Today, we dive into your 3 step lead generation strategy to grow your funnel and bottom line results.
One of the most common challenges that service-based professionals and advisors share is generating enough qualified, ideal leads. They struggle in attracting enough qualified prospects, resulting in not enough clients or income. The great news— when you take the time to create a lead generation strategy, it becomes fun and easy! The secret lies in creating a plan, strategy, and process to make it a reality. Here are the three steps:
Step #1: Define Your Ideal Client
One of the most important aspects of any business is defining who you serve. Successful consultants and financial advisors focus on one or two niche markets while lower-level producers try to work with everyone.
As a result, lower end producers end up struggling to work with anyone. When you know who you serve, creating a client acquisition machine is easy. It is easy because you can ask them what they want, how they want it, and then deliver it. This allows you to attract your ideal prospect and get warm introductions.
An easy way to define your niche market is to create an Excel worksheet of your existing clients. Rank your clients from favorite to least favorite. Then list where they work or worked (if they are retired). Find out their favorite hobbies and what groups they belong to.” As you create the spreadsheet, make note of the commonalities that surface.
If you only have a few ideal clients, include contacts or friends you would love to replicate as clients.
#2: Ask Key Questions
After you identify your ideal client, you need to confirm that they are indeed the best option.
The best people to ask are interviewees (which are prospects that may never become your client), clients (new and existing), and referral partners (centers of influence and reciprocal referral partners).
Do they have a need for your services?
What topics do they want to access?
What are their biggest challenges?
How do they make decisions?
And, most importantly, do you really want to work with this niche market?
Find out if ideal client is a good fit before you invest a lot of time and money marketing and attracting them. Get out there and ask everyone associated with your niche market what you need to know to validate that this target market is a good fit for you.
#3: Choose Your Strategy
The reason most advisors don’t have enough prospects in their funnel is because they do not have a plan that produces a flow of qualified leads. To create one, first identify your baseline (what you are currently doing that is attracting new clients). Then, you want to add warm prospecting strategies to your baseline that can be easily implemented and don’t add considerable time or other resources to what you are already doing.
Some great client attraction strategies include feeder workshops, website captures, and relationship marketing. We have had increases in revenue of 30-150% from relationship marketing. The secret is to balance technical information with heartfelt connections. The heartfelt connections should not be about business. These connections are for the sole purpose of deepening your connection and relationship with your ideal prospects and existing clients.
If you want more ideal, profitable clients, join me on our masterclass: