by Matthew Asser, The Covenant Group

I recently pulled up an old New York Times blog postwrit­ten by Tom Szaky, the CEO of recy­cling spe­cial­ist Ter­ra­Cy­cle. His words about sales res­onated with me, and I drew a lot par­al­lels to what we do here.

“Sales is not about what you are sell­ing, but about mak­ing friends and about get­ting some­one to see the world the way you do,” he writes. “If you do that, every­thing else will take care of itself.”

Through our finan­cial advi­sor train­ing at The Covenant Group, we teach a sim­i­lar mes­sage. As entre­pre­neurs, advi­sors must real­ize that they are not sim­ply mak­ing another sale. They are lay­ing the foun­da­tion for a long-lasting client-advisor rela­tion­ship, which they must then be con­tin­u­ously man­aged and devel­oped by offer­ing value-added ser­vice and build­ing trust.

What do you do to estab­lish a friendly rap­port with prospects and develop that into mean­ing­ful friend­ships and busi­ness part­ner­ships once those peo­ple become clients? How do you express the fact that as a trusted advi­sor, you care not only about their finances, but about their per­sonal well-being?

Mak­ing some­one see the world from your per­spec­tive may require a change in approach. In The 8 Best Prac­tices of High-Performing Sales­peo­ple, Norm Trainor details how advi­sors can sway resis­tant prospects in a sales meeting.

If, in your research and your con­ver­sa­tions with the prospect, you uncover a busi­ness prob­lem for which you are offer­ing a solu­tion, you will need to show them why it needs to be addressed. Take the time to go over this with them, bring it to the front of their minds and estab­lish the fact that you both agree what the prob­lem is. Then, start the move toward your per­spec­tive — demon­strate how this seem­ing chal­lenge can actu­ally be turned into an opportunity.

Estab­lish the prospect’s con­fi­dence in your busi­ness and your abil­i­ties by men­tion­ing exist­ing clients’ deci­sion to buy. Lay out the actions that the per­son can take, as well as the con­se­quences of doing nothing.

A key part of this approach is the use of the word “we.” Do not dis­cuss the issue as some­thing you have a solu­tion to. Rather, frame it as a course of action that the two of you will be embark­ing upon together. As Norm says, this reaf­firms the fact that you are both on the same side.

Matthew Asser has spent the last few decades gain­ing exper­tise in how finan­cial ser­vices firms can opti­mize their oper­a­tions, mar­ket­ing, new prod­ucts, busi­ness devel­op­ment and client rela­tion­ship man­age­ment prac­tices. He’s well-versed in the chal­lenges that an entre­pre­neur may strug­gle with, and as a Senior Coach and Facil­i­ta­tor, helps clients achieve busi­ness change through The Covenant Group’s exten­sive finan­cial advi­sor train­ing programs.

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Norm Trainor is the Founder and CEO of The Covenant Group, a company that specializes in educating and coaching financial advisors and entrepreneurs and providing them with business tools to enhance their performance. He can be reached at norm@covenantgroup.com or 1-877-903-3878 X333. Read more from the author/contributor here.

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