Stop Selling Already: No One Likes It

By Matt Halloran

You read that headline correctly; no one is interested in being sold to. Do you enjoy when salespeople pushily approach you with an obvious pitch? I challenge someone to tell me they do. Being sold to is about up there with eating “a three-decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce,” a la the song, “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” Given these feelings about antiquated sales techniques, financial advisors must cease the hard sales tactics immediately or they will steadily sell their practice into the ground.

Respectfully, everything advisors do for their clients—financial planning, investment management, products, services, and even communication—has become commoditized. Especially since that’s the case, investors have shifted from participating in the sales process at least somewhat willingly to wanting to be educated rather than being sold to. Advisors’ audiences want to opt into buying from them. The hard sell tactics that may have worked in the 1900s now must shift to providing value and information.

Investors now want to know, like, and trust their advisor. This makes the advisor the most important ingredient in the marketing mix. Advisors need to embrace their you-ness and proudly display it if they aren’t already. 

What If You Don’t Know Your Brand?

Advisors may not fully recognize what makes them the advisor of choice for their clients. They know their personality traits and service model but what at the end of the day converts their prospects to clients? To determine that, advisors can formally survey their clients or ask casually in meetings what clients most appreciate about their work together. 

Another way to gauge an advisor’s brand is to see how other advisors relate to them. When an advisor attends a conference, are they the “out in front type,” the “shy type,” the “everyone can’t wait to chat with them type?” That’s another indication of how they’re perceived and what traits attract others to them. Mr. Purple, Anthony Stich, got a brand name for himself via conferences and has fully embraced it. 

How To Display Your You-Ness

Video is a relationship-building accelerator. After all, if a prospect or client can’t see you in person, the live but virtual version of you is the next best thing. Video is an opportunity for advisors to create personal connections at scale, notes Snappy Kraken in its 2024 State of Digital report. Advisors who have shied away from video because they don’t like seeing themselves or don’t think they’re good enough on camera: it’s time to get over that.

The statistics bear this out. In that Snappy Kraken report, emails with videos were opened more than twice as often as those with just text at 59.4%. The click-through rate of those emails with videos was also more than double (36.7%) than those without a video.

In Wealthtender’s The Ultimate Guide to Financial Advisor Marketing: Top Tips to Attract New Clients, Chief Executive Officer Brian Thorp explains that, “by creating an emotional connection, people will feel more comfortable setting up an appointment, reaching out with questions, and diving deeper into your website.”

Video Exists in Many Forms

Advisors who have never created video content likely feel overwhelmed by the prospect of doing so. But they can dip their toe in and then steadily, when they get comfortable, adjust their video marketing strategy. 

If advisors are already podcasting but not using video with this medium, now’s the time to give it a go. Nothing needs to be staged or feel performed; you’re simply having the same conversation you would have but with the camera on. 

Regardless of how you want to show yourself off in the marketplace, the time is now if you haven’t done so already. Past sales tactics are stale and pale; being you will always be cool. 

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Matt Halloran is the co-founder and chief relationship officer at ProudMouth, which produces powerful marketing content and educates others on the process. 

image credit: Adobe Stock Images