Seminars & Workshops: A Declining Model
Running seminars and workshops is becoming a costly and exhausting way to acquire new high net worth clients, according to many advisors I speak with.
If you’ve noticed a drop-off in recent years of registrations, show ups, agreeing to meet with you, not turning up, and of those not committing to a paid client relationship… you’re not alone.
One reason the model is declining is because it contains a multi-step sales process.
If you look at the process as a series of links in a chain, there are at least six potential points where the chain can break.
Even if the prospect gets all the way to the final meeting, the sale can still fall over (and it often does).
There’s a lot of time, effort and money invested on your part, not to have 100% confidence in a high conversion rate.
This multi-step approach to selling is a lot less effective as it used to be.
There’s simply less and less prospects willing to invest their precious time out of their busy schedules, to stay with your process for that long.
Especially if it involves physically attending meetings.
With a multi-step processed like the seminar model, any chance where momentum can be lost, will be lost.
And if you lose momentum, you lose the sale.
The second reason seminars are losing their effectiveness, is because information has been commoditized.
Only a few years ago there were less channels, fewer voices, and less noise.
People listened to and trusted in both the information and the person providing it.
But now, our culture has permanently shifted.
There’s so much information available and it’s so fragmented, people often don’t trust the source.
You delivering the same information to them in a live environment, doesn’t exponentially expand it’s trust worthiness, primarily because they don’t have a relationship with you before you deliver it.
Merely informing or educating your prospects is no longer enough to onboard them as a new paying client.
(Of course, if workshops are still bringing you new clients, then by all means keep doing them. Just don’t be surprised if you see an upward trend of cost invested and a lower trend of those converting to a new client).
Look at your numbers, they will tell the story.
Rather than educating prospects through workshops, online posts, or any kind of marketing t focusing on presenting education/solutions, consider shifting to a trust-based problem-centric approach.
Solution-based marketing encourages indecision, triggering: “I want to think about it”.
Problem-based marketing emphasizes the need to take action on the problem, not think about the solution.
Read that line again and let it digest for a few minutes.
Think about other professions like law or medicine.
They don’t run workshops to get new business.
Their intake process is a problem-diagnosis session (not a discovery meeting), a single appointment, where they clarify their client’s or patient’s problem and explain its immediate consequences.
The advantages with this approach are:
1.) There are no multiple steps where momentum can be lost
2.) It encourages action by emphasizing immediate consequences, instead of encouraging indecision by presenting future benefits
3.) It gives your prospect clarity, instead of information to process
4.) It’s fast
5.) It’s cost effective
6.) Often, the client or patient commits at the very first meeting
If you switch to a process that works more like a doctor’s appointment, you can collapse the typical workshop model that can span weeks, or even months, down to one single conversation.
This allows you to quickly determine whether the sale will happen or not — which is key to being able to target your ideal clients effectively, and in turn, grow your monthly intake of new paid client relationships.
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Meet The Author
Ari Galper is the world’s number one authority on trust-based selling and is one the most sought-after sales conversion experts for Financial Advisors.
He is the creator of Unlock The Game®, a completely new revolutionary sales approach that overturns the notion of selling as we know it today.
Ari has been featured in CEO Magazine, SkyNews, Forbes, INC Magazine and Financial Advisor Magazine – and has been a featured speaker at the Financial Planning Association’s national conference.
His newest book, “Trusted Authority”, has become an instant best-seller among Financial Advisors worldwide.
With clients in over 35 countries, his global sales systems have become the most successful Trust-Based Selling systems of our time.
In a day and age where technology rules the selling world, for many growth-oriented advisors, deep trust has taken a “back seat” to the sales process.
Ari’s personal insights on how to build trust between buyers and sellers continue to break new ground in the financial services industry.
Ari has been on a mission for the last two decades to change the financial services world through trust.
Through his sold-out talks all over the world and his in-house trainings for high-producing advisors, Ari has become the global ambassador to businesses all over the world.
He regularly connects with global business icons and leaders of industries seeking his counsel on how to infuse trust in their organisations and across their teams.
Ari is a true “disruptor” in the financial services industry. He has been endorsed by legendary sales mentors like Brian Tracy who said: “Ari Galper’s trust-based selling approach is the greatest sales breakthrough in the last 20 years”.
Ari’s sales growth consulting firm has a growing waiting list of financial advisors wanting access to his unique Trusted Authority lead generation models and sales conversion strategy advice.
Ari is also the author of “Lessons From Toby”, a special book about his son Toby who has Down’s Syndrome, who has made a major impact on Ari’s approach to teaching authenticity and trust in his Trust-Based Selling approach.