Webinar checklist for financial advisors during COVID-19

Webinar checklist for financial advisors during COVID-19

Have you thought about how you are going to communicate going forward during the COVID-19 crisis, as a financial professional? Financial advisors who are proactive are already doing webinars with prospects, or should I say your clients, to get their message out there.

What are advisors sharing?

While most webinars are with clients, some advisors are having tremendous success in getting audiences of prospects. They are telling prospects that they have a plan for the next 12 months to get their clients and prospects through the crisis with a communication plan and a go-forward plan and investment strategies. Do you have a go-forward plan for your clients and prospects for the next 12 months? In writing?

If your competitors prospected your best clients today, what would your clients say?

If your competitors called your best clients and asked them to join their webinar or any of our future webinars, how would your clients respond? If you're not delivering webinars, then your competitors will. Consider doing a fun webinar for clients in December as part of your client appreciation programs this year. Fun webinars such as wine beer or chocolate tasting, or educational or entertaining. This is the time to be creative and do not be afraid to make mistakes as people will appreciate your efforts. It is another form of additional communication. Financial advisors who are thinking about doing webinars, here is a guide to help you.

Your webinar planning checklist

“No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use his checklist.” Charlie Munger, American businessman, lawyer, investor, and philanthropist

___ Figure out which software you are going to use. Go beyond a conference call in the age of video. Having video is critical to the success of your webinar. You can use your video conferencing software for a simple webinar with clients, or webinar software for more prospecting process.

____ Video conferencing software such as Zoom, GoToMeeting, or Microsoft teams are the most popular among financial advisors

___ Webinar software such as a zoom webinar or goto webinar allows you to have additional prospecting features such as landing page signup, email reminders, and email follow-up as well as branding.

___ Create invitation lists with clients, prospects, and centers of influence and track and follow who attends and who doesn’t attend.

___ Most advisors I speak with have 300 plus contacts on the smartphone. Start there for attendance, as inviting clients, friends and family will spread word of mouth.

___ Test, test test. Do a practice webinar with your team, coach or mentor, and practice it over and over.

___ Speaker/Host/Co-Hosts: Decide on where the physical location, make sure you have a solid internet connection, and do an internet speed test, a nice background, and good lighting

___ Promoting your webinar ( with compliance approval of course) through blogs, email, website, signature line on email, social media, and having clients forward it.

___ Having your strategic partners such as centers of influence promote it

___ Have your professional PowerPoint (with compliance approval of course) prepared with minimal words and lots of graphics, to illustrate your message clearly. Also, have your webinar scripted (written out) so it sounds like you have done it a hundred times. Webinars without a script sound like an amateur show.

___ Make sure you have an HD camera and good sound and microphones for the best quality experience. I use noise-canceling headphones and a hands-free microphone.

___ The results come for the follow-up. Sending out value-added material as well as an invitation to have a follow-up video call with you, or a direct call for feedback, and to do a deeper dive into the material discussed at the webinar. Follow up is where the results come from.

___ Cool webinar ideas always have great follow up. here are 5 sample calls to action. 1. link to your online calendar to chat such as https://my.timetrade.com/book/JMTNJ 2. a video for them to watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=RO2Js-7NONM&feature=emb_logo or click here https://tinyurl.com/y9n2bz8m 

 3. an offer to engage them such as the Willing Wisdom Index https://tinyurl.com/yxnvxcda 

4. a valuable checklist such as your go forward checklist 

5. an emotionally compelling offer to engage in a video call, such as a stress test of your portfolio, or a fee audit or beneficiary audit. What are your emotionally compelling offers?

Share this checklist with your team on an online call and discuss doing webinars as part of your practice management processes for working remotely. If you add to the list, let me know, I would love to hear from you, as I tried to shorten it up as best I could. Best of luck working remotely! Looking for ideas for webinars? Join me to hear what other advisors are doing to look better than their competition. 

Join my webinar - "Ideal client acquisition strategies for financial professionals -Linkedin Edition"

Financial professionals looking to meet and acquire more ideal clients and take their business to the next level.

Learn about finding more ideal people and ideal centers of influence

Discover how elite financial advisors leverage social media including Linkedin and Sales Navigator as part of their strategy to connect with ideal prospects and how to implement them.

Join me and my guest Mike O'Neil, Forbes 2x top 50 social media influencer, as we share strategies used by elite financial advisors on positioning, finding connecting and engaging ideal prospects.

Join me Nov 19, 2020 01:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada). Register by clicking the link below:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7Co4M7CIQ2SCVJb8LCbD9g

Grant Hicks, CIM, is President of Advisor Practice Management and co-author of “Guerrilla Marketing For Financial Advisors” 1st and 2nd edition. www.advisorpracticemanagement.com for speaking, workshops or coaching, contact Grant at [email protected]