Exclusive 5-star cuisine

We retained a high-end Italian kitchenware company to provide an open kitchen and a chef from a five-star restaurant to teach gourmet cuisine at an event where we invited a few dozen prospects. I had met these clients at charity events and in other social settings, so I usually didn’t have much opportunity to talk to them about insurance. At the start of our cooking event, we introduced our company as the host, so potential clients could get to know our company’s background and practice. The activity is very fun. We made delicious food, ate together and got to know each other better. Many of the guests later became our clients.

—Yolanda Yan Zhang, Shanghai, China, six-year MDRT member

Prospecting tool

I use a service called Copilot AI for automated digital prospecting through LinkedIn. In addition to finding and engaging leads through automated email requests, it invites prospects to my page and sends them a link to my calendar if they would like to schedule a meeting.

—Meredith Gail Langus, FSCP, LUTCF, White Plains, New York, USA, 11-year MDRT member

Make time for self-reflection

Don’t dive into your goals immediately! Remember, your biggest supporter and enemy is yourself. Reflect on what you have done, both good and bad habits in the past year, and correct the bad habits while adopting good ones. As the saying goes, goals are temporary, but habits are forever. Once you are satisfied with your self-review, it’s time to set your goals.

—Mohammad Ibrahim Bin Mohd Sanusi, FPC, Singapore, six-year MDRT member

Be a great listener by recording

Recording your meetings with prospects moves the needle on the trust dial. Open your meetings by saying you’re going to record and use this script: “I’m going to ask you a lot of questions, and I’m going to take a lot of notes. The reason I’m recording is because I’m being thorough. You know when you watch a movie a second or third time and see things you didn’t see the first time? Well, this is a lot more important than a movie. So, should we decide to do business together, we have a permanent record of our conversations. In addition to all my notes, my team and I will go through the recordings to make sure we get everyone’s suggestions.”

What does that say about other advisors they may have met with who don’t want to record their meetings? The needle is moving in the right direction toward you and in the wrong direction for the other advisors. Also, if you’re recording with your smartphone, put it in airplane mode so calls and notifications won’t interrupt the meeting.

—Bill Bachrach, keynote speaker, author and founder of AdvisorRoadmap Virtual Training platform

LinkedIn do’s and don’ts

• Don’t send automatic invites. Connect with possible contacts for legitimate reasons.
• Don’t connect with anyone. Get to know someone by researching them virtually before approaching them for business.
• Don’t be a salesperson. Be authentic.

—Brian Joseph Haney, CFS, CLTC, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA, 14-year MDRT member

Blind spot

We are all familiar with the concept of a blind spot, especially when we are driving. There are areas next to our vehicle that seem “invisible” from our side mirrors, but that doesn’t mean they are not there. The same concept applies to financial risks and the concerns of our clients. We often help our clients visualize what might have happened unless proper financial planning was in force, yet many times they are unable to see it.

I ask a few open questions like, “Are you aware that you are one critical illness away from bankruptcy?” or “Should this/that happen, what would you like me to convey to your family/beneficiary about your asset distribution plan?” I follow up with “Mr./Mrs. Client, I think we agree that no one is perfect. If we missed seeing one potential financial risk, think about how many more financial scenarios that we missed and need to discuss.”

—Johan Fanggara, CFP, Jakarta, Utara, Indonesia, seven-year MDRT member

Making the most of seminars

Many advisors do client seminars to educate the community. Here are a few steps to digitize them to build more useful content. 

1. Record the seminar with the consent of your partners. You may hire an assistant or external production company to edit your video and upload it to YouTube. These videos may include the full or short versions of key messages during your seminar. 
2. Transform the content into a few articles to incorporate in your email
   or newsletter outreach. 
3. Consolidate the content into main bullet points that can be transformed into easy-to-read infographics for social media posting. 
4. Create a brochure that includes an index of your seminar video, so viewers can find your content swiftly.  
5. Put all the above on your website so that your community can access information easily. 

These tactics can serve as a touch point with your prospects and clients. With a series of seminars, you own endless content and can pick suitable segments to interact with the markets you target.

—Chen Gifford, Hong Kong, China, 10-year MDRT member

Better client segmentation

Categorize your clients to fit your situation. The purpose of client classification is to analyze and grade them, so you can manage them more efficiently and provide them with more meaningful services. Classifying them by gender or age is not sufficient. A more effective way is to sort them by profession, market or region. Based on this classification, you can determine which ones are favorable to you, which ones need to be targeted, which ones you need to enhance your relationship with and which ones you can aim for a sale.

—Byeong Hoon Choi, MBA, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 14-year MDRT member

Intimate meetings

I’m back to meeting prospects and clients face to face by inviting them to have a cup of coffee together at a coffee shop. I want to know their conditions and circumstances after this pandemic. Are their concerns and priorities still the same as before the pandemic or is there something else they want to make a priority? What are their worries, and do they have a plan for that? Inviting them to cafes or modern places makes this meeting feel more intimate and relaxed, so they don’t feel burdened when they meet me.

—Adhitama Nur Paramita, AEPP, CFP, Jakarta, Indonesia, three-year MDRT member

Ask closed-ended questions

When dealing with clients who are not expressive, use closed-ended questions to help maneuver the conversation in the right way and gain further information. Closed-ended questions are perfect for such clients, as they can be answered with short, fixed replies. 

• What social media platform do you use most often? 
• Are you happy with where you live? 
• Do you plan to send your children to study overseas? 
• How many times do you exercise a week? 
• At what age do you think you’ll retire? 

Closed-ended questions may not be conversation-starters that trigger deep explanations, but they are useful in situations where you are looking for a quick and solid answer.

—Ee Kah Teik, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, four-year MDRT member

Noted advice

At client meetings, I provide a notepad and pen with our company logo. The notepad says: “Take notes, ask questions. It’s your journey.”

—Peter Jason Byrne, Coorparoo, Queensland, Australia, 15-year MDRT member

Moving forward

The comfort zone is our enemy. What got you here won’t get you there. If we want different results, we must do something different. We must make changes, and change is not always easy or welcoming.

The solution to being in tune and not being stuck is simply to keep moving forward no matter how difficult. Business coach and motivational speaker T. Harv Eker says “How you do something is how you do everything.” If you move forward in some areas of your life, all the other areas of your life will start getting better too.

—Cecille Joy Yap Garcia, Makati, Philippines, 12-year MDRT member