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Once you get a lead from an on-line service, like SmartAsset, how do you get the person to agree to a meeting without creeping them out?
Understand the online buyer
Here’s the key to understanding people who buy financial advice off the internet. This is what 99% of advisors don’t understand:
They’re looking for something specific. But they’re scared to tell you that.
Think about it. Advisors grow on trees. And they’re very public about the fact that they are in the business. Most people know an advisor, or two or three. In fact, they are:
- Getting emails from them.
- Getting LinkedIn messages from them.
- Running into them at cookouts, holiday parties, college reunions, you name it.
- Getting cold calls from them.
- Seeing their social media updates.
- Getting pitched every time they meet with someone at a bank about their checking accounts.
So why, with so many advisors, would someone ever go the Internet to find one? It is the same reason people use online dating sites when they have a world of eligible bachelors/bachelorettes available to them in their community:
They’re looking for better than the options they currently see in front of them. It’s that simple.
It could be because they:
- Want an advisor who matches their personality better
- Want someone who is the same race, age, ethnic background, etc.
- Don’t fit the asset requirement of many of the advisors they know
- Have a specialized need that no advisor they know can handle
- Don’t want anyone in their circle to know they are looking
- Don’t want to feel obligated to work with a person that someone they know recommends
They are looking for information about you so that they can answer this question:
Is this advisor I met on the Internet really better than what I have in front of me?
Serve them with the right information to answer that question. Problem is, most advisors don’t.
It’s a masked form of online dating
Here’s where advisors get it wrong when they approach an online buyer. They barf up all the info they can onto them. It’s like a reflex. And then they hope their credentials are impressive enough that the person feels motivated to meet.
What you’re really doing is acting haphazardly and making all kinds of assumptions about someone you know nothing about. The distrust grows.
Here’s an analogy. Have you ever used an Internet dating site? Let’s say you log on and you see Mr. or Ms. Wonderful. This may be the one for you! Your mother will be so proud! You connect and set up a phone call.
But when you get on the phone the conversation goes something like this.
“So, what brought you to <dating service name>?”
To which you might casually reply (not wanting to show your hand) something like this:
“I was looking for a companion, someone to enjoy life with.”
Right, you’re going to be intentionally vague here because you don’t trust the person you’re talking to.
And Mr./Ms. Wonderful replies:
“I’m a great partner! I’m sure we’ll be great together. I’ve got a great track record. I’ve been dating 20 years and have had over a dozen relationships! They all say I was very responsive, I always returned phone calls on time, and I always put their interests before my own. I was soooo unselfish, they just loved it! By the way I’ve got an MBA and I even got an award for being one of the best at my job last year.”
Wait, I think you forgot to mention you won the science fair in sixth grade.
To use a slang term, this is TMI (too much information). You’re sitting there saying, “That’s splendid but what if the thing I really care about is how well you can cook? Or what if I want someone who can fix my car when it breaks down? Or that I can go to charity events with? What if I don’t care about a single thing you just said, Mr./Ms. Wonderful?”
And then Mr./Ms. Wonderful asks, “So how much money do you make and what’s your total checking account balance right now?”
“What have you saved for retirement?”
“Do you have any credit card debt?”
“Do you want to retire in 20 years, 30 years?”
“How many kids do you want to have? Do you want to pay to send your kids to college and if so have you started saving for that?”
“Do you own real estate? Would you ever think about buying a house?”
You’re sitting here trying to choose whether you should fake a static sound and pretend the call gets dropped or make some random excuse like you forgot you had a dentist appointment.
Now do you see why lead-generation services typically don’t work? With an online buyer, distrust is very high. And in those situations the worst thing you can do is to barf information on someone. Or ask intrusive questions that they’re not ready to answer.
A three-step process to get a meeting with an online lead (without barfing info)
When you get a lead from SmartAsset or another lead generation service, what should you do?
Step 1
Research the person on social media. Connect with them on LinkedIn or Facebook. If they are a business owner, subscribe to their newsletter or follow their company. You’d be surprised at what people put on the Internet.
Step 2
Your response email should direct the reader to a video on your YouTube channel where you briefly introduce yourself and refer the person to information resources for them to review, such as your website or LinkedIn page.
I am not recommending that you barf information. You direct them to the information and let them pick.
The reason I’m saying to make a video is that it will help them trust you more because they can see that you are a real person. Bring warmth, smile, make eye contact, and come across as a real person. Don’t use cliché words.
Don’t send them the video as an attachment because it will cram up their inbox. In fact don’t send anything as an attachment like a clunky PDF because those are a pain to open on a phone or tablet.
Maybe even crack a joke or two?
Step 3
Acknowledge in this video that if they decide that it makes sense to meet after they review your information, they can email you to set up a time. Tell the person that you would like them to include a question or two in the email so that you can prepare to give them the information they need.
Sara’s upshot
This process may not make them trust you; that gets built over time. What this sequence will do, though, is to set you apart from all the other advisors who are responding to these online leads who haven’t read this article!
To learn how to create your own leads, join my membership here.
Sara Grillo, CFA, is a marketing consultant who helps investment management, financial planning, and RIA firms fight the tendency to barf meaningless cliche on their prospects and bore them as a result. Prior to launching her own firm, she was a financial advisor and worked at Lehman Brothers.
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Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.