A New Mindset To Acquire High-Net Worth Clients

I am at odds with the traditional sales process used by the advisory industry.

The discovery meeting, waiting for the prospect to send or upload their financial documents, creating a free financial plan, then having another review meeting — is long and complicated process — and assumes everyone will make it to the final last paid step.

There are a number of reasons why this traditional model is becoming outdated.

One is that high net-worth ideal clients, don’t assign economic value to things that are given away for free.

When your sales process is all about giving free value (your time, your effort, and your knowledge in the form of free financial planning), then it’s hard for your prospect to see the benefit of committing, with a 100% certainty, to a paid relationship with you.

There’s an even deeper reason why the typical advisory sales process is losing it’s effectiveness, it’s to do with two mismatched definitions of value.

On the one hand, there’s you the advisor, wanting to wield your knowledge and expertise.

On the other hand, there’s your prospect, burdened with a problem they’re not equipped to solve and wondering if your agenda is simply to win them as a paid client.

From your perspective as an advisor, knowing how to solve their problem is valuable to you because you’re the one who ultimately has to solve it. And you think that if you can bring them to the same clarity about the solution that you have, then they’ll happily come on board as a paying client.

But solution-based clarity is not initially what they are looking for from you.

How their problem can be solved is irrelevant and probably even a roadblock to what they’re trying to ascertain about you, which is whether or not you’re the advisor they can trust.

What they want is trust-based clarity, about their problem, not solution-based clarity.

Helping you understand this fundamental psychological difference between you and your prospects, is the turning point that transforms your sales process from one that’s long, tiresome, and ultimately devaluing and demoralizing – to one that consistently brings in more high net-worth clients, in less time and with less effort.

But the only way to do this, is to create a process that goes against the engrained industry norms you’re accustomed to, and have probably become comfortable with.

Instead of a discovery meeting, it should be a problem “x-ray” diagnosis meeting (like a doctor’s consultation), where the medicine is both prescribed and administered after you’re paid, not before.

Instead of providing solutions and free financial planning, you need to show them a “road map” – a simple visual tool that helps them understand your process and what they’re paying for, if they were to commit to a paid client relationship with you.

This simple, problem-centric, prospect mindset-oriented approach to the sale, is the key to building the trust-based clarity your potential clients are looking for from you.

If you are open to shifting your mindset along this way of thinking, you will often find you can onboard a new paying client, in just one initial meeting.

Does that sound too good to be true?

If you put yourself in your prospect’s shoes and approach the process from their perspective, then it can become your reality.

To get some help on how to get more high-net-worth clients using the above model, then order your complimentary book below and consultation.