How to double your AUM?

Book review by Vikas Agrawal:

Who is the Author of Ultimate sales machine and how does it help individual financial advisors:

Mr. Chet Holmes is acclaimed corporate trainer, Strategic mastermind, Business growth expert, instrumental in advising most of the global majors which includes the likes of Citibank, Warner Bros., GNC, Wells Fargo, Estee Lauder, Merrill Lynch, and W. R. Grace, as well as many small businesses.

 He has mainly emphasized upon 12 key strategies which can help any Individual financial advisors or organization to ‘’Turn Their Business into the Ultimate Sales Machine’’.

Q. How does it help Individual financial advisors to grow their AUM?

Vikas: The book provides a set of tools that can be used to master various aspects of a business thereby creating an “Ultimate Sales Machine”, broken into 12 key strategic areas that one has to focus and implement with “Pig Headed Determination and Discipline”. This book talks about becoming a master, which is not about doing 4000 different things, it’s about doing 12 things 4000 times. It devises a path on how to tune up and soup up virtually every part of your business by spending just an hour per week on high impact area like Sales, Marketing and Management.

 Snapshot of current climate of doing business:

• A corporation fails every 3 minutes
• A directorship changes every 32 seconds
• A company changes control every 15 minutes
• 96% of all companies fails within 10 years
• 26000 new brands and products are launched every year
• 16% to 30% of consumers change brand loyalty in one evening after watching commercials
• 74% of consumers buy outside of their favorite brands
• 29% of consumers do not read news paper

 Q. What are the steps one should follow to grow their business?

 Vikas: Knowledge Snippets from “The Ultimate Sales Machine” That any IFA Should Follow

 First step

 Time Management: In today’s world, the biggest challenged faced by any individual financial advisors especially those who are working as one man army is to manage their time effectively.

 How does doubling your AUM sound? It sure sounds good, however one cannot enhance productivity overnight, it is achieved through a disciplined approach, in Chet’s words “pigheaded determination”, over a period of time.

After reading The Ultimate Sales Machine, at MOAMC, I implemented some of the concepts set forth in the time management system and have enhanced my sales productivity. Today I am able to spend 70% of my time on result oriented tasks and 30% on the rest.

Mr. Chet has offered 6 simple steps to manage time proactively at all levels of an organization.

Touch it once: If you touch it, take action. Don’t open that email or document until you’re ready to deal with it. People spend 97 hours per year just to revisit or reread emails and documents.

·       Make list: Make daily list of the 6 important task to accomplish

·       Time Allocation: Plan how long each task will take.

·       Plan your day: Assign time slots for accomplishing each task

·       Prioritize: focus on important task first and give maximum efforts to complete those task

Ask yourself, “Will it Hurt Me to Throw This Away?” 80% of the stored data is never referred to again, clean up all the irrelevant data so that you don’t spend time on searching for the relevant one.

 2. Art of Getting Best Buyers:

 The biggest challenged faced by most of the Individual financial Advisors friends is to acquire new clients and continue to grow their AUM.

 The fastest and least expensive way of accelerating AUM, there are always a small number of ‘’better investors’’ who have the ability to purchase far more of your offerings than the average clients. But before targeting these dream buyers, a strong foundation must be laid down and one must possess skills that sound credible.

 To acquire Best buyer, your strategy should involve followings:-

 Core story: This is the essence of a firm — the business they’re in, the investors they serve, and the value add they offer. It’s a compelling story of an offer that can drive your customers most, if not all, key aspects of a business.

 A strategic positioning tool, for example we at MOAMC, its our attempt to position ourselves as equity expert because the key strength of our group is in managing equities for more than 30 years. Similarly, IFA’s can create their own positioning for instance someone is expert in preparing retirement plans then he/she can position himself retirement planning expert and then make the target segments accordingly.

 Moreover, combining the power of data and research to create highly credible sales and marketing tool would make difference.

 ?      Stadium Pitch – core story of the business/ product

?      3% of potential buyers are buying NOW

?      7% are open to the idea buying

?      90% are not thinking/ not interested

 Example: At MOAMC, We strongly believe that equity is the best asset class to create wealth for our valuable clients therefore; we have developed expertise in managing equities by following well defined investment philosophy called Buy Right, Sit Tight 

 Pig Headed Determination: Every task performed must be associated with passion and determination to achieve the given objective.

 Well, It’s not about doing 4000 things 1 time; but its about doing 2-3 things 4000 times

“FOCUS + pig headed discipline = Outsell, Out market & Out manage the competition at every turn”

 Training your people: Training helps shape employee skills as per the requirements which will ultimately enhance company’s reputation in the market as employee’s act as the face of the company.

Q. how to enhance your skills to acquire new clients and close a deal?

Vikas: Very Simple, The Deeper You Go, the More You Will Sell

• Establish Rapport: Make your clients your friends.

According to World English Dictionary, rapport is "an emotional bond or               friendly relationship between people based on mutual liking, trust, and a        sense that they understand and share each other's concerns."

• Qualify the Buyer (Find the Need)

Qualifying buyers means finding out what they are looking for in your  product or service and what factors will influence them to buy.

• Build value

After you have assessed your customers' buying criteria, you must begin to      build value around your product or service. You've already built rapport. This           orientation should be targeted to the buyer, not to your product or service.

• Create Desire

Now it is time to make your client want your product or service and want it       right now. 

• Overcome Objections

To handle objections effectively one needs to work at determination at             isolating the objection. If you isolate the objection you have just moved a    huge step closer to closing the sale.

• Close the Sale             

You may need to help prospects make the decision. If you believe that what    you have is good for them, close already!

• Follow up

 Once the foundations is laid with core story and training, start a “Best Buyers” campaign which is a comprehensive marketing plan to identify the best buyers and utilizing a variety of marketing tactics and tools, in order to achieve “Top of Mind” awareness and drive your top prospects by increasing visibility and the saying goes “ the Eyes have it”

Q. What is the strategy to run best buyer campaign

 Vikas : The art of Best Buyers Campaign Constituents:

 This campaign is a synchronized effort that utilizes various strategic elements that will enable in establishing rapport, brand awareness and market education that impact Best Buyers. The constituents of an effective Campaign include:

 Training and understanding of process flow matrix to show how each element of the Best Buyers campaign be deployed to enhance effectiveness.

• Direct mail campaign to establish contact
• Best Buyers letters
• Outline of gifts that will be utilized with letter campaign
• Best Buyers emails
• Best Buyers follow-up calls
• Calendar and tracking tool to facilitate the process

This campaign should be designed to last at least 6 months in order to maintain “Top of Mind” awareness and persistence to get the target to commit to action.

 Q. How to market your offerings?

 Vikas: Musts of Marketing:

Some of the most successful companies have some of the best marketing strategies; they expertly deploy these weapons to create a market niche for themselves. “The Seven Musts of Marketing” contains all the best kept secrets you should know if you want your marketing to establish “Top of Mind Awareness”.

 Seven Musts of Marketing

·        Advertising: “50% of purchases are motivated by advertising, but the other 50% is made on impulse”. Advertising has the most Top of Mind Awareness Power, hence advertising should have certain essentials:

• Must be distinctive
• Capture Attention
• Body Prospect
• Call to action

 Corporate Literature: Your brochure should draw from your education-based marketing efforts and should be a miniature version of your stadium pitch or core story, as the Core Story is always aimed at THEM and not at YOU; hence the brochure should also be aimed at THEM. As a direct marketing material it is necessary to identify a title which will make them to want to read more.

Public Relations:

• participate in trade shows/ events and conferences
• Press releases & relationships with press
•  Writing articles and ensuring following
• Use it as a promotional piece.
• Have salespeople show it to prospects.
• Use it as a direct mail piece.
• Include it in your brochure or core story.
• Hand it out at trade shows.
• Use or quote it in your advertising

Direct Mail: Research indicates that direct mail is one of the cheapest and most effective marketing strategies. The United States Postal Service reported that 98% of consumers bring their mail in the day it is delivered, and 77% sift through it immediately. Direct mail has the ability to bypass pesky spam folder and get in touch directly with the customer. Direct mail should have following essentials

•  Market data – create WOW experience
• Must be consistent and regular
• Use color as much as possible
• put messages on the envelope (same as a great headline)

Personal contact: This is considered to be the most potent form of marketing; this is a huge area where there is a lot of potential for upside impact. None of your marketing efforts will have as much impact on your client as contact with salespeople. Hence it is essential that we provide proper tools to salespeople such as regular training, providing great presentations and brochures which act as a mini core story.

Market education: trade shows, speaking engagements, and education based marketing

Internet: Increasing numbers of consumers use social media and research on Internet to carry out preliminary research before making final decisions. Internet marketing enables you to

• Capture leads
• Build a relationship
• Interact as much as possible
• Offer a webinar (Web seminar)
• Convert traffic to sales

Conclusion

You can profoundly transformed you business in Ultimate sales Machine if you commit one hour per day in which you work on making your business much more effective. The Ultimate Sales Machine offers a direction that IFA friends who want to double AUM in every three years.

Thanking you

Your sincerely

Vikas Agrawal

Zonal Head-South

Motilal Oswal AMC

email : [email protected]