Recent financial advisor studies say that 95% of current year revenue will come from existing clients and 85% of new business will come from referrals. If this is the case, then what should you be doing, right? Perhaps you should stop your business development efforts and/or expand services to your existing clients. This will save you on the cost of new business development, which could be a significant amount of money. Giving existing clients more attention and services isn’t a bad idea either. Sure, taking these actions may make sense on the surface for your firm, but maybe you should consider two strategic objectives you could pursue that will not disrupt your current initiatives. Why not simultaneously delight your clients and increase your referrals?
I know what you’re thinking, that if 95% of my revenue this year will be coming from existing clients, of course I need to ensure clients are delighted, and I think I’m already doing this, so what’s the point. You’re also probably thinking if 85% of my business every year is going to come from referrals, then you’re helpless to grow your business proactively. If this is how you are thinking, well it’s logical, but it’s also wrong.
Traditional Methods Of Marketing and Networking
Traditional methods of networking for advisors are expensive and have limited reach because of the expense and effort it demands. I call these traditional methods “time consuming phone call initiatives” because traditional methods cause an enormous number of organizational and coordination phone calls. And I don’t mean in a productive way. Traditional methods are your social and promotional events, round-table discussions, conference displays and speaking engagements. And yes, it also includes the networking and business connections you are promoting with advertising, print, radio, television, and online. Traditional networking works, but it’s expensive, has limited reach, and has a low next-client yield. Bluntly speaking, spending more time and money on more traditional initiatives is not worth the money and energy for the results it will produce. It’s not going to significantly increase your client delightment nor your business referrals. A better means at your disposal is networking using social media.
Social Media Marketing and Networking
Many people are unaware of what social media networking entails or how to do it successfully. Some people are uncomfortable with it because they don’t understand it. You may have already had a foray into social media networking and it didn’t work out as you expected, perhaps because it wasn’t properly executed. But mark my words, social media networking is here to stay and it’s going to going to have an amazing positive impact on financial advisors who use it successfully. Since social media is expected to play a much bigger role in our lives than radio, television, and even the internet in a few years, getting involved with social media networking now is a good idea.
Since there are over 2 billion users on social media, it’s safe to say that most of your clients are on social media. And since social media is growing faster than radio, television – and it took social media half the time it took the internet to reach 50 million users, it’s surely going to play a prominent role in our future. While it’s helpful to understand where social media is expected go, let’s get back to our thesis, and show you how social media is going to delight clients and substantially increase your business referrals.
Because your clients are on social media and surveys show that the major-majority of them want to be connected to their advisors, social media networking will delight your clients. Your clients want financial insights from their key advisors and they want them to share their ideas and guidance with them on a consistent and regular basis. Who wouldn’t want helpful insights from their financial advisor or any of their close advisors, whether it’s legal, tax, medical or otherwise. By giving clients insights and guidance (blog articles) on specialty topics you are expert, you will help clients realize greater benefits from you, thus delighting clients.
Delighting Clients Generates More Referrals
When you delight your clients they will do what they always do – they will share their positive experiences with their network. And their sharing of these positive experiences will drive more business connections for you. Whether it’s traditional or social media networking, it works the same way: the larger and the more developed the business network, the more new business the network will generate. This is the way it has always been, the way it is, and the way it will always be.
Whether you a using traditional networking methods or social media networking, you are seeking to accomplish the same thing. That is, building maximum awareness of helping people with your unique expertise, and increasing the number of your business connections as much as possible to optimize the reach of your reputation. The more successful you are at doing this, the more delighted your clients and next-clients will be, and the more successful you will be at growing your business.
SocialFinServ provides top-performing financial advisor social media solutions with its all-in-one platform. Successful social media outreach has never been easier or more powerful with the delivery of original firm-authentic content, built-in compliance, and collaboration management technology. SocialFinserv automates social media outreach and keeps everything running smoothly. Feel free to contact us at any time to learn about how we can help delight your clients and increase business referrals.