A few years ago, I wandered into the fishing and tackle aisle of a big box store. While inspecting the lures, I noticed a boy about 10 years old standing by himself.
I was pleased to see he was interested in the more advanced stuff instead of just a bobber and worms. So I struck up a conversation by asking, “Anything good over here?”
He turned to me, smiled and replied, “Not really. I normally just use purple worms or a fake frog.”
That’s when I saw the giant frog lure he had in his hands. It not only covered his entire palm but looked big enough to be showcased at a county fair.
The sheer size of that frog, along with his honest answer, made me laugh out loud. “Wow,” I said, “that’s a pretty big frog, isn’t it?” I wasn’t trying to be condescending or trying to get him to change his selection; it was just so out-of-the-ordinary and unexpected.
Which is why I was surprised even further when without hesitation he confidently replied, “Not if you're trying to catch the big ones, SIR!”
The kid tipped his ball cap and left me standing there dumbfounded, and with a valuable lesson: Don’t be afraid to go big; and be unexpected or out-of-the-ordinary when you do!
It’s a prized lesson I took to heart several years ago and one I want to use to encourage other financial professionals to “go big” with clients and step into the unexpected as a way to grow their business and deepen client relationships.
For me, it started when I left my cushy job as a bank executive and became an independent advisor. I needed an immediate way to get in front of people and start sharing my story. The problem, of course, was that traditional seminars and workshops were expensive and in the past hadn’t produced the results I wanted.
So I challenged myself to think big and outside the box. I soon realized the gap that wasn’t being addressed by traditional retirement planners was helping people plan for everyday life in retirement. Advisors typically would walk people up to the door of retirement and tell them everything was going to be great if they had a certain amount of money and reached a magical age, but then leaving them to figure out retirement living on their own.
So I started examining what caused some clients to make a successful transition from work life to home life, and what was missing when it didn’t go well. As a result, I wrote my book Naked Retirement.
I’d love to tell you that it became a best seller overnight and that the paparazzi follow my every move but, alas, that’s not the case. So I repackaged the information into a workshop that differentiated me. And it worked. It wasn’t long before I started reeling in more clients and new opportunities.
First of all, my workshop overcame something called market sophistication—meaning that most people have already been invited to financial workshops on Social Security, long-term care or making sure they don’t run out of money. In fact, they’ve been invited to so many that, when they see the advertisements, they ignore them because they know what to expect (they’re market sophisticated). But how many have been invited to a “Naked Retirement” workshop that promises a fun and creative approach to planning for everyday life in retirement?
Furthermore, since it’s a non-financial workshop, I accomplish several crucial things. It gives me access to community programs and events where other advisors had already marked their territory. Prior to the Naked Retirement format, when I called an employer, adult education center or community college and offered a seminar, the most common response was, “Thanks, but we already have a person doing that.” However, now that I’m armed with something uniquely different, I am welcomed with open arms.
This format also allows me to provide concrete proof that I am a financial life planner. These days, it’s almost cliché to claim to be a life or holistic planner … and to claim that clients are more than just a number. But few of these proponents back it up with their community efforts and with material they share with clients and prospects on a regular basis.
By applying true life planning, I build what I call KLT: know you, like you, trust you. By starting new relationships in ways that the client values personally, it is much easier to create a long-term trusting relationship, which works as a two-way street.
It may seem a little strange for a financial advisor to offer a completely non-financial workshop, but that’s the whole point of thinking big and stepping outside of the box. It’s not supposed to make sense to everyone.
After being validated by my first big idea, I developed an even crazier idea. I started offering Do-It-Yourself Retirement Planning workshops with free retirement planning software and portfolio management tools.
I may look like the kid standing in the aisle with the huge frog in his hand but, once again, by stepping out of my comfort zone and the limits to what I knew, I was pleasantly surprised by what I was able to catch.
It turns out that most people aren’t do-it-yourselfers; they just think they are or think they need to be. Look at it this way: The boomers are the first generation that needs to fund up to 70 percent of their retirement on their own, so they’re sweating it out. They don’t know how to do it and, worse, they don’t know who to trust. So they think if they can learn it themselves, they can avoid the headache of finding the right advisors and, better yet, avoid getting burned by bad advice or a scam.
So they show up at my DIY Retirement Planning seminar, and I give them everything they came for and more. In two hours, I cram so much information, examples, ideas and expertise into their minds that I think some people may have PTSD afterwards. I follow up with an email that provides links to free retirement planning software on the Web, a free Morningstar trial and other tools.
Imagine telling a group of people everything you know about retirement planning in a couple hours and then wishing them good luck figuring it all out.
Inevitably, this process not only reveals to them my level of knowledge and expertise, but also how cumbersome retirement planning can be. At the end of my seminar, the one thing most people don’t want to become is a financial professional.
Taking these unexpected ideas one step further, I also began attaching a fee to my classes. The fact of the matter was, I knew my hold ratio was much higher when people had to pay and being that I was back on the scene as an individual advisor, I needed something to help increase actual attendance. So I charge $15-$25 per class.
Just like that, I was in the position of getting paid to prospect. Furthermore, because I opted to use employers, adult education centers and community colleges, they did all the advertising and registrations for me. I was walking into a room full of people, getting paid $200 for doing it and walked out with a few solid prospects and a bunch more for my email list.
When I started, I was literally doing these workshops without a PowerPoint presentation and with the cheesiest handouts you have ever seen. In fact, for my DIY Retirement Planning workshop, I was handing out four pieces of paper:
Page 1: A cover page with my bio and the agenda
Page 2: My 10 beliefs about retirement planning, with space for them to take notes
Page 3: The 10 most common retirement planning questions I get, with space for them to take notes
Page 4: A response form to capture their email and find out what they needed my help with.
I’m sharing that with you because too often advisors and financial coaches are hesitant to step out of the ordinary until everything is just perfect and it looks and feels a certain way. But it doesn’t have to be that way, especially if you tap into an area that isn’t being addressed by other professionals in your area.
Along the same lines, I’m not here to say it will be easy and that everything will go as planned. I got plenty of “Nos” and “Are you crazy?” but it wasn’t about meeting others’ standards and using the same bait as they do. It’s about grabbing that show-stopping frog and casting it out there to catch the big ones.
Robert Laura is the president of SYNERGOS Financial Group, the founder of RetirementProject.org and the creator of the Retirement Wellness Report and DividendPaycheck.org. He can be reached at [email protected].