“Only one thing counts in this life: Get them to sign on the line which is dotted!” Eighteen years after James Foley’s film adaptation of David Mamet’s play “Glengarry Glen Ross,” hit screens, the oft-quoted diatribe delivered by Alec Baldwin’s character, Blake, still resonates. Blake (that’s his name–just Blake) is the slick-haired, square-jawed man from “Downtown,” the man who made $970,000 last year, the man whose watch costs “more than your car” and the man who rattles a group of rumpled real state salesmen with the chilling mandate: “Always…be…closing!” While the world has changed since sales leads were dispensed on three-by-five-inch cards, much remains the same. All companies must sell, some harder than others. In many commodity industries the only thing that separates winners from losers is their ability to close. As Blake spat: “You can’t play in a man’s game? You can’t close them? Then go home and tell your wife your troubles.” Richard Laermer, chief executive of RLM PR, a public relations firm in New York, has no problem being aggressive. “I’m a pit bull,” he says. “I’m on it until they scream. I stop at nothing.” When Laermer learns that a company has not been landing enough press, he’ll send over a big box filled with the few articles the company has managed to grab, as well as a bunch of plastic spider webs. He also might offer to share some free advice or perhaps send over a copy of Richard Branson’s Screw It, Let’s Do It. (For a list of 10 silky slick sales tactics, see our slide show.) Having trouble landing that first in-person meeting? Time for guerrilla tactics, says Adrian Miller, president of Adrian Miller Sales Training and author of The Blatant Truth: 50 Ways to Sales Success. Miller recommends showing up at the prospect’s office at lunchtime with a delectable spread of haute cuisine. “Tell the receptionist that you’d be happy to send the food into the office, but would prefer if you could get 10 minutes while they eat,” says Miller. Crafty salesmanship involves creating a sense of urgency. Lenny Kharitonov, president of Unlimited Furniture Group in Brooklyn, N.Y., encourages browsing customers with a subtle nudge, such as: “It normally takes about three or four weeks to get the piece, but let me go check on this one…” His closing line minutes later: “If you’re truly interested, we have one that came in for a client who is not quite ready for delivery yet, and if you buy it today we can deliver it tomorrow.” Good closers avoid falling into uninspired routines. Blake’s campy machismo was scripted, not stilted. Prospects want to feel special and deserving of more effort than a canned pitch. “People want to be treated as individuals and will turn off in a heartbeat if they feel they are being treated otherwise,” says Margot Bartsch, an education consultant. “We have basic information to deliver to the customer that should be pitched in a different manner based on somebody’s personality, age, occupation and energy.” If you can, let clients talk themselves into a sale. This makes them think they are in control of the situation, and when people think they’re in control, they’re more likely to be decisive. “It’s not about me, it’s about them,” says Chuck Mache, chief executive of American TonerServ, a printer supply company. “I don’t close the deal, but rather the client does because they run out of objections as they talk everything out.” Can’t muster the strength to deliver yet one more spiel? Here’s a final word of encouragement from the man Downtown: “You can’t close the leads you’re given? Hit the bricks, pal, and beat it because you are going out!”

Want to boost your odds of bubbling up on Google? Try these search engine optimization tactics.

Pizzerias, welding shops, tree nurseries: They all need Web sites to pull in customers. Attracting those eyeballs involves seducing the algorithms of Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Americans tap search engines more than 12 billion times a month to find everything from guitar lessons to jambalaya recipes.

Most people don’t wander past the first 10 or so search results. The art of breaking into those rarified ranks is called search engine optimization, or SEO. If this term is new to you, get familiar with it–quick. (For a primer, start here.)

For the rest who want to fortify their online attack while not spending thousands of dollars on an SEO consultant, there are plenty of things to do beyond posting fresh content on your site, making sure to include search keywords and pointing to older links. All those tricks help, but the algorithms evolve constantly, and so must your site to stay near the top.

With that in mind, we’ve compiled some of the latest SEO tricks from those who know them well.

Content

Videos have become search-engine cat nip. Nearly half of all searches return video within the first batch of results. “Not only do search engines reward video, but customers turn to your company as a trusted source if you have quality content,” says Mary Spio, president of Gen2Media, a video technology company.

Lists are also popular with search engines. Readers crave them, bloggers reference and link to them, and search crawlers score them highly. Example: If you run a gourmet pizza parlor, posting a list of the best draft beers to go with your pie might get some attention. “A list is going to generate a lot of posts on other blogs, tweets and Facebook since they’re easy to digest and play off the human desire for simple, digestible content,” explains Allen Kung, chief technology officer of Createthe Group, a digital commerce consultancy.

Running your site in more than one language is another good idea. “Translation increases Web traffic, enables content to be shared and can be searched globally,” says Swamy Viswanathan of Language Weaver, a translation-software maker. Viswanathan says that certain types of content need to read perfectly and thus require human translation to register with the search engines; other fact- and statistic-heavy content can be sufficiently translated by a program.

Syndication

It’s not enough to produce entertaining content–you have to title and tag it correctly. Pay attention to phrases, not words. Example: Somebody wanting to learn how to sew will sooner search “how to sew video” than simply “sewing.” Title the video appropriately by including the entire phrase and don’t forget to tag it with a few relevant keywords.

Organizing and packaging Web addresses in a specific way is important, too. Stick files into clearly labeled directories. For instance: http://www.yourwebsite.com/videos. By putting videos in an obvious location search engines will be more likely to find it than if you stick them in a root directory or in a generic “directory A.”

Also be sure to embed the videos into the very pages of your Web site so that they play seamlessly as part of the site–not as files that viewers have to download to their own computers. (YouTube makes this easy with code that can be copied to your site.) Let the audience easily share your videos–thus increasing their popularity and attractiveness to the search engines–by including a “sharing” function on your site. “Your videos become ambassadors for your products and services, helping generate buzz and building quality inbound links,” says Spio.

Speed

Some Web sites load up faster than others. Everyone loves a nimble Web site–even Google ( GOOG – news – people ). The company has suggested that it may start including page speed as a factor within its search rankings this year. (Usually when Google hints at something–think its new Nexus One phone–it means it’s about to do it.)

An easy way to see if your Web site hums or slogs is to use Google’s Page Speed plug-in for Firefox browsers. Install the plug-in and then run it while having your home page open. Another tool is called the “validator,” which rids your code of redundancies and inelegant programming loops. Other speed-boosters include “gzip,” which compresses your Web site’s files (using any easy-to-find compression software) and ensures your CSS and javascript code has no redundancies or inelegant loops.

Big Picture

Smart SEO strategies can yield big results, but don’t lose sight of the bigger goal: delighting customers. “Small businesses aren’t going to convert [sales] if their sites don’t make any sense,” says Gill Brown, vice president of Advertising Network Sales at LookSmart ( LOOK – news – people ), a tech company that lures people to paid-for text ads. “Write content for the core audience first, then go back and consider varying keyword usage throughout the site.”

In other words: Try to game the system–just don’t overdo it.

Over the past few months this column has focused on the importance of continuing to build your business — in good times and bad — by sticking with “offense” activities. One of the most important things you can do to stay positive and keep things moving in the right direction is to surround yourself with successful people, and there’s no better way to do that than to become part of an expert study group.

Regardless of your previous experience with study groups, there are a number of very good reasons for you to become part of one now. Consider, for example, the volatility of today’s markets, the changing needs of aging baby boomers and the wide diversity of newly available products and services. With so much to stay abreast of (let alone master), an expert study group can be invaluable in helping you to stay at the leading edge of creating and offering value to your clients.

Moreover, CEG Worldwide research and numerous anecdotal reports from advisors in our coaching programs confirm that highly successful advisors are more likely to be members of expert study groups than are advisors who are less successful.

Expert vs. Non-Expert
Having determined that you do in fact want to join an expert study group, your first and perhaps greatest challenge will be to find one. That is, while you might find a regular or non-expert study group, true expert study groups are not only much more desirable, they are much more difficult to locate. There are four key factors that set apart the true expert study group.

The first factor is the degree of structure that characterizes the group. You want to join a group that is highly structured, that creates and follows clear agendas, and that meets according to a regular schedule. Ideally, an expert study group will have 12 to 15 members — we recommend a minimum of eight — and will meet one to two days, three or four times a year. So, for example, look for a group that meets one day four times a year, or two days three times a year. Meetings should be determined a year in advance; that is, in the 2nd quarter of 2009 the group should be scheduling its meeting for the 2nd quarter of 2010.

Generally, meeting venues rotate through, with one member being responsible for providing an office conference room or setting up a hotel meeting room. Although meeting in a hotel incurs an additional cost, the advantage is that there will be no distractions or interruptions — none of the members will be running out of their conference room to handle emergencies — and meetings will be more focused and productive overall.

The second distinct characteristic is the use of interactive training methodologies. You want to join a group that uses an interactive educational approach, one that encourages or requires a high degree of membership participation. That is, you want a group that innovatively challenges and brings out the best both in yourself and in the other successful advisors you are surrounding yourself with.

Study Groups

Third, expert study groups regularly make use of outside presenters. Study groups that don’t bring in outside presenters are less likely to be successful because they require the members of the group to constantly develop new materials to be shared. As a result, these groups become inward-looking rather than outward-looking and fail to stay on the cutting edge. So look for a group that frequently retains outside experts to make presentations, share ideas, catalyze effective brainstorming and develop concrete action plans.

Finally, true expert study groups focus on best practices and building and growing outstanding business. In distinction, non-expert study groups frequently focus on products. Compared, then, to non-expert study groups, true expert study groups will generate more and better ideas and approaches, along with frequent sharing of success stories on how to build better businesses.

The Right Group
If at all possible, you’ll want to join an existing group rather than form your own. Importantly, don’t let geography limit you; that is, the group that you join does not have to be local to you. In fact, in most cases expert study groups work better when the members are not from the same geographic area. Geographic diversity lessens the possibility of competitive tension between members. When members are not concerned about competing for the same clients with someone who has a nearby office, they are more likely to share success stories and it’s easier to build greater group camaraderie.

Finding the right group will likely take some substantial time and effort. Ask successful advisors you admire if they belong to or know of any expert study groups. Check with professional associations to find a list of expert study groups and search the Internet for possible matches. When researching and evaluating potential groups, consider the following seven criteria.

First, you want a group that focuses on helping members build a world-class business, not one that focuses on specific products and other minutiae. Second, the group’s members should show a willingness to establish breakthrough goals, rather than incremental ones. For example, you don’t want a group where the typical member says he or she wants to increase revenue by a mere 10 percent. Third, you want a group whose members are motivated to change and grow.

Fourth, you want a group whose members are open-minded, forward-looking and entrepreneurial, not one whose members are resting on their laurels and preaching about their past successes. This open-mindedness should, for example, embrace learning from businesses that are not connected to the financial services industry. It’s far too easy to become myopic and think we can only benefit from best practices in our own industry, but nothing could be further from the truth. You want a group whose members think of themselves as entrepreneurs first, and as financial specialists second.

Fifth, you want a group whose members are willing to take risks, both in openly sharing and in implementing new ideas. Sixth, there should be a willingness among group members to help each other out and create genuine group cohesion. Lastly, there should be an inclination and ability to make clear commitments. When a group member commits to an agenda item such as developing materials, that member must really follow through. There must be a universal willingness to contribute and the ability to make clear commitments, follow through and deliver.

You may have to look long and hard to locate a group that satisfies these criteria. So when you do find the right group, do whatever it takes to beg, borrow or steal an invitation. And don’t be surprised if you are accepted at first as a “provisional” member who has to prove himself or herself. In fact, the group you join should have some hurdles. It’s kind of like the old Groucho Marx joke: You wouldn’t want to be in any expert study group that would immediately accept you as a member.

Undoubted Benefits
Why should you go through such great efforts first to find, then to join, such an exclusive expert study group? Simply put, it's very mentally and emotionally draining to be in our business, especially in markets like these. The natural tendency in such times might be to retrench, to look backward, and to try and consolidate, but that's exactly the opposite of what it will take to substantially improve your business and move it forward.

All of us need a place where we can re-energize and recreate ourselves in powerful and profitable ways. By finding and joining (or, if absolutely necessary, creating) the right expert study group, you will gain a group of supportive movers and shakers moving in the same direction that you are. Successful expert study groups provide the focus, the energy, mutual support, mentoring, new ideas and leading-edge opportunities that will enhance your future success.

Cheryl Holland, CFP, President of Abacus Planning Group in Columbia, S.C., lives by the mantra, “10,000 hours equals wisdom.” Finding staff with this much experience is tough, so Holland has transformed her practice into a mini-university. She has logged 10,000-plus hours in several positions.

Newly graduated from Bryn Mawr College with an economics degree, Holland began her career doing econometric research. Later, as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch, she heard that the future of financial planning was in the fee-only arena. The idea made sense to her, so she took a job as a legal secretary, cramming for her CFP at night.

Holland credits her years as a legal secretary for the insight she utilizes in managing her own practice, which she started in 1998. Though her firm has plenty of technical firepower, she believes her “soft skills”—managing, recruiting, educating, compensating—helped her build a practice with $520 million in assets in just over a decade.

PEOPLE SKILLS

Holland laments that the CFP course does little to prepare advisors to be anything but a sole practitioner or an expert in a technical silo. “Most advisors have little formal management training and either return to school for an executive MBA or stay solo and outsource to avoid headaches,” Holland says.

To beef up her own management skills, Holland partnered with Kathleen Bollerud, a leadership and organizational consultant. She finds Bollerud’s adage, “It’s the soft skills that are the hard skills,” to be prescient.

Bollerud works with Holland and her staff on issues ranging from delegation and running a meeting to change agility and critical feedback. “It’s not just about praising or criticizing, but about showing employees paths to improvement.”

Keeping with her 10,000-hour mantra, Holland created the Abacus Planning Group University every Monday at 1:00 p.m. Employees take turns teaching weekly seminars covering everything from using irrevocable life insurance trusts to making good first impressions.

CLIENTS AND FEES

Each of Holland’s 160 clients is teamed with a financial advisor and an investment advisor. New clients must have at least $5 million in investable assets, although Holland makes exceptions. For example, her newest client has over $40 million in privately held real estate, but only $200,000 in investable assets. This client proves Holland’s rule: “We lead with financial planning and follow with money management.” Clients seeking only asset management are referred elsewhere.

Abacus fees tend to follow this focus. The minimum financial planning fee for a client is $6,000 a year. However, the highest fee charged to date was $75,000 for a family. Fees reflect the complexity of a client’s financial situation and the number of meetings required to put a plan in place. Holland’s asset management fees are 60 basis points for the first $2 million; 50 bps for the next $2 million; and 40 bps for over $4 million.

REWARDING EMPLOYEES

Holland offers employees a competitive compensation package. Her goal is to be in the top quartile of compensation for years of service and job description, based on Moss Adams studies. She lifted the firm’s compensation philosophy directly from Mark Tibergien and Rebecca Pomering’s Practice Made Perfect: The Discipline of Business Management for Financial Advisers.

Abacus perks include a sabbatical month off for every five years of service and a 12.5% company contribution to the firm’s profit-sharing plan. Employees can also buy into the firm’s equity ownership and can participate in the firm’s incentive plan. Holland doesn’t want employees working more than 45 hours a week, and “even 45 is too much.” One secret to what she learned over the years: “I want my employees to have a life,” she says.

http://web2.ajaxprojects.com/web2/newsdetails.php?itemid=29

Introduction:

Web 2.0 is the next version of web sites, the world is going to change their websites to be more attractive, simple, usable, scalable, bright and sharable by designing it with web 2.0 standards. web 2.0 is not changing the web design concept  it’s also changing the web marketing concepts, programming concepts, and usability concepts.

To be able to imagine what is web 2.0 look at the following logos:

Web 1.0 Logos	Web 2.0 Logos

Now we are going to create our web 2.0 site, after reading this tutorial you will be able to design your web 2.0 logo, create web 2.0 site, make your site rich in contents, publish your site and distribute it.

Design Considerations:

Simplicity

web 2.0 design should be simple free of noise, with little contents, more images and large fonts. look at the following screenshots it will help you to imagine what is simplicity in design:

Centralized Contents

The contents of the page should be in the center of the page like the following samples, as you can see the contents are in the center of the page and the left and right space are filled with gradient background

Navigation

In web 2.0 the horizontal navigation is the most recommended style, the navigation should be in large fonts, and very clear.

Backgrounds

The backgrounds in web 2.0 have several forms, either to be gradient  colors or diagonal line pattern.

Diagonal Line Pattern	Gradient background

Use photoshop to make the gradient or diagonal line pattern, links : Gradient tutorial, Diagonal Line Pattern tutorial

Reflection

One of the web 2.0 standards is to make some reflection on your images. Look at the following screenshots

Reflection on white background	Reflection on solid color
Reflection on solid object

Use Photoshop to make reflected logos and shapes, links : Reflected logo tutorial
if you don’t know how to use Photoshop, use Web 2.0 Logo Generator

Round Corners

The new style in corners is to make the corners rounded, in contents boxes or in buttons

Round Corner Box	Round Corner button

Use Photoshop to make round corners, or use Round Corners Generator

Light box

Light box used to show large version of an image, warning message box, large map and many other applications.

Light box

Use Light Box Library to make this feature

Ajax

when we say web 2.0 we usually say Ajax with it, Ajax features will make your site more usable, attractive and fast. Don’t forget the Ajax indicator.

Use Ajax Load generator for the Ajax indicator, and use Ajax Beginners Tutorials to learn Ajax

Syndication

use RSS to syndicate your contents, also use the syndication icons in your site to make it easy for your visitor to feed your contents.

Have a look at Rss Section to know about the feeding services

Bookmarking

use digg, delicious and reddit icons in your site to make your visitors bookmark your site

Have a look at Bookmarking Section to know about the bookmarking services

Large Fonts

Use large and clear fonts in your web 2.0 design.

Use Web 2.0 Fonts to choose a good font for your logo

Bright Colors

Use bright (strong) colors in your web 2.0 design.

Color schemer will help you to choose your colors, and use the web 2.0 colors pallet to choose the colors

Introduce Your Service

it’s a good idea to put an introductory text about your service in the home page, put it in large text, bullets and support it with images and icons

Summary up the contents	Large text
Bullets and image	Latest Products

Web 2.0 star

You will find the web 2.0 star in most of the web 2.0 sites. usually used in numbering, new icon and beta icon.

Use web 2.0 star tutorial to make the web 2.o star

Beta version

most of the web 2.0 services are in beta version, don’t

Users contribution

Let your users contribute in your contents either by making comments section, wiki section, contents sharing.

Examples

• Wikipedia : wiki based
• Digg : contents sharing
• wordpress: comments sections and ratting

Get Some Videos

One of the best ways to make your site more attractive and rich is to embed some videos in it, you can check the video section to see the several web site that can help you to upload and embed videos.

I recommend YouTube because it’s the most rich one, and it includes many videos in all categories.

YouTube Sample video

Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives

I recently attended Schwab’s IMPACT conference here in my hometown of San Diego.  The three days offered a vast amount of information, but what most interested me was the marketing information. 

Here are my five favorite marketing lessons from IMPACT this year.  

Lesson #1: The more channels clients use to interact with their advisor, the higher their satisfaction with that advisor.

We all understand the importance of regularly communicating with clients throughout the year.  But this doesn’t necessarily require picking up the phone each month to check in with your clients.  According to Gabriel Garcia, Managing Director of Schwab Advisor Services, the more channels your clients use to interact with you, the higher their satisfaction level.  The different channels he mentioned include in-person meetings, phone calls, emails, newsletters, websites, direct mail, webinar, events, instant messages and social media. 

The Takeaway: Use multiple channels in your communication plan to more fully engage your clients.

Lesson #2:  100% of High Net Worth prospects ask their CPA for a referral to a financial advisor.

Alliance Bernstein conducted a study of 800 people with a minimum net worth of $25 million and found that 100% of respondents asked their CPA for a referral when searching for a financial advisor.  Now, obviously not every HNW individual will ask for a referral when looking for an advisor, but it does highlight the importance of developing new relationships with CPAs and nurturing your existing relationships for referrals.  

The Takeaway: Integrate a COI strategy into your marketing plan.

Lesson #3: Become better at “dating” your prospects.

Seth Godin, Marketing Guru and Best Selling Author, explained that acquiring a client is a lot like proposing marriage.  You wouldn’t go up to every man or woman in the bar and ask if they will marry you until someone says “yes.”  You want to get to know a person and evaluate whether or not they are a good fit.  Acquiring clients is a similar process.  You want to take the time to get to know or “date” your prospects before bringing them onboard as a client.  The result is a higher quality client relationship.   

The Takeaway: Develop a plan to cultivate your prospects.

Lesson #4: Web 2.0 helps with organic search engine optimization. 

John Stone, CEO of Revenue Architects, explained the importance of Web 2.0 (a.k.a. social media) for search engine optimization (SEO).  Organic search results are the best since they are free, longer lasting and provide more traffic than paid search results.  Many people believe that manipulating a website’s keywords, page titles and tags is all it takes to influence a site’s search engine visibility.  Stone pointed out that off-page SEO factors are a vital part of search engine optimization strategy.  Social media sites provide the opportunity to link back to your site to help with your off-page SEO strategy and, as a result, your page ranking.  Sites that can help with off-page SEO are social networking sites, blogs, directories, online press releases and discussion forums. 

Takeaway: Integrate social media tactics into your online marketing plan.     

Lesson #5: Tools are available to make it easier for social media to comply with SEC and FINRA rules.

Not all of the lessons learned came from the educational sessions – some came from the expo.  With social media being a hot topic among advisors, compliance is always a concern.  Smarsh now offers social media archiving that not only records activity but also red flags potentially harmful messages.  I hope the development of social media compliance products like Smarsh’s will lead to their wider acceptance by compliance departments.   

Takeaway: Work with your compliance department to create compliant solutions for innovative marketing campaigns.

These are the marketing lessons I found most intriguing at the conference, and all five reinforce the strategies I consistently advocate: Create a communication plan for your clients; Develop a strategy to create and nurture COI relationships; Have a plan for staying in touch with your prospects; Engage in social media marketing if appropriate; and Contact your compliance department before engaging in any marketing strategy.  Use these ideas as you develop your own marketing plan.

If you are interested in further information about the sessions I attended or others and the conference, session materials are available online here.  You can download the handouts for free or listen to the mp3s of the various sessions for a nominal fee.

So much of the literature on the subject of referrals focuses on the proper ways to network, ask for referrals, and create incentive programs for referral sources. While some of these more tactical things do indeed produce referrals for the organizations and salespeople that employ them, they are often little more than window dressing when it comes to the big picture.

Building a foundation that automatically generates referral momentum is not done through external actions – like some many things in life, you do it from the inside out. Plain and simple the most widely referred business are purely more referable.

I’ve studied a lot of businesses that easily generate referrals and they share some common internal tendencies as part of their brand and culture.

Make people look good

Looking at all business relationships with an eye on making prospects, customers, vendors, mentors, and staff look and feel good is a tremendously attractive internal quality. I read this quote recently and I think it works well here – “To a large degree, our success and happiness in life depends on how much people like themselves when they’re with us.” Joe Caruso

Ready to refer

We all know that giving referrals is one of the best ways to get referrals, but the difference lies in the systematic preparation. There is a big difference between understanding this philosophically and practicing proactively. Building your back pocket with a group of “best of class” providers takes work. You’ve got to discover, recruit, train and build the trust necessary to develop a proven network of providers who can help you add value to your client relationships, but once you do, the rest is pretty easy.

Keeps promises

The word trust is easy to use and even easier to lose. But, as Stephen M.R. Covey so correctly points out in his book, The Speed of Trust – trust is a hard currency and asset. Trust impacts how fast things are done and how much they cost. It is so much easier and less expensive to refer a business that keeps its promises.

Creates an experience

We will travel to the ends of the earth to be entertained or at least not bored to tears. The businesses we love to refer aren’t boring. They realize that it’s not just about the product and service they sell, it’s equally about the total experience – the marketing, the message, the people, the processes, the delivery are all carefully considered as props integral to a successful customer experience.

Educates, instead of selling

Nobody likes to refer a friend to a sales pitch, right? But, exposing a friend to information that might help them get more of what they want out of life, now that’s a different story. Even better when that information is packaged and presented in multiple locations, formats, and venues.

Adds value beyond price

In Bob Burg’s book the Go-Giver the main character, Joe, encounters the 5 laws of stratospheric success. The first law, the Law of Value states that your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment. This is a tough one for so many people because we often have no great baseline for the value we bring. The key here is to work tirelessly to understand, quantify and enhance the value our customer receives and the rest will take care of itself.

Does something talkable

My spell check isn’t balking at the word talkable, but I think it properly expresses this one. You’ve certainly encountered the concept of word of mouth constantly of late, but I think that concept tends to lean heavily on tactics and stunts, like viral videos, that might create a flurry of word of mouth. To do something talkable to me is to have something at the core of your business, a higher purpose, an inspirational story, a product or service that is simply brilliant, or a habit that makes people smile. Authenticity and consistency are what make something talkable.

Exceeds expectations

This one seems pretty easy, but why isn’t it. When someone buys a product, toss other stuff in the box, right? Maybe, but the only way to actually exceed expectations is to know what they are. And that’s where people fall down. In business and in life, it’s extremely difficult to exceed an expectation you have not participated in setting. Widely referred business work very hard to set the proper expectations and then it’s pretty simple matter to exceed them. So, you see exceeding expectations might also include understanding and attracting the right customers, laying exactly how you work to get results on the line, teaching customers what’s expected of them, and even saying no once and while.

Focus on even one of the internal mindsets and practices above and watch how much more referable you become.

I also created a public mindmap of this article and would love it if you would contribute your thoughts on the tactical elements of each of these principles listed above. You do have to sign-up for a free Mindmeister account to add your thoughts, but it’s a pretty cool tool anyway so you might like to play around with it. You can find the map here – http://www.mindmeister.com/23949165

Invest in People

Profitable Practice

Today’s number one priority for advisors is to have as many face-to-face and phone meetings with clients as possible.

Just talking to clients isn’t good enough, however. To get maximum return on your time, every conversation with clients has to achieve two goals.

First, conversations have to be seen by clients as advancing their needs and begin a good use of their time. My research with investors shows that one reason key clients are reluctant to attend meetings is because they are afraid of the “same old, same old” discussions, with little or no new information. Add in the hassle factor in many cities of fighting traffic and finding parking and it should be no surprise that clients become anxious about participating in meetings that do not convey value.

Second, conversations have to advance your agenda with clients, taking advantage of the best business opportunities with each client.

So how do you achieve these dual objectives, ensuring that meetings are a good use of times for both clients and advisors?

In conversations with investors and advisors, there’s one activity that has a high correlation with achieving both of these goals –the use of a written agenda.

Advisors who consistently use written agendas report that they make meetings more productive and help them stay on track.

Just slapping an agenda down in front of the client isn’t enough, though. To get full value, there are five key steps to creating that agenda.

Step One: Start with the end in mind

In “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” Stephen Covey talked about “starting with the end in mind” – looking at every activity in the context of the outcome that’s ultimately desired.

When it comes to crafting agendas, advisors need to start with the end in mind as well. Before calling a key client to set up a meeting, identify the one or two most significant business opportunities that are available to you with that client – and then identify a primary and secondary goal for that meeting to capitalize on them.

There are lots of possible objectives, including consolidating assets that a client holds with another advisor, getting cash off the sidelines, meeting a broader range of a client’s needs and building better relationships with your client’s spouse, kids, lawyers or accountants. Or your goal could simply be to deepen relationships with a key client in a difficult period.

Once you’ve identified your primary and secondary business goals – but before picking up the phone to propose the meeting – write down the specific issues you’re going to suggest covering in the meeting that will help you achieve these goals.

Step Two: Get client buy in to the agenda

The next step is to discuss the agenda with the client, so that they see this as their agenda rather than yours.

When the client has agreed to meet, you could say something like: “There are a number of issues I’d like to cover in our meeting. Before I talk about them, what are the questions and issues you’d like to talk about when we meet?”

When your client answers that question and before introducing your items, take a pause and then say: “What else would you like to discuss when we meet?” That way, you really are giving clients the opportunity to put all of their questions and issues on the table.

At the end of the conversation, you should have an agenda that reflects the issues that both you and your client want to cover. Email that agenda to your client as a follow up to your conversation – and consider emailing it again as a reminder in the days immediately before you meet.

Step Three: Deal with soft issues before hard issues

As a general rule, your agenda will focus on hard issues related to a client’s investment, tax or insurance situation or their financial plan.

It’s obviously important to deal with these. Very often, however, in order to get clients to focus on the hard issues, you have to deal with their soft issues first – these days, those often focus around their fears, anxieties and apprehensions.

Here’s one way to consider starting a meeting to get at a client’s soft issues:

“Here’s the agenda that we’re going to be covering today.

Before we get into this, however, some people report that last year’s markets caused them to lose some sleep. Tell me, how did you find yourself affected by last year’s markets?”

If the client responds that they lost some sleep and experienced some anxiety as well, resist the temptation to leap in with an immediate response. Instead, sit back and say the five words that, more than any others, will help clients talk further: “Tell me more about that.”

Asking this question in this fashion gives clients permission to talk about their own anxiety and opens the door to a discussion about how they really feel.

Some advisors use another tack to ensure they are dealing with all of their clients’ important issues.  They’ll put the agenda on the table at the beginning of the meeting, containing all of the items that were agreed to.  The only difference is that all of the items have been pushed down by own item.

The line beside the first item on the agenda is blank.

Having given the agenda to the client, they go on to say: “This is the agenda that we discussed on the phone, with one change. You’ll notice that the first item is blank. That’s just in case there’s something that’s come up since we spoke on the phone or an important question that you’d like to talk about today.

Tell me, what else would you like to discuss that’s not on the agenda right now?”

Advisors who do this report that quite often clients respond that all of their issues are on the agenda, in which case they move on to item two.

With surprising frequency, however, advisors say that when given the opportunity, clients raise issues that they didn’t talk about on the phone – and often it’s these issues that are the most important matters discussed during the meeting.

A variation on this comes from one advisor whose assistant books her meetings. Rather than getting into client issues when the appointment is set up, at the outset of the meeting she says: “I’ve prepared an agenda covering some important issues for discussion today.  However, you’ll notice the first three lines are blank – those are for you to fill in with anything you’d like to talk about. What would you like to talk about in those first three points?”

This advisor has found that starting this way gets clients to open up – in some cases, the whole meeting is focused on those first three points and they end up scheduling another time to deal with the rest of the agenda items.

Step Four: Practice the 50 – 50 rule

One of the most important steps to productive client meetings is consistent use of the 50 – 50 rule.

What’s the 50 – 50 rule, you may ask?

For every 50 words you say in a client meeting, your client should say at least 50. Research on this subject is absolutely definitive – clients are more likely to report that meetings are a good use of their time when they are the ones doing the talking.

If you don’t believe this, consider this simple fact. Over the years, I’ve talked to many investors who say that one of the things they like best about their advisor is that he or she is a “great listener.” I have yet to run into an investor who says that the reason they like their advisor is because he or she is a “great talker.”

The best way to get clients engaged and participating in a meeting is to be sure to ask lots of good questions.

And the best way to ensure you ask good questions?

Take five minutes before a meeting to go through the agenda and beside each point write down questions you’re going to ask. That alone makes your chances of having the 50 – 50 rule work go up dramatically.

One pitfall that some advisors run into is that they are too busy taking notes in meetings that they don’t focus on maintaining eye contact and observing the client’s body language. As a result, they don’t completely engage with the client.

A simple solution to this comes from a top performing advisor with a bank-owned firm. She has an assistant sit in on meetings and take notes, so that she can put 100% of her focus on the client interaction. Doing this eliminates worrying about remembering key points and lets you give clients your complete attention.

Step Five: Translate the agenda into client outcomes

At the end of the conversation, the agenda has helped guide you through the meeting.

At this point, take the time to verbally summarize what you’ve talked about and next steps from the meeting.

For larger clients with whom you’re meeting two or three times a year, you could also say something like “I found today’s meeting very productive and hope you did also. I’d like to suggest that we plan to meet again in three or four months. Tell me, what specific issues would you like to devote more time to at that meeting?”

In other cases, where advisors have multiple meetings scheduled with an important client over the course of a twelve month period, as part of the agenda for the first meeting of they year, they’ll lay out a roadmap of the issues that will be covered in each meeting.

You have one final opportunity to remind clients that the meeting was a good use of time. Most advisors systematically create meeting notes, summarizing what was discussed and outlining next steps arising from each meeting. Consider creating a “client friendly” version of this summary – and sending it along to clients as a reminder of the topics you covered and the value they obtained from taking the time to meet.

Take the time to build a systematic process around written agendas into your meeting planning routine. If you’re like most advisors, once you’ve tried this for a while, you’ll be pleasantly surprised about the positive impact this has on the value and productivity of client meetings.

* Dan Richards conducts programs to help advisors gain and retain clients and is an award winning faculty member in the MBA program at the University of Toronto. To see more of his written and video commentaries and to reach him, go to www.strategicimperatives.ca.