sales & marketing Archives

The Essential Soft Skills Needed To Influence

by Tony Vidler To influence others requires softs skills rather than hard core sales skills and techniques. The financial adviser is supposed to be an influencer…our role is to influence others to make better decisions than they would otherwise have made. In order to become a more effective adviser the ongoing development of the […]

Lost Sales Skills: How to “get down to business” without drama

by Tony Vidler The advice industry has lost a lot of sales skills, and it needs them. If we are to help consumers make better decisions and change behaviour then we have to be able to help convince them to change. The first tension point for today’s professionals is how to transition from the […]

Try giving clients the Red Carpet treatment

by Tony Vidler What is more effective: running a client seminar with 100 guests, or running 5 “red carpet” client events of only a dozen or so at a time? Research suggests that the best financial advisers tend to run smaller and more intimate client appreciation events, and do them regularly. The best advisers […]

To Improve Lead Conversion You Need 2 Speeds

by Tony Vidler Every lead is gold, and ideally every lead would result in conversion to a client. The conversion rate really is often the difference between getting a good return on your prospecting and marketing efforts, or perhaps getting no return at all. The short cut to better conversion is often […]

Innovation, not originality, is the key to better business.

by Tony Vidler Everyone wants to grow their business, and everyone is looking for new ideas to do it. But nearly everyone wants the magical original idea that nobody else has ever thought of before, that will guarantee results quickly. Innovation is by definition original, but originality is not necessarily the same as […]

Get enthusiastic if you want clients to engage you

by Tony Vidler Here’s a simple thing to do if you want to have more clients engage you: Get enthusiastic about it. Professional advisers have become dreadfully serious people with the focus on process and technical knowledge. Not surprisingly the work for many has become more of a drag and the whole process […]

When Your Sales Numbers Suck…

by Tony Vidler Sometimes the best thing an adviser can do is admit to themselves that their sales numbers just suck. It’s the age-old “you can’t improve something until you admit that there is something wrong with it“. The reason for pointing out the obvious here is that there are plenty of […]

The Path To Becoming An Authority

by Tony Vidler Becoming an authority is the thing that almost certainly guarantees you will continue to get enough business to have a decent livelihood, if not an outstandingly successful career. It is one of the key principles of influence identified by Cialdini, and for many in professional services it is a career […]

The Professional’s Branding Challenge: how to look different while blending in (& why it matters)

by Tony Vidler When it comes to creating a personal brand as a professional, the irony is we have to look different – while blending in and looking the same. One cannot afford to look any less professional than your peers or competitors. So to a large degree degree there is a market expectation […]

Prospecting Today: It is a process, not a thing

by Tony Vidler Prospecting today is a continual process, not a series of one off actions as it once was. Eons ago when financial advisory work was essentially just a continual series of product sales the prospecting required to be successful was repetitive and continual, but each prospecting call was a one-time […]

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