A lot is going on in the financial services industry. From how the DOL will impact everyone to how distribution companies are changing their sales model to focus on their clients, change is everywhere.
With all the change going on, there remain three constants for both Broker-Dealers and Distribution Companies:
1. Client Acquisition – Bringing in new clients is still a top priority for everyone.
2. Client Retention – Growing your client’s AUM, and delivering an amazing customer experience.
3. Growing your business while remaining compliant.
With these thoughts in mind here are our most requested topics as companies are looking to create a fast start, bring value to their clients or have a fantastic conference.
1. Leading/Executing Through Change
Probably the #1 requested topic to open up conferences with. Set the stage for your conference by bringing in a great speaker who understands change and leadership, and talks action, not theory. We partner with speakers like Jeffrey Hayzlett, Michael Huffman, Randy Pennington, Mark Sandborn, Ross Shaffer and more to help you set the stage for a great conference.
If Executing Through Change is 1a, then The Client Experience is 1b. Learn from Hall of Fame speakers likes Scott McKain on how to deliver The Ultimate Client Experience to implementing a Gratitude Marketing® program from Mike Sciortino. So many sales people focus on attracting new clients that they sometimes don’t pay enough attention to their current clients. Implement a process, so this doesn’t happen to you.
3. Social Media
This might be the most misunderstood topic. Let me start by saying programs on social media are not fluff. In fact, they are the opposite. If you are looking to focus on your brand, you may want to start here. Ask yourself, “what does my name look like both online and offline? What does a client find when they “Google Me”? If you are looking to find new clients or looking to find valuable information on prospects or clients, all of this can easily be done through our social media speakers. From Laura Virili teaching you how to acquire new clients through LinkedIn to Sam Richter teaching you about Sales intelligence to be better prepared for your next meeting, this topic represents some of the biggest sales growth opportunities for both wholesalers and advisors.
How do you separate yourself from your competition? What is your value proposition This topic blends multiple topics from social media to client acquisition. As Sylvie Di Giusto says “You Have 7 Seconds. Let’s Make Them Count”. If you are in an elevator with the head of a large firm or at a social gathering, can you deliver your “elevator speech” that gets them engaged and makes them want to know more? Everything thinks this topic is easy; it’s not! Take the time to build your story and develop your “Why.” If you are looking for a speaker to help your audience develop their story, make sure you request a speaker who will bring the “How” and not the “Why.” Your audience is smarter than this. They know they need a great story and they don’t need to hear why they need one. They need to understand how to build one. If you think your sales force has their story down, have them video tape themselves and watch it. You will be surprised at what you see.
Communication will cross all 9 of the other topics on this list. It is also not a topic that clients necessarily call in and ask for. However, when you switch the conversation to what the outcome they want is, it often comes back to communication. As Steven Gaffney says “The biggest issue is not what your clients are saying, it’s what they are not saying”. Learn how to take your communication skills to the next level so that your clients will take action with you.
6. Your Health
Your greatest ROI is how well you take care of yourself. Everyone is extremely busy, and everyone has a full calendar. Sometimes people don’t understand how health and fitness relate to business. Take a look at this video from Chris Johnson, the founder of On Target Living, as he does an excellent job connecting the 2. We partner with Chris, Matt, and Kristen from On Target Living along with speakers on stress like Dr. Jack Singer and speakers on resilience like Andrew Bernstein.
7. Healthcare
Healthcare has been a big topic for some years now. It is a great topic for advisors to go deeper with their clients. Within Healthcare, we have found that Long-Term Care, Dementia and the costs of Healthcare in retirement are the top 3 topics. What we have also noticed is that these topics make for great advisor-client events. Clients are looking to learn something new, and these programs get them thinking about do they have the right types of products and solutions to protect themselves, their families and their assets in case something happens. From Jack Broyles, Peter Stahl. Amy Florian, and Wendy Boglioli we will bring you speakers that both advisors and clients will love and learn from.
If you are looking to grow your business, do you know how to communicate to the different generations in the marketplace? As an advisor who has been in the business for over 30 years, do you know how to communicate to the millennials? If you are a 30-year-old wholesaler, do you know how the 50-year-old advisor wants to be communicated to? These programs are very actionable and work well for both conferences and wholesaler roadshows. We collaborate with some of the very best speakers in this area. From Cam Marston and Anne Loehr to Amy Lynch, we have you covered on the impact of generational change and its impact on the marketplace.
As stated above, this is always a top 3 priority for all companies in financial services. Closing effectiveness is declining. Bill Walton Sales Training’s recent survey of sales managers revealed that in 75% of prospect interactions, their people were not requesting commitment. In the same survey – nearly 90% of opportunities are not closing as forecasted. From Bill Walton and Bill Cates to Bob Burg, and Sarano Kelley, our speakers will deliver tools for helping you attract the right kind of clients for your business.
Some people call this time management, and some call it productivity acceleration. It is all about developing a process for getting the right work done at the right time. We get this request a lot, and the request is often based on the desired outcome of developing a real weekly process to help advisors and wholesalers better prioritize their time. How can you help someone become 10% more effective? From Hall of Fame Productivity expert Laura Stack who takes the best practices from all industries to Bill Walton who specifically focuses on financial services professionals effectiveness, we have speakers who provide real processes that can be implemented immediately.
As a speakers bureau dedicated to delivering a strong speaker ROI for the financial services industry, we focus our expertise in the following three areas:
We would like the opportunity to earn your business