Financial Planning - November 2012

practice

Assembly-Line
Approach
Successful planners usually have a
well-defined sales process
for turning prospects into clients.
By William Atkinson

In dealing with prospective clients, financial planners should look to the assembly line for inspiration. This unexpected advice comes from Katherine Vessenes, president of Vestment Advisors in Chanhassen, Minn., and is based on her observation of highly successful planners around the nation.

“In a manufacturing process, things get done the same way every time,” Vessenes says. When top planners meet prospects, she says, they, too, usually have a highly organized approach.

“One of the things that I noticed
over the years when talking with
other financial planners was that the
big guys — the ones making $1 million
a year or more — generally had what I
call a defined sales process,” Vessenes
says. “The smaller guys had no defined
sales process in place. Every meeting
with clients was different.”
Vessenes, a CFP and RFC who’s
also a lawyer, created her own defined
sales process around 2000 and began
using it at Vestment Advisors, which
is both a financial planning firm and a
professional consulting firm that helps
advisors build and improve their prac-
tices. Her approach involves four to
five major meetings with new clients
and prescribes in detail what should
happen in each meeting.

LOOKING FOR PAIN POINTS

For Vessenes, the first one-on-one meeting is a “get to know you” session. “I ask questions and get to know as much as I can about the prospect,” she says.

One thing she wants to learn during this meeting is the prospect’s “pain points” — worrisome or uncertain areas in his or her financial situation. For a couple mainly interested in preparing for retirement, for instance, issues of concern might be whether they will run out of money before they die, what will likely happen with taxes and inflation, and