Financial Services | America's #1 Sales Trainer

Using Phone and Email for Sales Conversions

February 11, 2013 By Tom Hopkins 1 Comment

According to Leads360′s latest report, The Ultimate Contact Strategy – How to Best Use Phone and Email for Contact and Conversion Success, “Lead response persistence is critical to maximize conversion. Making more than one call and sending even just one email can have a positive impact on lead conversion, yet 50% of leads are never called a second time and 59% of leads never receive an email.”

When leaving a voice message for a new lead keep it simple. Leave your name and number twice – once at the beginning of the message. Again at the end. Refer to the fact that you’re calling about the information they requested. Then, state a benefit of your offering to pique their curiosity to learn more (thus increasing the chances they’ll either return your call or accept your next follow up call.) [Read more...]

Understanding Your Potential Client’s Fear When Selling Financial Services

November 14, 2012 By Tom Hopkins Leave a Comment

Think for a moment about what the greatest enemy is to the process of helping people come to a decision that’s truly good for them. What is it that jumps in and brings presentations that were previously sailing smoothly along to a screeching halt? You may think it’s the financial aspects of your offering. Perhaps you think it’s the prospective client’s inability to make a decision.

Well, if you think any of those things, you are right. But, with selling being what it is — a bottom line business — let’s dig deeper and find the bottom line of what lies between you and your ‘future client’ coming to an agreement.

If you look at all the enemies to the sale that you and your associates can come up with, you’ll find they have a common denominator. That common denominator is a thing called FEAR. Fear is the greatest enemy you’ll ever encounter as a financial services professional. This includes your fear, the potential client’s fear, market and trend fears and so on. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Financial Services, Initial Contact Tagged With: building rapport, client contact, client fears, financial services, making people comfortable, selling skills

How to Eliminate “It costs too much” When Selling Financial Services

June 29, 2012 By Tom Hopkins Leave a Comment

After you’ve met new potential clients and established rapport with them is the time to qualify them not only as to their needs, but as to their expectations regarding making a financial commitment to their futures. When you establish early on what investment range they would be comfortable with, you can eliminate the stall that move untrained financial services advisers and representatives encounter — “It costs too much.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Financial Services Tagged With: Qualifying, sales skills, selling skills, talking with clients

Financial Services Selling Skills – Guidelines for Asking Questions

March 30, 2012 By Tom Hopkins 1 Comment

Three Guidelines for Asking Questions

Because asking good questions is such an integral part of good selling I’ve given the matter a lot of study and thought over the years. I’ve boiled down all that knowledge into three basic guidelines.

Guideline #1. Establish a bond before you attempt to control the process with questions. Establishing rapport is essential because people want to do business with people they like and trust. They’ll never get to the trust issue if they don’t like you. There’s no need (or reason) to attempt to become “best buddies” on the spot, but it is important that your prospect comes to like you very early in the process. This is one of the reasons for the brief chit chat that takes place before the selling begins. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Financial Services Tagged With: asking for the business, financial services, insurance, questioning strategies, sales closing, sales skills, selling skills, talking with clients

The Financial Services Presentation

June 29, 2011 By Tom Hopkins 3 Comments

You truly are a wondrous person with much to offer. You’re a champion, after all. Now all you have to do is let your potential clients discover that for themselves. And how do people learn? They’re taught, that’s how. Part of your task as a professional salesperson is to act as an instructor and a lot of this instructing takes place in the presentation phase of selling.

The presentation phase for financial services addresses four basic, yet critical subjects. These are:

Who we are
What we’ve done
What we’ll do for you
The amount of investment required to accomplish your financial goals [Read more...]

Filed Under: Financial Services Tagged With: financial services, making people comfortable, Presentation/Demonstration

The Advantages of a Career in Financial Services

June 15, 2010 By Tom Hopkins 4 Comments

Advantage #1 – Nearly everyone is a potential client. Unless you plan to specialize, such as working only with the affluent who have $10 million or more in net worth or some other niche, your pool of potential clients expands to nearly every adult on the planet. Think about it. Who doesn’t need knowledge and sound advice on keeping and growing their money? It doesn’t matter if their discretionary funds are only $50 or as much as $50,000 a month, everyone has a need for what you offer. Millions of people are seeking to earn, save, invest, and increase their fortunes. They need life insurance, debt consolidation services, long term care, annuities, 401K plans, full blown investment programs and other financial services. Most will have a continuing need for those services and so will their families as the children grow and are told “just call Bob/Sally. They’ve taken good care of us for a long time. They’ll treat you right.” Your legacy will grow with continual referrals from satisfied clients. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Financial Services Tagged With: sales skills, selling skills