Simple Strategies for Client Acquisition

I hope this article provides inspiration or insights to help your realise your own potential so you too can operate a broking practice that provides you ongoing professional and personal reward.?

……………………………………

Have you ever worked hard to generate a new enquiry with a prospect who you think is a red hot lead – and for some reason they fall off the face of the earth?

Or they go on a holiday to 'someday ilse'.

As in “someday I’ll get around to organising that loan”, but they never return from the isle.

Obviously you invest effort into earning new business, and so you want to make sure that when good people enquire, you maximise your conversion and your results.

Admittedly not all enquiries will convert.

Mostly, this is due to the consumer being ineligible right now due to borrowing capacity or serviceability.

With that said, whether the people on your database are already a client or they are a potential future client, the better your ability to make them feel important and appreciated is going to influence them to engage your help they feel like they are ready to proceed.

Now, regardless of whether you have a 'large' database or a small one, the better your ability to add value and stay front of mind, you're more likely to generate loyalty and awaken some of them from their slumber so they become more active referrers.

To contextualise this, let me reference Joe Girard, who was cited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s best salesperson, was known for years to have sent out hand-written postcards to his entire database.

And on average, Joe averaged 6 car sales per day.

Yet, despite his prolific results, never did Joe’s postcards have a message about vehicles or finance. They were simple messages to stay front of mind and help people feel good when they saw his name.

Being in the 1960’s and 70’s, it was pre-email, and hence Joe had 2 x full-time assistants who wrote postcards to his database.

With this philosophy in mind, when it comes to building advocacy amongst your database, here are a few things to consider:

· The medium for communication (online, offline or other)

· The style of the message and how it reflects your values and brand

· The intention of the communication

· How to use trust proof points to generate advocacy

Why are these important? It keeps you memorable and front of mind.

As an example, here is what some other brokers have done to generate more enquiry:

· Sent out a Happy Australia Day letter. Yes, an actual latter that was physically posted to people. It had nothing to do with lending, but simply focused on building relationship with clients. There was no mention of finance, yet he generated several new appointments because people felt valued

· Send out a handwritten birthday card. This tactic was used by a broker who was the first 7-figure income earner for a major aggregation group (at the time, it was himself and two PA’s)

· Take clients out to lunch. One broker sorted his loan book by ‘total value of trail’ from his clients, and invited his 10 highest value clients out to lunch. At the time, it was November/December when he did this, and somewhat of a Xmas lunch. All the same, clients appreciated and curiously, offered to pay for his lunch even though he invited them. This also generated new enquiries despite not being a ‘finance focused’ lunch.

A word of warning though – if you also decide to do lunches, try and stick with one lunch per day as the broker referenced above sometimes ate two lunches and it wasn’t overly healthy for him.

Whatever you do, consider how it can be turned from a one-off thing into an approach that is sustainable and replicable for the long-term.

That way it will be easier to maintain, people will become more familiar with it, and will feel more natural for you instead of ‘another thing to do’.

To your success,

James McCracken