With all of the bad news people are seeing today, are you getting fewer and fewer responses (leads) from your current sales letters? Has the response rate dropped from your Ads in the newspaper? Has the attendance to your dinner seminars gone down dramatically? Are you getting fewer referrals from your current clients? Are you having a harder time setting appointments from the few leads and referrals you do get, and from your dinner seminars? Are you closing less and smaller sales with the few people you are able to get in front of? For the past several months, our phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from insurance agents, financial advisors, financial planners and investment brokers who are looking for more, or better ways to attract new prospects to them. Or, they're calling us because they are contemplating getting into an entirely different market. The lead generation system they've used for years isn't working, as well as it has in past years. Unfortunately, the bad publicity, recession, home foreclosures, soaring gas prices and the losses in the stock market are really taking a toll on their business. Are you having many of the same problems? You have several choices if you want to increase your leads and sales€¦ * You can spend a lot more money to generate the leads you need. You can send out more sales letters, run more Ads in the newspaper, and send out more invitations for your dinner seminars. * Or, you can spend your time and money learning an entirely new sales approach, and pray things will be better in a new or related market. * Or, you can buckle down and become a better marketer€¦ (And, actually cut your lead generation costs, while increasing your sales) Contrary to what most people would like to believe, there are no quick or magic prospecting solutions to overcoming the abundance of problems we are currently experiencing in the insurance and financial services industry. No matter what you are being told there ISN'T a terrific, low cost, incredibly simple sales, lead generation or marketing idea that is going to get people to beat a pathway to your door. And, just throwing more money into your current lead generation program, doesn't mean it will solve your problem. (Even if you do have the money to do it.) The most effective option for you to increase your leads and sales is to become better at marketing. And, if done properly you can actually significantly reduce your lead costs, while attracting more prospects to you and closing more sales. If you'd like to become a better marketer, it starts by understanding the following six fundamental marketing principles. 1. People prefer to work with either people they already know and trust, or a referral from someone they know and trust. Most people do not readily trust strangers, someone they have never heard of. And, why should they? 2. People Buy for Their Reasons, Not Your Reasons. People want to know how they'll benefit from working with you. People are looking for real help with their financial problems. They want an advisor not a salesperson. And, remember€¦ €œPeople don't buy what they need! They buy what they want!€ 3. Repeat Business is More Profitable than New Business. Finding and attracting new prospects costs 5-10 times more money than getting your existing clients to buy more from you. The longer a person remains as your client, the more they are likely to buy more from you. You must pay special attention (Keep in touch) to make sure that your new clients become repeat customers. 4. Some Customers and Prospects are More Profitable than Others. €œYou get 80 percent of your business from 20 percent of your clients.€ You need to spend the time to analyze what the top 20 percent of your clients have in common with each other to determine how you can find and attract more people like them. 5. Differentiation is Your Key Competitive Advantage. You have to be able to help your clients and prospects to see and understand why they should buy from you instead of from your competition. 6. Perceived Value is Your Key to Increasing Your Profitability. You must define your target market carefully. Work on delivering high value services to that market, and then keep telling your clients and prospects about it. Applying the above six fundamental marketing principles€¦ By properly applying the above six marketing principles, you can dramatically decrease your lead generation expenses, while significantly increasing the amount of prospects you will attract to your business. Here are some ideas we routinely use to help agents, advisors, planners and brokers to grow their business€¦ If people prefer to work with either people they already know and trust, or a referral from someone they know and trust, then you must find ways to help them to get to know and trust you. One of the best and most cost efficient ways to accomplish this is to get attorneys, accountants, P&C agencies, civic organizations, churches, friends, relatives and clients to invite the people they know to a free educational workshop you are offering. Educational workshops are a great way to help people to get to know you, see the type of work you do, and trust you! You don't have to provide anything but coffee, sodas and snacks. You can hold your event in a library, conference room, hotel meeting room, or civic center. And, the total cost of the event will be less than $200. Remember, people want to know how they'll benefit from working with you. People are looking for real help with their financial problems. Accordingly, the educational workshop should not be about you, your companies or your products. The topic of your workshop should somehow relate to improving their financial situation. Typical topics for your workshops could be€¦ €˜Reducing and Eliminating Consumer Debt,' €˜Reducing Income Taxes for Retirees,' €˜Living Debt Free and Truly Wealthy,' or €˜Avoiding The Hidden Income On Social Security Income.' Also, remember repeat business is much more profitable than new business. So, don't forget to invite your existing clients to your education workshops. The cost of admission is to bring a friend. And, because some clients and prospects are more profitable than others, you'll want to make sure you are inviting people that are most like your most profitable clients. Again, you need to spend the time to analyze what the top 20 percent of your clients have in common with each other and then invite people who most resemble those clients! Defining Your Competitive Advantage. If you act like a sales person, and are always pushing insurance and investment products, then you are a sales person in the prospects mind. And, you are the same as every other insurance agent, financial advisor and financial planner out there. If you want to attract people to you, instead of them going to your competition, then you must clearly show people how you are different. And, how you are different, is how you can help a specific group of people, (Your Niche) to solve the specific financial problems they face. (Your Specialty) The Key to Increasing Your Profitability is Getting People Respond To You. Once you have defined the specific group of people you want to work with, (Your Niche) and you have determined the specific problems you want to solve for them, (Your Specialty) then you must continually deliver that special message to those people in everything you do. You want people to see you, as the foremost expert in that area. Perception is reality! That's why you need to be a guest speaker on a local radio or television show. Send out client newsletters every month. Offer a free report in all of your correspondence. Get your articles published in the local newspaper. Send out public service announcements to the local newspaper. (About your upcoming free educational workshop) Send out press releases. (About the success of your free educational workshops.) Send your press kit to local civic, religious and business organizations to get speaking engagements. The more people see and read about you, and begin to understand how you can help them, the more they'll respond to your offers! Everything we are talking about here doesn't cost very money much to do. Using these fundamental marketing principles you will dramatically improve your current lead generation and sales results within just a few weeks. The more you help people to get to know you, the more they'll begin to trust you and want to meet with you. And, soon you'll be spending significantly less money on expensive direct mail, newspaper Ads, and dinner seminars. You'll be seeing more of the right people and be closing more sales and larger sales. By Lew and Jeremy Nason €œThe Nine Out Of Ten Guys€