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150: Two Phrases to NEVER USE When Following Up With a Prospect (and What to Say Instead!) · The Efficient Advisor: Tactical Business Advice for Financial Planners

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We've all heard the Jim Rohn quote the fortune is in the follow-up and the man is not wrong, in fact, following up with our potential clients or following up with existing clients that we maybe pitched an idea, a concept to, or maybe even a product to.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: It's critical to our success, but it's how you follow up that's important.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: We all wanna stay top of mind for a prospect, but we do not I repeat, we do not wanna sound desperate or needy.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: You want to maintain your status as a sought after expert and you want them to get to do the thing right.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: We want to get them to do the thing that we're recommending.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: So what's an advisor to do?
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Well, in today's episode, I'm gonna share two things never to say during client follow-up and what to say instead.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: All right, let's go, even.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Lets talk about smart looks, man.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Then, when you fix those natuurlijk and you leave, what it costs, that green belt vibe is a critical problem.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: So where do we accelerate?
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: That red belt is very important to your entire career because and you know what I'm talking about the practice that you are running instead of it running you.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: If you're new to the Efficient Advisor, I'm so glad you're here.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I'm Libby Graywee and I started, built and Sold by H37, a 100% referral-only planning practice that I grew to seven figures as a solo advisor, all while working just three days a week and taking off 14 weeks a year so that I could be a super present mom, wife, friend, sister, daughter and, frankly, a travel-obsessed human who loved taking vacations with her family.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: And I'm here to walk alongside you and to show you how to do exactly the same and really to help you take immediate action on the most important strategies to scale, organize and create less stress and overwhelm in your business.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: We are about to transform your practice, so move over exhaustion and get out of the way.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Advisor ADD.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: It is time to take that one right next step to build a business and a life that you love.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: So let's dive in.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, so as I'm working with our Systems to Scale group coaching and mastermind groups that we've got we have two that just launched and started in August.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Right now these two groups we are working through our financial planning process the Start to Finish deal right, what happens, literally every single task before, during and after each step of your financial planning process.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: So we're talking email templates, we're talking recommendations templates, we're talking standard operating procedures, checklists, data input, all the things right.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: And as we dissect each step of the process together, there are two things we always need to keep in mind that are technically part of our process, even if they don't seem like it at first.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: So there's two, right?
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I call the first one the ghosting process and the second one the Dear John process or the not right fit process.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: So the ghosting process is what happens if you have a meeting with a client.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: This could be a prospect you know, discovery call.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: This could be a client that you did the discovery call with and maybe you've had like a goals discussion, or maybe you've done data gather with them or for whatever reason, at whatever stage of the process that you're in and you need to have one for each stage of your process.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: What happens if you don't hear back from the client?
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: What if they ghost you?
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: What's an advisor to do?
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Right, you've already put in the time.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: They seem super interested.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: They said they wanted to move on to the next step.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Maybe they've even had multiple meetings with you or they've gotten the data to you and now you just can't seem to get them to move off the mark and get them into the office.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Or moving on to the next step.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Right, what's an advisor to do?
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: The other kind of mini process we wanna be thoughtful about at each stage in your financial planning process is also the Dear John process, or what's the not right fit.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: So what happens if maybe you have a discovery call and you realize, oh my gosh, this client is not the right fit for our practice?
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: You need to have a process that gently lets them down and gives them alternative solutions, especially if this was a client that was maybe referred to you and, gosh, they're just not a right fit.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: How do we have a gentle process that moves them away from our practice but gives them a feeling of being supported and providing really, really good alternatives?
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And this needs to happen.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: You need to have this Dear John piece at a couple of points in your process, because you might not recognize that this client isn't a good fit, whether it's asset level or just straight personality wise or what they're looking for is outside of the scope of your product ties process, and you need to have a process to follow at different points in your process.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of process.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you're taking a shot of coffee every time I use the word system or process today, because then you will be well caffeinated after this episode, my friends.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: But you need to have this Dear John process.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: That's out of scope for what we're talking about today.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: That's not today's episode.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Today we are focusing on this ghosting process and what to happen if you're trying to follow up and you just can't seem to get clients off the mark.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: But I just wanna kind of just share that you need those two processes within your financial planning process.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so this is part of that kind of systems to scale.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: These are those little micro processes that exist within your big seven.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: And by the big seven I'm talking about the seven processes that every advisory business needs, and you're already doing them, whether you have them documented or are being intentional about them or not.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: And those seven processes and there's a whole episode, episode number 93, I'll link it in the show notes for you guys but the seven processes are number one, your marketing and prospecting process.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Number two, your start to finish financial planning process that you do for new clients.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: The third is your onboarding process, so once a client goes through your planning process and commits to having a long-term ongoing relationship with you Number four so that then you onboard them, get all their assets here, take the applications, get them acquainted with how you operate, et cetera.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Number four is your ongoing client service or your ongoing planning process.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Number five is your client experience process.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Number six is your referral process.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Number seven is your investment management process and there is an eighth kind of bonus process, but that's gonna be a separate episode coming up.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: So right there, I think I said process just now like 10 times.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: So coffee, coffee, espresso, espresso, let's get moving folks.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you have these seven processes that exist within your business and each process has its own kind of little micro processes.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: So this ghosting process is definitely part of it, and having a good follow-up process is really, really critical.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: The average salesperson, right.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: How many times would you guess?
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: The average salesperson follows up on a lead or follows up with a prospect or on a recommendation that they made.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: If you guessed once or twice, you'd be right.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: 50% of all salespeople give up after one follow-up contact, 65% give up after two follow-ups and 79.8.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: So, basically, 80% give up after three follow-ups.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: So imagine if a farmer planted seeds and then refused to water them more than once or twice.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I think that is really interesting data surrounding how easily an advisor will give up on follow-up.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: But it also makes a ton of sense, right, our brains are wired to protect us and as salespeople, we don't often follow up because in some way, shape or form, it's a fear of rejection.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Right, it's the minute you're worried about coming across like a salesperson, and when you do, if you come across salesy, your prospect will start to shut down emotionally from a fear of being sold to right.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: We need to let them let their guard down.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: We need to help them bring their guard down and be viewed as more of an expert or an authority versus a salesperson.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: So, even though ultimately we're all in sales, right, we're selling our process, we're selling our implementation, we're selling our asset management.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you're selling specific products or services.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: We are salespeople, but we want to come from a place of expertise and authority, so it's very important in our follow-up that we maintain that status.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Right, and this is where that fear of rejection comes from.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: But then also, we have this fear of being viewed as desperate or needy, and so, of course, there's statistics around how many times is the right amount of times?
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: And that depends whether you're doing it by phone or by email, whether you're doing it verbally or through writing, there is science and stats around what to say and how to say it, and if you're in the group coaching program, of course we're gonna get into all of the details.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: We've got the whole ghosting follow-up process outlined for you with all of the science and statistics right, and if you're not in the group coaching program, you can get into the cohort that's kicking off on January 11th.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: The waitlist is out on the website under the coaching tab, under group coaching.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: There are limited spots, so if you are interested in the next round of the systems to scale group coaching program, it does launch November 11th or, I'm sorry, the sign-up starts November 28th and the group launches.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: So the actual first day of coaching is January 9th and January 11th.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: So we'll have a Tuesday group and a Thursday group, okay, so mark your calendars.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: But anyway, there's a lot of research around following up and while the exact formula is what I teach and it's kind of reserved for our coaching peeps, I'm gonna get it into a couple of the what nots to say and what to say instead.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: That will help you maintain that status and Put the ball in the court of your clients, so you might remember, back to episode number 94, my simple trick to get prospects to finally book an appointment, where I talk about and walk you through like literally give you all of the language of our lost cause letter that we would send to clients after or prospects, I should say, after we did an event or a workshop or something where they attended.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: So if you haven't listened to that episode, go back and listen to it.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I will also link that in the show notes.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I know you guys love, because I know I love whenever somebody literally says here's exactly what to say and here's exactly what not to say.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: And this is amazing.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: My client, jd, that I am coaching, he implemented a lost cause letter and he was like you know I'm just gonna go ahead and put this into like this ghosting process that we were talking about and it was so cool because the first time he sent one out he was like it was crazy, libby, I cannot believe this person got the letter and literally turned around and booked an appointment immediately.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: And I think it's a couple of different things, right, it's this reminder of the problem that they stated, or the reason that they came out to you, the reason that they sought your counsel, or sat down with you or came to the event in the first place, but then it's this idea that you are done right, you're maintaining your status and that you are not going to be hunting them down.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's just get into the meat of this, right?
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: So here are the two things to never ever say, whether it's verbal or in written form.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Never say number one, I'm just checking in, and never ever say number two hey, I'm following up.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Checking in, following up are very, very passive.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: It's very passive language and it doesn't give the prospect a reason to move.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: It doesn't give them any finality.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: It comes from a place of I've got a ton of time and I'm just following up, or I'm just checking in, or hey, I just wanted to touch base and see if you had any blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: While there's nothing wrong with that language per se, I want to encourage you to stop using it.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: And again, there's a ton of science and data behind those two phrases in particular.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: And I would add hey, I'm just touching base, as kind of in that same category.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: You're like okay, libby Bullock, what the heck do I say if I'm emailing this prospect outside of just giving you the templates that we use inside of the coaching programs.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you what to say instead.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: So I would love to see an email saying hey, john, you know, reiterating the problem that they came to you with, potentially talking about the solution that you had given them as the answer to all of their questions, and then saying one of these two things Number one, where do you think we should go from here?
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Or, number two, what do you see as the next step, what this language does instead?
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: And so, kind of going back to that last cause language like hey, you know, we've basically like hey, we've connected a couple of times since this conversation.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: You mentioned that you were worried about what would potentially happen to your spouse should something happen to you.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: We talked about implementing a solution that would provide immediate liquidity for her and the kids when do you want to go from here?
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: And it gives this finality.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: So I love also and I'll just go ahead and throw this in for you I love this language of, instead of saying hey, I just wanted to follow up with you saying, hey, I had a minute between meetings, or I finally had a minute between meetings and I thought of you and wanted to just ask you where we go from here or what do you see as the next steps.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: So I like it because you're maintaining your status like hey, I'm really busy.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: In the Lost Cause language that I give you in episode number 94, it's a lot of like hey, we have followed up with you multiple times.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Frankly, we are only interested in working with clients who are actively interested in working with us.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: At this point, we are no longer going to hunt you down.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: We're here if you need us, if you want to give us a call, amazing, give us a call, we're around.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: So what we're trying to do is just create this sense of like hey, I'm not desperate, I'm not really needy.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: You know, I had a minute here between meetings because I'm very busy with my existing clients.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Here is the issue that you had.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Here was the solution that we recommended and that could be like hey, you were uncertain about your financial future.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: We talked about crafting a plan that would provide you certainty around how much income you will have in retirement, or a specific strategy to make sure that we could ensure the retirement that you were hoping for, whatever your language is.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: And then, where do you see us going from here?
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: What do you see as the next step?
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: And definitely just putting the ball in their court, and you can be as bold as to say we'll wait to hear from you.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: At this point, we're kind of done with this following up, like we're kind of done with reaching out, or you could even say I'm no longer gonna reach out.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: We'll wait to hear from you.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: What do you see as the next step?
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I would even just we're leaving it hanging with what do you see as the next step and letting them tell you no.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: And if we don't hear from them, great, drop them into your nurture sequence that you have, right, the nurture sequence that you have, where you are building a relationship, you are giving them value, you are building trust, you're demonstrating authority, you are exhibiting your expertise in the financial planning world right.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: And we have to accept the fact that most people are not necessarily ready to move forward right away, right.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: So put them in your database, capture their email, send them something regularly to stay in touch.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, hopefully, if they're coming in and they're seeking out financial advice and you're finding out, well, why, now Maybe they should be in a position where they are ready to move forward and perhaps it's just nudging them or doing the reminder right, like I know for me personally, I've got a lot going on in my world right now and I actually appreciate when people kind of poke at me and say, hey, are you ready, do you wanna do that?
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Like, let's do the thing yet, and it's like, oh, shoot, yes, I need to get to that.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes, I did articulate that that was a goal of mine and I do want to move forward doing that.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: So not everybody is ready, but often the folks who are taking the time to sit down with you really actually are.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: They might just need that hard line push to move on to the next step.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: And when you do have a hard line like that, yep, you can default them to your nurture sequence right, where you're doing all of the things.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: You're not pestering them, you're just, you know, you're not being obnoxious, you're just adding value to their lives from afar, but you're also freeing yourself from thinking about them or, from you know, tracking the follow-ups.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: And so in our group coaching program we've got I believe it's a four step ghosting follow-up process with very specific language.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: But long story short, the phrases that I want you to stay away from are the I'm just following up, I'm just checking in and instead move to these more authoritative, you know kind of closing lines of where do we go from here and what do you see as the next step.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: And then should you hear back from them Amazing.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: And if they say, oh, you know, timing is really crummy.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: You know, can you please circle back with me in six months?
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Great, do that make a task?
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Circle back with them in six months.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Still, drop them into your value nurture sequence, for sure.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: And you know, if they ghost you, right same thing, drop them into the nurture sequence.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: You never know what might happen.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: But then release it, let them go.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Let them wait when they're ready.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Perhaps they will circle back.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Right, it's like a little butterfly.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: If you love it, set it free, and if it comes back to you it was meant to be or whatever, that thing is All right.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Clearly I need more coffee today, so, on that note, I'm gonna go make some coffee.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: I hope this was helpful for you.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I know I personally benefit from very specific language.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: I love, love, love when people give me very concrete examples.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: So I'd love to chat more and give you some more examples.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: I'm actually gonna try to craft a couple follow-up emails for our group coaching program and I like to give lots of samples, examples, and I'm gonna maybe drop one or two of those out in the Efficient Advisor community over on Facebook.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: So if you're not part of it, join, it's free.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: It's exclusively for financial advisors and operations folks.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: We've got about 1,900 advisors and operational people in there and everyone is super cool and willing to share their language and their templates.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: It's just a great kind of group think area which I love, love, love.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: I also hang out over on LinkedIn, so feel free to reach out, dm me with any questions that you guys have.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Otherwise, I hope you consider joining us for the next round of the Systems to Scale group coaching and mastermind program and, like I said, the cart opens November 8th and the groups kick off November 9th and November 11th.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: I am gonna get all of the details put together here in short order and out on the website, but go ahead and grab a spot on the wait list and then you will be amongst the first to be emailed when all of the details are released.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much and I hope you have an amazing rest of your week and I'll see you guys next week.