professional sales process Archives

Deal or No Deal? Advice is really that simple at the beginning.

by Tony Vidler One of the greatest challenges for professionals working with complex ideas and products is to keep conversations and explanations as simple as possible, without being patronising to the client or skipping the detail that compliance demands. After all, it takes great skill and careful through to be able to simplify complex […]

I sell…You sell…We ALL sell. Or should do…

by Tony Vidler I am a professional. I am a salesman. These two things are not contradictory. I sell stuff. It seems like I’m selling my time these days…sometimes a product….sometimes it is just selling concepts and possibilities. But I sell. And I think I am a professional too. Why do we […]

Professional Selling: It is a real thing!

by Tony Vidler Professional and selling are apparently 2 words which according to many just don’t go together these days…except they really do. I’ll go further in fact and say that professionals MUST be selling, but, selling must be professional. While there is an absolute requirement to place the clients interests above all […]

How to create engaging conversations

by Tony Vidler Creating engaging conversations with people you don’t know well, or who feel they don’t know you well enough, is difficult. It can be even more difficult when they are guarded…thinking maybe that you are just there to sell them something. You can engage even the most guarded and difficult prospects […]

If you have repeated problems, you need a process!

by Tony Vidler For financial advisory firms the word “process” has become synonymous with “best practice advice”, but good process is so much more than just a compliant and well-documented series of advice documents. Process is what builds franchise businesses. Process is what creates turnkey operations that are highly valued by prospective purchasers. […]

Brainstorming for fact finding financial advice

How to challenge a clients thinking without actually getting into a challenge

by Tony Vidler Perhaps the toughest task any adviser faces is challenging a clients’ own thinking, but without getting into a confrontation. Most of us find ourselves occasionally dealing with a client who already thinks they know the answers – they haven’t come to us for advice, they have come to us for validation […]

Slow down to get better results

by Tony Vidler To get better results one usually has to change something, and sometimes it strangely enough better results can be achieved from doing something which seems counter-intuitive: Slow Down. Anyone who has played a lot of sport knows that when things get disjointed and are not quite working seamlessly, the trick is […]

Use Visuals To “Pre-Sell” Bad News

by Tony Vidler Disclaimers and fine print don’t ever really help in selling, and visuals or graphics nearly always do. Nowhere is this more true than when you want to manage client expectations and “pre-sell” what is likely to happen in the future so that everyone avoids nasty surprises…or…so that everyone recognises opportunities! […]

Why do people buy anything?

by Tony Vidler When it comes to advising clients to change course or do something new we should remember the reasons why people buy anything, including “advice”. If we want our advice to be effective (and lead the client to do something better than they are currently doing) then it is best to make […]

Written Advice: Should it be Clear? or Concise? Or Effective?

by Tony Vidler When it comes to communicating our advice to clients we are guided by the words used by the regulators, or law, to guide us in how that should be framed or delivered. Or we think we do. The written advice, be it financial plans or Statements Of Advice being […]

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