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Storyselling for Financial Advisors

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Storyselling for Financial Advisors

How Top Producers Sell

Kaplan Publishing,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Text available

What's inside?

Use savvy storytelling to target your financial consulting services to reach the very rich.

Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Almost every financial advisor will find this useful. Authors Scott West and Mitch Anthony summarize many important facts of life in sales, and they do so in a concise, highly readable style that is free of jargon. They counsel financial advisors to communicate with clients in easily understandable language, using self-deprecating wit, stories and vivid metaphors. They rightly remind readers that people make decisions about advisors based on what they feel more than on the quality of the advisors’ charts and graphs. Then, they discuss different potential clients and show advisors how to appeal to the most critical, most rapidly expanding target markets. getAbstract.com highly recommends this specific, focused sales guide to financial advisors.

Summary

Selling Through StorytellingThe authors studied the best financial advisors and discovered that the most successful ones sell in a simple, compelling way communicate extraordinarily well; know their audience deeply and stay focused on it.Simplicity sells. Some brokers and financial advisors try to blind their clients and prospects with statistics and dense jargon. Apparently, they think that if they use big words and lots of numbers they’ll seem smart. But they only handicap themselves. Top producers keep it simple. They meet clients where the clients are and don’t talk down to people. They tell simple stories and use clear examples, comparisons, similes and metaphors. They make the business interesting and understandable. People listen, ask questions and tell their friends. This approach to selling is called "storyselling." Storytelling is part of it. Done well, storytelling puts people in an altered mental state, something like a trance. The most successful sales people know this almost instinctively. The best salespeople understand that clients find statistics, charts and dense economic droning dull. Keep it simple. Perhaps the best of the best among salespeople is Warren Buffett...

About the Authors

Scott West is senior vice president of marketing for Van Kampen Funds, Inc. Mitch Anthony is a professional speaker and communications consultant.

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