Why Financial Planners and Mortgage Brokers Need to Wake Up and Dream

FINANCIAL PLANNERS and MORTGAGE BROKERS... WAKE UP AND DREAM

'Wake up kids

 you got the dreamers disease..'

- The New Radicals. You Get What You Give

TOO BUSY DOING THE WRONG THINGS

Financial Planners and Mortgage Brokers are in the business of making clients dreams a reality but most are too busy doing the wrong things.

It's time to wake up.

Some planners and brokers think its more about making their own dreams a reality rather than the clients.

Others are too busy doing paperwork, reviews and plans.

Others are so hooked up on compliance the client becomes a distraction who gets in the way of the 'real work' (read paperwork).

WHATS YOUR PLAN?

You may have seen the TV ad where the 50 year old prospect asks the financial planner 'Do you have a plan for the future?' and the 35 year old planner says 'Oh sure, I plan to be retired well before I'm 50. Oh yeah, I've got a plan..' 

The younger planner is so out of touch with their clients needs, goals and dreams that they start talking about their own plan rather than the customers plan. He's far more focussed on his own dreams plan rather than the clients.

 Now you know you're not like this, but some of your colleagues probably are. And it's not their fault because that's the way the industry has been structured.

THE ONE DEAL DISEASE

 The biggest enemy to most Financial Planners and Mortgage Brokers is the 'one deal disease.'

 This is a dangerous disease. It can be fatal. It's a killer.

 It's a killer because it leads to long hours, overwork, overstress and an under performing financial planner and their support team (if you have one).

 The 'one deal disease' is a mindset that lies below the conscious level of many planners thinking.

 It is a subconscious paradigm that guides them to chase one transaction rather than a bundle of transactions.

 Chasing a super fund rather than a complete financial plan based on a thorough needs analysis feeds the short term need of making a sale but undermines the possibility of building strong, healthy business.

 NEEDS ANALYSIS OR DREAMS ANALYSIS?

 Most Planners and Brokers are using the Needs Analysis/ Discovery Document prepared by the FPA to ensure compliance as if it is actually a script or sales process. But this document in my opinion is the very bare minimum. It does not tap in on the dreams, goals and motivations of your prospective client to the extent it should.

It certainly doesn't follow our Blue Rocket Selling System - the Orange Zone of Relate, Relax and Rapport followed by the Blue Zone of Needs Discovery and Disturb, followed by the Red Zone of Present the Solution then the Green Zone of Close the Sale...

You need to connect emotionally before you bother too much about connecting technically and logically.

You need to be asking questions like:

1. What are your goals and dreams for the next 10, 20 ,30 years?

2. What are your hobbies?

3. What do you want to plan for your family?

4. What are your travel goals and dreams?

5. What kind of lifestyle do you want to pursue? Paint me a picture of it?

6. What are some of your health goals?

7. What are some of your work goals?

8. What things do you want to produce (books, videos, model cars, kit homes) over the next 5 to 10 years?

 DREAM PROFILE

 Sure you might touch on these questions in your discussions. What I'm suggesting is you need to spend 1-2 hours just on these questions.

You need to get inside the hearts and minds of your prospective client.

 Don't bother asking what is their 'risk profile' until you truly understand their 'dream profile.'

 WHY YOU WORK TOO HARD

 Because you don't get right down to the 'dream profile' and real buying needs: 

1. You follow a very similar process to your competition so there is very little differentiation between one planner and the next.

2. You don't truly discover the emotional drivers of the prospects buying decision so you have to work very hard to get the business

3. You don't systematically discover all the opportunities present for you to capitalise on (and in turn take the complete financial problem off your clients hands) so if you do get the sale, in many cases you leave money on the table

4. You spend more time on the technical detail of the investments rather than what the investments can do to help the client realise their goals and dreams.

 Most planners and brokers are working too hard because they're leaving money on the table at the end of their 'deal.'

Most who have the one deal mindset don't even know they've got it because they're too busy to stop and analyse the insanity of the way they operate.

 Most planners and brokers are too busy seeing prospects and clients, preparing plans, preparing reviews etc etc etc to think about an alternative way of doing the business.

Wake up kids.... Get the dreamers disease...

Get people in touch with their dreams, and you will make your dreams a reality much faster.

Dreaming is good for business..