Survey respondents spill sales secrets

</B>There are three main ways financial planners market their business, says consultant Carol Davis of Carol Davis & Associates. Davis has recently completed the Resnik/ING Opinion Leaders survey, where 17 leading industry figures divulged information about their business including sales and marketing techniques for increasing growth. The results were also presented at the Resnik Sales, Marketing & Practice Management conference earlier this month.

Davis says the three dominant methods of marketing evident in the survey analysis are strategic alliances (or centres of influence), seminars and referrals.

Several of the survey participants have set up strategic alliances with a variety of professional associations, resulting in significant growth to the business. Davis says there are strong relationships with accountants amongst the survey group but who the business alliance is with, is as important as the ongoing commitment to the relationship and having common business philosophies.

"The alliance works when planners work hard investing in the ongoing relationship," Davis says.

Davis also found different structures of strategic alliances within the survey sample such as having an in-house accounting division, a structure used by Guest McLeod and Baldry Financial Group. Forming a partnership with an accountant either at the start of a new business or further down the road is a proven method of enhancing growth, and the commitment can be further strengthened when equity in the business is held by both professionals. Financial Management Services is one such example as the group has a 50 per cent shareholding with an accountancy firm, and the alliance has provided the financial services group access to 3000 accountancy clients. Davis says the group formed its partnership by interviewing accountancy firms when the business first started up.

A strategy for forming strategic alliances utilised by some financial planners involves leveraging off past experience and background. Davis points out former insurance salesman Rob Pedersen, founder of Pedersen Financial Services, as a survey example. Pedersen now runs a practice focusing on corporate super and has built up centres of influence with his previous contacts, general insurance brokers.

"Financial planners are very creative in using their networks," Davis says.

Seminars are another key method of sales and marketing, and Davis says the general message from financial planners in the survey is that seminars should be highly targeted.

"Seminars are for a group of people with things in common. An example from the survey is Ord Minnett [South Australia] who set up a new seminar targeting people with $3 million plus."

"These people are actively thinking of the clients and targeting the issues," Davis says.

The other dominant method for business growth clear from the survey sample is referrals. Referrals can be the lifeblood of new business, but planners must put in the hard yards and building up a business takes time, Davis says. She found some of the groups in the survey worked with a definite referral culture of client prospecting, where their role involved making it clear to clients there were expectations of them. Other organisations had the practice of rewarding clients if they brought in referrals, and for some groups referrals were of paramount importance in order for the business to move into the next stage of growth.