Not getting in front of enough qualified prospects?

If you’re a life insurance agent or a financial advisor, your growth comes down to one thing: More conversations with the right people. 

And if you’re like most advisors, you’re trying to get those conversations by launching multiple marketing strategies to get in front of anyone with a wallet and a pulse. You’re jumping from one tactic to the next in an attempt to reach everyone in your community—never mastering one strategy, never gaining momentum, and always feeling that nothing works very well. 

And it can’t work very well as long as you’re aiming at “anyone”. 

The reality is that when your message is generic, most prospecting methods fall on deaf ears. You’re another white crayon in a big box of white crayons. So, advisors who are trying to reach everyone with a generic message about their services are spending a lot of time, energy, and money, spraying messages into the air through different media, hoping they connect with a prospect, and getting mediocre results. 

But how can you do better? 

What will bring you the most success is: 

1. Selecting a narrow, deep, ideal client—a niche—to focus your marketing on. 
2. Leading with one product or service that your ideal client needs the most 
3. Making sure that your target and your offer align with your values 
4. Selecting two or three marketing methods that align with your strengths, aimed at your target or professionals who serve your target. 

The marketing axioms behind focusing on a target have been around for at least two decades, yet when it comes to prospecting, far too many advisors still chase multiple “shiny objects”. They don’t have a targeted, specific message aimed at one ideal client. 

The idea of target marketing isn’t new. Why then are so many agents and advisors still not doing it? 

Some advisors are worried that targeting could hurt their business. If they target women business owners, for instance, will men and people who are not in business think they can’t be served by them? 

Over the years, I’ve proved repeatedly that this is the opposite of what happens. In Chapter 4 of my book, Become a Client Magnet, I challenged a very successful financial advisor named Tina, to tell everyone she met that her target was more mature single women, who were the majority of her clients and with whom she enjoyed working, rather than being generic about what she did. 

“But what if I meet a young couple?” Tina asked. 

I told her to try it once and to trust that it would work. 

Tina called me a week or so later and exclaimed, “Sandy, I tried what you suggested at a party last week and it worked, but I think it worked backwards.” 

She went on to explain: 

“I told a guy who was in his mid-thirties like I am that I help older single women who are worried about whether they’ll have enough money to last through their retirement years…and he asked me if I would make an exception to help him. So, I told him I would work with him but only if he was very serious about his retirement. 

He said he was. And now I have an appointment with him next week.” 

I told Tina that what she experienced wasn’t backwards, as she had suggested—that’s how it works. Three reasons for why someone who is not in your target would still be interested in consulting you come to mind: 

First, if you create an exclusive club, people want you to make an exception for them. This was Tina’s experience. 

Second, being a specialist in some aspect of the insurance or financial business gives the appearance of extra expertise, as in the medical model. We understand that medical specialists have the same training as primary care physicians and then more. The perception is that specialists in the insurance or financial advisory fields are in the same position—they know more. 

And, finally, people who meet you personally or are introduced to you through an existing client or centre of influence (COI), don’t really care that your website and social media profiles talk about your specialty. They just want to know if you can help them. 

Another reason advisors stay away from targeting is they are unsure who their target is. There are multiple ways to figure this out, but it usually boils down to this: identifying who you’d really love to work with and what they need most from you. This is about your values. 

Prospecting strategies 

Once your target is clear, you can choose two or three marketing strategies that best reach your target or COIs who serve your target—you won’t be all over the place chasing “shiny objects”. There are at least a hundred ways to prospect. Here are a few of them: 

• Warm introductions 
• Cold calling/buying lists 
• Door knocking 
• Partnerships with Centers of Influence 
• Educational seminars/webinars 
• Teaching a course 
• Social Media strategies 
• Paid Advertising, including everything from billboards to social media ads 
• Sponsoring events and teams 
• Social media posting and responding 
• Live networking 
• Taking a table or booth at events 
• Podcasting/TV show/Radio show 
• Guest appearances 
• Writing articles for local periodicals 
• Writing and distributing a book 

The list is long. And all of them work to some degree. But if you have a target and the simple goal of reaching only them or professionals who serve them directly, you can choose the two or three that you believe will work best.

For instance, if they’re business owners or professionals, you might want to do some live networking and a LinkedIn strategy. On the other hand, if they’re young families, seminars and Facebook groups might make more sense. You can let go of LinkedIn strategies or business networking and other strategies that aren’t as laser focused.

What’s important is that you stop chasing all these different strategies and pick the ones that can directly help you reach the target you’ve chosen.

Developing a brand 

Imagine you’re a business owner who is thinking about purchasing life insurance. Which of these real taglines would you be more responsive to:

Life Insurance Agent at [ ] Insurance Agency Of Canada 

Empowering entrepreneurs/professionals in Canada with knowledge and tailored insurance solutions for family financial support and wealth creation, helping them achieve their dreams. 

If you’re being honest, the second agent would be the one you want to talk to, and if he’s reached out to you through business networking or a carefully constructed LinkedIn campaign, you’d be most likely to consult him. 

Yet, more than 90% of Canadian life agents’ taglines look more like the first one. 

Have you been trying lots of marketing strategies with a non-targeted, generic message and finding that you’re not getting much traction? 

Try targeting instead.