Financial Services Sales Handbook

A Professionals Guide to Becoming a Top Producer

Clifton T. Warren

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781631574931
• eBook ISBN: 9781631574948
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Finanza
• Index: Business

Acquiring, retaining, and developing clients are the major steps for any successful business; failure to accomplish these steps is the major reason many professionals and firms fail to achieve their full potential.The financial services industry is currently facing its biggest challenge: increased competition; smarter buyers who want to deal with professionals instead of sales people; and the emergence of social media, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google. The Financial Sales Handbook: A Guide to Become a Top Producer is for experienced professionals as well as for those who want to make the transition from managing work to more effective selling. The book is also for professionals who want to sharpen their skills. It is intended as the nucleus for corporate training programs as well as for self-employed professionals who must market and sell to stay in business.

PART 1

Laying the Foundation

CHAPTER 1

Creating the Pathway: Where Are You Today?

Understanding the elements that drive your business is important to creating a thriving financial services firm and establishing the right goals that will enable you to wisely invest your limited time and resources toward those areas that will provide the highest payoff. While most professionals understand and appreciate the importance of planning, for many, planning unfortunately consists of little more than reviewing the previous year’s results and projecting forward for the next 12 months. The top-performing firms and professionals constantly adapt their services, promotion, selling, and practices toward the needs of their targeted markets. They understand that to produce consistent growth, some changes are inevitable, and others will come as a result of creative effort. After reading the chapter and absorbing the ideas, you will be able to:

• Identify your growth position
• Analyze your sales capabilities
• Categorize and prioritize your clients
• Evaluate the quality of your relationships

What’s Your Growth Story?

In my experience, I’ve found that most plans fail due to poor implementation rather than poor development. A major cause is a lack of understanding of the current state of play; this results in developing plans that are simply based on the previous results and producing the wrong plan at the wrong time and place. Finding your growth story (position) and using this as the foundation for developing your growth plans is a way to go. Table 1.1 provides an easy way to analyze your growth story:

Table 1.1 Growth position

Category 1: Vertical growth—Firms in this category are enjoying consistent organic growth and have strong sales capabilities. Category 2: Horizontal growth—Organic growth is up and down; sales capabilities are strong but not applied on a consistent basis, producing inconsistent organic growth. Firms in this category are capable of producing above-average results. Category 3: Flat growth—Firms in this category have a loyal and long-term client base, but due to their poor sales capabilities they are unable to maximize value, resulting in a majority of part-time clients with little prospects for new business growth. If this continues, the business will quickly move into Category 4. Category 4: Negative growth—Firms in this category have poor retention of existing clients and are losing existing business at a faster rate than it can be replaced. Weak sales capabilities means these firms will struggle to survive.

Action Steps:

• Identify the quadrant that your business is operating at today.
• Rate your organic growth over the past one to two years on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being the lowest).
• Describe your firm’s current story.

Sales Effectiveness

In top firms that enjoy vertical growth and consistently produce solid returns, the owners excel in five areas:

1. Sales capabilities: Ability to acquire new business and retain existing business.
2. Sales leadership: Developing sales plans, recruiting and developing top talent.
3. Service teamwork: Workflow management and good proactive relationships with suppliers.
4. Team management: Annual business planning process and creating a culture of accountability.
5. Financial growth: Focus on revenue growth and profitability.

Table 1.2 is a tool to help you rate your firm’s sales effectiveness across five areas. It also provides a selection of goals to choose from in each of the five areas.

Table 1.2 Sales effectiveness worksheet

Sales capabilities	Yes	No
We have our own selling system or process. We have an ideal client profile. The majority of new business is from a referral or introduction. There is a plan to convert part-time clients into 100% full-time clients. We have developed expertise in one or more niche markets.
Sales leadership
We have established new business and retention goals. There is a strong culture of accountability. We are able to track and monitor our sales pipeline. we regularly identify and recruit new talent. There is a program in place to coach and develop sales talent.
Service and teamwork
We hold weekly meetings between sales and service teams. There is a formal retention program for key accounts. We use automation to manage the sales pipeline and leads. All workflows and processes are documented. We have dedicated niche market service teams.
Team management
There is a common vision and mission for the firm. Annual business plans and sales activities are monitored. There is a culture of accountability. We have formal inbound and outbound marketing strategies. We have documented the client experience.
Financial management
Plans are in place to manage annual income and profits. We manage our account receivables. There is contingency income for the business. We manage financial relationships with suppliers. We have established key performance indicators for key accounts.

Action Steps:

• Scan through each of the five categories and select areas that apply.
• Select your three highest priorities.
• When establishing goals and objectives, less is better. Be realistic: you are much better off focusing on a few goals and achieving them than scattering your time and energy across many objectives and doing a poor job.

Focus

The most important skills, qualities, or attributes of top performers are their highly developed ability to learn from past experience, being able to reflect on their knowledge and experience, and being able to organize their observations and leverage their success to their advantage. To determine the present state of your business, analyze the following seven areas:

• Existing clients and prospective relationships
• Service offerings
• Targets of opportunity
• Network quality
• Markets you are serving
• Market position
• Value position

Existing Clients and Prospective Client Relationships

Your existing clients are your current revenue sources. Prospective clients are qualified prospects with whom you’ve had a serious discussion about their needs; they represent your future revenue. Your goal is to continually maintain a healthy sales pipeline of prospective clients flowing with your “ideal” clients (clones of your best clients). Therefore, it’s important to assess your existing client relationships to fully understand the nature of your business. This ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part 1: Laying the Foundation
• Part 2: Getting More from Existing Clients
• Part 3: Acquiring New Business
• Part 4: Accelerating Growth
• Resources
• Additional Articles
• Notes
• References
• Index
• Adpage