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Formulas for Success: What Are You Known For?
As competition for new business heats up, how will prospects notice you?
On a recent trip to Dubai to visit with Pershing clients, I took time to explore the souks in search of gifts to bring home. Amid the specialized bazaars for gold, spices, and perfumes, vendors also peddled pashminas, rugs, and silver. Three things struck me as I stopped at each little shop:
How much each stores offering looked like the others;
How quickly they were willing to negotiate price;
How likely they were to position their products as superior without any verification of the claim.
Many financial professionals do the same thing. As one advisor wrote to me, “Its clear that using comprehensive wealth management or fee pricing is not unique any more as advisors of many stripes can claim some variation of this. Even the advantage of fiduciary may be eliminated by Congress. What can we do to differentiate our firm from the rest of the market?”
Muddled
Muddled Messages
Clearly financial services organizations face challenges in staking out a position that sounds substantially different to prospective clients. Lets take a look at the public positioning of a few examples as of early March 2010. The Web site of Charles Schwab & Co. tells prospective clients to get advice from Schwab because of a “fact-based disciplined approach, time-tested investing principles, personalized to your situation and goals, premium advice without premium price.”
Merrill Lynch, the largest traditional stock brokerage firm, says clients should rely on their financial advisors because of “a one-to-one relationship based on trust, financial advice tailored to your needs, world class research and insights and the resources of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch.”
One of the countrys largest banks, JPMorgan Chase, says: “J.P. Morgan offers individual and family investors a world-class asset and wealth management platform through our Private Bank, Asset Management and Private Wealth Management teams…We foster long-term client relationships by offering tailored solutions designed to help individual investors and families achieve their unique financial goals.”
On the Web sites of some of the countrys leading independent RIAs, the language goes something like this: “Everything we do is driven by our clients financial objectives. We deliver personal wealth strategies and investment management programs tailored to achieve each clients individual goals.”
We could continue the comparison by looking at mutual fund companies, insurance companies that offer financial planning, trust companies and virtually every independent financial advisory firm.
Using a Gimlet Eye
Discount brokers, warehouse reps, banks, and independent advisors have different ways of capturing an economic benefit for themselves while leveraging their unique strengths. Some price by transaction and others by fees, but beyond this, one must parse their messaging with a critical eye.
Notice subtleties like Schwabs emphasis on discounted prices, JP Morgans breadth of service, and Merrill Lynchs research and insight. Even as the independent advisor tries to come across as more customized and individually focused, the others convey the same message of being sensitive to the individual clients objectives, using disciplined and proven approaches, having relevant experience, and linking everything together. So what are you really known for? Are experience, credentials, ethics, and a disciplined approach true differentiators, or merely a minimum threshold for being in the business of financial advice?
Some independent advisors reading this are probably beginning to feel their blood pressure rise over the comparisons above, but the point is that the message is muddled. The language used on Web sites is repeated in collateral material and in conversations with prospects. Prospects and clients find it difficult to discern a difference. When attempting to appeal to new clients, every advisory firm must answer three key questions:
What do you do? Whom do you serve? What makes you unique?
The Flaw of the Negative
But differentiating does not mean denigrating. It has become common practice in the advisory business to characterize ones competitors as less competent, less thorough, and not operating in the best interest of the end client. When the souk merchants used this tactic with me, I began to wonder if anyone in the entire souk was a credible source for the items I was seeking. In spite of their efforts to position themselves as superior, they diminished that perception by giving me a discount to induce a transactionbefore I even showed a solid interest in their product!
That is not to say that comparisons with others in your industry are not appropriate. If you can demonstrate qualities like stability in retaining clients and staff, history of the firm, performance, client satisfactions, and other indicators of superiority, then by all means do so. But the comparisons should be translated into a desired outcome or benefit to the client, not just used as a means of trashing your opponent.
When advisors claim that their credentials, approach, and ethics are superior to all others without any validation or verification, clients wonder who they can trust. An extraordinarily common response for advisors when asked about their competition is, “I dont have any.” Aside from stretching credulity, this positioning also demonstrates a lack of awareness of the broader marketplace for investment management, financial planning, or risk management solutions. If there was only one credible, ethical, and talented advisor for the entire market, then why doesnt that one advisor have all the clients?
Businesses that focus on criticizing their competitors are not doing anything to compel prospects to do business with them. Your positioning should not be about what you are not, but who you are and why that will be of benefit to the client.
The challenge is how to elevate your own brand without tearing down somebody elses? When you “go negative,” how does it reflect on your ethics and professionalism? How does it demonstrate that you are, in fact, superior?
A Strategic Differentiator
Your strategic differentiator is not found in marketing alone. So what does make you unique? Your business decisions in delivering a consistent client experience from the moment a prospect is identified to the delivery of your recommendations and the execution of individual plans. Different types of clients with separate needs and diverse backgrounds will value you in very different ways.
For example, the trustees of a 401(k) plan have different expectations than a high-net-worth retiree in terms of how you report, relate, and respond to them. Lottery winners view their planning and investment needs differently than business owners. Widows and divorcees have a wholly different perspective than that of a young high-tech worker. Its obvious that our communities are filled with diverse opportunities, but the successful positioning of your firm is not always easy. You cannot connect directly with each segment when your language sounds generic.
To be effective at creating a strategic differentiator, the market must eventually recognize you for something. That something could be your firm’s low cost, or an advisor with expertise in a niche, or technical superiority in some area such as long-term care, concentrated stock positions, or retirement planning. You could be regarded as an innovator or for having the best trained and educated professional team in your market. Ask your current clients: When they describe you and your firm to one of their friends or a center of influence, how do they position you beyond the fact that you are trustworthy?
Think about how to define your optimal client, not in terms of net worth or investable assets but in terms of characteristics like life cycle stage, location, personal interests, occupation, critical needs, psychology, and behavior. Then create a differentiating message that causes them to believe you built your advice business just for them.
I have found an online Search Businesses forum discussion which is really useful. Search Businesses to learn something new.
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Email Marketing Solution That Delivers Results
By Garrett36 Pierson36
The number of companies using email marketing to increase their profitability rate is rapidly increasing. This is because they have benefitted from the powerful solution that email marketing brings to their business. You can also benefit from an email marketing solution that delivers results.
Here are some useful and practical tips that will enable you to use the powerful email marketing solution to your most benefit:
- You must know how to value and respect your customers’ time and privacy. You must understand that not all customers may want to receive emails. Perhaps this is because they lack the necessary time to access and read their emails. Maybe their emails are flooded with spam and they do not want another statistics on their inbox.
This is why it is very important if not necessary to ask the permission and consent of your customers before sending those emails. You must make your customers realize that you will not flood them with spam mails and that what they will get from you are emails that will benefit them.
You must also show your customers how they can add you to their legitimate email senders so as not to contribute to their spam statistics. When customers realize the relevance of your emails, you can certainly get their consent easily.
- Your email should only include relevant content. If you respect your customer, you should ensure that their precious time is put to good use with your emails. This will also encourage your customers to look forward to your succeeding emails. Keep your content short and relevant.
- If your emails include links or images, make sure that they are working and viewable. The greatest disappointment a customer can get from an email is to click on a link that is broken or view an image that is distorted or un-viewable. You have already succeeded in building up your customers desire to click on the link or view the image, do not waste this opportunity.
- Send emails to get action, and make this action easy and a pleasant experience for your customers. You have a great content that attracts your reader to do as you please, but does your email show how easy it is to act on it? With every email that you send to your customers, ensure that you are also making it easy for them to respond or act on your purpose.
There is so much more that you can do with email marketing to up your business. The right solution guarantees that your email marketing campaign produces positive results such as increase in business profitability, increase in the number of loyal customers, strengthened relationship with your customers, as well as building goodwill to your customer base.
The right email marketing solution will enable you to track monitor your progress in real time so that you can address the concerns immediately and promptly. The solution should be able to empower you to reap the benefits of email marketing not only in terms of increasing your revenue but also in terms of building your relationship with your customers - old and new.
Victor Green is an Account Executive at EliteEmail.com, the award winning email marketing service used by companies to who need the top email marketing solution. Charities can also take advantage of nonproft email marketing. Try it free today!
Is all this bullying stuff just a lot of bull…?
By britto
Recent accusations of bullying and uncivil behaviour on Prime Minister Gordon Brown has cast a long shadow on 10, Downing street, these accusations portray Mr Brown as a screaming, hostile and intimidating person who flings missiles, shoves people around and swears at his staff members when he is in a foul mood, a state of mind not uncommon with him. While one can empathise that the pain of having to cope with a war shattered economy, terrorism and rising unemployment can drive any leader to the end of his wits and make the Prime Minister’s hat the proverbial crown of thorns it still is no license for such uncivil behaviour.
10, Downing Street had long ceased to be the place whose sneeze could make the world catch a cold, a highly pro US stand on just about every issue by successive governments and a high degree of leaning on the US had given British PM’s a pet poodle of the US image in the eyes of the world. Such uncivil behaviour by a prime minister only worsens Britain’s already sagging image in the world’s eye and makes a mockery of established, time honoured and what the world at large perceives as typically British norms of public conduct and demeanour.
The allegations or expose however raise some doubts on the veracity of the whole episode, why did staffers at the Prime Minister’s office resort to washing dirty linen in public by taking such a sensitive issue to a helpline when they could have addressed it internally. There also seems to be an element of orchestration in the whole thing as Mrs Pratt the lady who runs the helpline, Andrew Rawnsley a journalist and Stewart Wood, senior foreign affairs advisor decide to spill the beans on Brown’s misconduct together, the helpline lady even going out of the way to break the confidentiality assured by her service, which makes one wonder if there was an ulterior motive to the alleged expose. On the other hand while members of the Anti bullying helpline have displayed their strong convictions by honourably resigning in the wake of its breach of confidence, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s strong outburst against such a breach and not on the allegations themselves lend some credence to the bullying drama.
Cameron’s demand for the Prime Minister’s scalp and the ruling party’s response that the whole episode is staged by the opposition to tarnish its leader’s image are only expected, typical political sabre rattling. Only an impartial probe to get to the bottom of the truth would bring back some accountability to the Prime Minister’s office.
Link: http://www.newscolony.com
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