ‘get it’ and you’ll be rewarded by seeing advisor replies in your inbox.

In my blog Advisors, Email and the Delete Button I outlined some basics.  Here’s more detail and ideas.

1. Personalize, personalize, personalize.  It’s about them (not you). To get this right you need to do some CSI work.
2. Create a short and powerful subject line that’s NOT in the bait and switch category.
3. Use simple words, sentences and excessive benefit language.
4. Offer to help the advisor in some way not related to your product.

A Method to the Madness

 A trick, which will serve you in all advisor interactions, is to take on the advisor’s persona – like an actor getting in character.   Imagine you’re sitting in the advisor’s chair at the end of a long day cleaning out your email box. What you see is a series of: Touching base, wholesaler appointment requests, thanks for the trade, quick sales idea, introducing myself.  For a busy advisor those are a shift, delete all. If you really try to be this advisor, what would you need to see to stop, open and read?

The Strategy

At a minimum, go to Google, LinkedIn, the advisor’s website, your notes, and for important advisors text your external for any update you should know about.  There are clues all over the web for the benefits to use and topics to address:

Here is the opening paragraph on an advisor’s website (altered a bit to make it anonymous)

“Jim has helped many clients over the years achieve their financial planning goals, and has learned the right questions to ask to develop successful strategies for each client. He and his wife specifically created The Planning Center website that helps clients educate themselves, stay up to date on critical issues and provides links to special events that clients enjoy.  Jim works primarily with clients who are in the early stages of retirement…”

Sample Email Content

Subject:  Your Planning Center

Jim,

We’ve never spoken but I visited your Planning Center website and am impressed with your content and blogs. My guess is that regularly adding new content is time consuming!  Would you be open to a phone conversation to discuss some ideas that may make it easier for you to add quality content in less time?  If so please send me an email with some days / times that might work.  I’ll leave a vm as well.  My contact info is below.

More Samples

Here are a couple of other examples – for more mainstream advisors where you might not be able to gather as much personal info:

PROSPECT

Subject:  Fiscal Cliff

Bryan,

We’ve never spoken but many of the advisors I work with have clients asking about the impact the fiscal cliff on their portfolios. Based what I see about your practice, I may be able to give you some ideas to help you reach out to clients and easily provide some timely perspective. Would you be willing to set up a phone conversation perhaps next week?  If so please email and let me know when might be convenient.

EXISTING CLIENT

Subject line:  Alternative models

Hi Ed,

Based on our last conversation you were looking at new alternative models for those clients who are a bit risk adverse and have lots of cash on the sidelines.  Can we have a conversation to see if our new client approved marketing piece might help make those conversations easier with those target clients? I’ll also give you the latest update on the x fund you have with us from the portfolio manager.

Does next Tuesday work?  Let me know what time is best.

The rule of thumb:  The bigger the advisor, the busier they are and the more personalized your email needs to be.  Even if you know the advisor well!

Other thoughts?

Next in the series:  Questioning Sequence