Leads. We’re all looking for them. We’re all asking about them. We’re all dying to know how to get them.
The reality is, driving more leads to your practice doesn’t have to be like pulling teeth. All you might need is to add a few new habits to your practice — or possibly brush up on processes you haven’t pulled out in a while.
Lucky for you, Impact Partnership excels in helping financial advisors design, install, and improve their lead-generating processes. We’ve compiled a few Impact resources to help you generate more leads, make the most of those you’re already working with, and turn your practice from a passive lead seeker into an active lead generator.
Client Referrals
Client referrals are a simple and reliable means to generate leads. They come from clients who already know you, prefer your services, and interact with prospects in the same cohort.
Adding referral networks and opportunities to your practice make generating those friendly leads that much easier.
Consider a client referral program – a club for clients who make a certain number of referrals in a given period. Benefits for program members incentivize memberships and create referrals. You could also host “Bring a Friend” referral events, parties for current clients to bring along a prospect. (A common invite qualifier: “Bring a friend who could use our services — they’ll be your ticket to the event!)
Initiatives like these bring clients and prospects together at your invitation. They also make it that much easier for your clients to pass your name onto the next promising lead.
Just be sure to consult your state’s rules and regulations regarding incentives and gifts before announcing it to your clients.
Local Networking
Many advisors don’t realize that they’re surrounded by deep referral networks already. If you take a look around your community, you’ll notice tons of businesses you may already know, have working relationships with, and that interact with the same clients you do.
Networking with your neighbors can open the doors to unique and fruitful collaborations. Imagine finding out that a tax accountant runs their business down the street from yours. Now you have a connection for your clients if they have tax questions you can’t answer. More importantly, if one of their clients needs help managing their money, you’re right there as the accountant’s financial contact. Lead generated!
Impact has often stressed the importance of having your name and face known throughout the community you serve. Local networking serves as the business side of this strategy, as a friendly and trusting group of other local business owners and service providers can make you even more of a known staple for potential future clients wanting a familiar face to turn to for financial guidance.
Client Advisory Boards
The client advisory board, or CAB, is an underutilized but powerful means to drive leads. It consists of a group or committee of some number of your clients who can lend a different perspective into practice decisions, make suggestions based on what they, as clients, find appropriate, and serve as an external sounding board for new ideas.
Since you want to be an attractive option for leads, creating and convening a CAB can show you what current clients like about your practice. It can also give you direction on where to improve the client experience, directly from the client’s viewpoint. When you become the kind of practice clients want to see, you’ll find that leads become both easier to come by and more receptive to your practice.
Drip Campaigns
The search for solid leads doesn’t end at the seminar stage. A plan to introduce yourself to and follow-up with attendees is also a plan to maintain and generate leads who are interested in what you have to say.
A drip campaign — that is, an automated series of emails that goes out to clients and prospects — lets recipients know about upcoming events and seminars you’re hosting. Simple details like time, location, and seminar content help leads clear low hurdles to showing up, while scheduled emails after your event make sure leads remember what you said, how you help, and where to find you.
Without a campaign, these efforts take up valuable time and effort from you and your staff. Coordinating these efforts as part of a drip campaign keeps leads in your orbit, keeps your name in the minds of prospects, and keeps all that data available to chart, monitor, and improve over time.
Any one of these resources can help you generate more leads for your practice. But there’s no need to limit yourself to just four. Keep digging into all that Impact offers to build your business better!
