10 Smart Ways to Get More Clients as a Virtual Financial Advisor
This post is part of a series on being a virtual financial advisor. I’ve been a virtual coach for financial advisors since 2004, and now that we are going through a pandemic, it seems only fitting that I should write this series to help you find clients as a virtual financial advisor!
We know virtual prospecting can be quite daunting. The idea of reaching out to complete strangers and setting up virtual meetings is scary in itself, not to mention having to promote yourself as a virtual financial advisor. But, virtual prospecting is one of the best ways to get more clients and maximize your success online! As a financial advisor, you know it’s critical to have a financial advisor marketing plan to grow your business. To help you overcome your initial reservations about marketing and prospecting, here are 10 smart ways to get more clients online as a virtual financial advisor.
1. Obtain a Call List or Create Your Own
The first thing you’ll need to do when virtual prospecting is to get your hands on a call list. This is basically a list of potential clients that may require your virtual financial advisor services. However be very careful about the data you obtain, as it must be compliant with data protection regulations. Alternatively, you can create your own prospecting list by using social media platforms such as LinkedIn. If a profile contains contact information, you can generate quite a healthy call list of your own.
2. Have a Zoom Meeting
Zoom is becoming an invaluable tool for many industries moving towards a more remote and virtual team. You can harness the power of Zoom as a virtual financial advisor and use this video call technology to have face to face meetings with potential clients. Being able to see your clients via a video call is very important and a key factor when it comes to building trust and developing a business relationship.
3. Qualify the Prospect
Time is money and this is an important stage of virtual prospecting. Rather than waste your time, effort and resources on clients that will never convert, take the time to qualify your leads. To qualify potential clients, consider your target market, their financial needs, the industry they work in, whether they’ve worked with a financial advisor now or in the past and any feedback they’ve provided to you. You can help move these clients further down the sales funnel by sending them information, articles, and other types of “touches” and offers to help them convert. If a client has turned you down, add them to a separate list and don’t waste additional time or resources on them. It’s time to move on and work on the low hanging fruit, so to speak.
4. Walk Potential Clients Through Your Virtual Prospecting Script
It’s always a good idea to have a virtual prospecting script when reaching out to potential clients online. By anticipating questions a customer may have, while prospecting clients, you can save time while speaking with them by having potential answers at your fingertips. This also helps to give a good first impression as a financial advisor and ensures that you come across as both professional and knowledgeable. This will also help you to avoid those awkward silences when meeting your clients virtually but in real-time.
5. How to Find Clients Online and Add Them to Your Virtual Prospecting List
There are several ways that you can connect with people without having to pick up the phone and cold call. In fact, these days it is so easy to reach out and connect with people through social media marketing. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn each have unique features that allow startup businesses, virtual financial advisors and other professionals to connect with potential clients online instantly. So make sure you have a professional profile on each of these social media platforms as a virtual financial advisor. Make sure that you engage, post and comment on each platform at least once a day in order to appear active, engaging and genuine.
6. Expand Your Network Through Client Referrals
A great way to expand your network while virtual prospecting is through client referrals. If you have happy customers you need to use this positive feedback to its full potential. Perhaps you can use prospecting letters to educate and encourage existing clients to introduce you to more people looking for a financial advisor. Word of mouth and customer recommendations are undoubtedly one of the more effective ways of growing your online presence.
7. Maximize Your Reach on LinkedIn
As we’ve mentioned previously, social media is a wonderful way to get more clients as a virtual financial advisor, but the best platform for virtual cold calling is LinkedIn. LinkedIn allows you to search via industry, location and title and connect with people you think would benefit from your financial advisor services. The beauty of LinkedIn is that when you connect with someone new, you can send them an introduction message. This is where you can introduce yourself and your services. If they are interested, they may wish to accept your connection. When they do, you can open up a conversation through messages. You can also join LinkedIn groups relating to financial advisors and those looking for financial advisor services. This helps you to really streamline your virtual prospecting strategies and get more clients online.
8. Create & Share Free Valuable Content
Creating valuable and informative content is key to digital marketing yourself and your services. Giving something of value for free to your online audience helps position yourself as a financial advisor expert. Show off your knowledge, your skills and your customer reviews by posting shareable infographics, financial tips and advice, as well as positive customer reviews online. This is a key part of inbound marketing and by doing this you can help to increase your customer inquiries and website traffic too. Canva.com is a fabulous free online tool to help you create graphics, infographics and social media posts that you can share online.
9. Go Live to Make Virtual Prospecting Fun
A fairly new technique for virtual prospecting through social media channels is to ‘go live’. This means switching on your camera and starting a real-time video on your social media profile. Facebook and Instagram allow you to ‘go live’ and engage with your audience. People can then ask you questions in real-time, comment on your video feed and listen to your educational guidance and information. You can also keep an eye on how many viewers are watching your video and speak to them directly during the live-stream. By calling out names of the people watching, you are inviting them to talk to you directly which helps build trust and forms a strong business relationship. Keeps things professional, fun and engaging to keep viewers interested.
10. Create a Financial Advisor Website
A virtual financial advisor should have a strong online presence, and a modern, mobile responsive website can certainly help you to achieve this. There are a lot of easy to use website build tools online to help you create a simple but effective website as a virtual financial advisor. A website can host blog articles to drive customers to your website through SEO, it can feature live chat functionality to instantly start a conversation with potential customers and it can also encourage new clients to leave their contact information or sign up to a newsletter. A website helps you to engage with potential clients, educate new online users about your services and expand your virtual prospecting list.Take a look at Squarespace, Wordpress, Wix, Site123 and Weebly.
For more information, advice and smart virtual prospecting strategies for financial advisors take a look at Financial Advisor Coaching.
