4. Guide Prospects Into Your Funnel

“Of course, we're not doing seminars just to educate everybody in Kansas City,” Bill says.

Bill tries to diffuse any “selling” vibes that might turn off prospects in attendance right at the beginning of his presentation. He sets up the presentation by saying something along these lines:

“Some of you will end up coming in and seeing us and walking through a financial planning process where you evaluate if we could be a good firm to work with. We also evaluate if there could be a fit for us to work with you. Some of you will just come and will learn tonight, get value from this, which I promise that you will. And you won't come see us, and maybe we'll never see you again, and that's okay too. But you will be offered the opportunity to come in and sit down with a couple of our planners and begin to put together a plan and see if there's something we can help you with."

Then, at the end of the seminar, Bill distributes questionnaires asking attendees to rate the presentation. Bill says most folks are gracious enough to turn those in, probably because Bill has already taken off some of the pressure before the seminar has even started. Respondents get entered into Bill’s CRM funnel so that his team can follow-up with phone calls and emails starting the next day.

Bill carefully manages these processes not just as an advisor, but as a CEO working with group of talented executives who are growing the business while the advisors do the advising.

“We're up to 18 employees at the firm,” he says, “seven of which, if you include myself, are planners. I do sit in on meetings with some legacy clients. We also have a CIO. We have a CMO, which we recruited from one of the largest RIAs in the country, and then we have our operations director as well. So, we've got a nice little C-suite of executives here, for the size of the firm we are.”

5. Focus On The Right Numbers

And the payoff for all of Bill’s hard work?

Remember, I said at the top that seminars aren’t a quick fix. And Bill’s data shows that converting prospects takes time: nine months for referrals, and up to 36 months for non-referrals who come to Keen Wealth “cold” via seminars or another marketing initiative.