How Financial Advisors Can Make More Money

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The average salary of a financial advisor is around $90,000 per year. I'm going to tell you how they can make even more money. But first, a story...

A young financial advisor called me out of the blue and started asking me a few questions about cold calling, getting in front of the right prospects, and demonstrating value. After the fourth question or so, I told the young man that he would need to book a private consulting session.

“Wait! Before you go, just one more question, and it’ll be short, I promise!” he said.

I sighed and told him to ask away. He asked me, “Just in one sentence or two – what is the most important thing I should know, as a newbie, to make more money?”

I told him I could answer his question in one word… numbers.

You see, sales is a numbers game. I don’t mean that you should rely on luck or chance to close deals. I mean that your sales habits can (and should) be tracked, measured, and improved. I’m so adamant about religiously keeping a CRM because it allows advisors to track their numbers. Can you answer the following questions?

• How many leads do you have in your database right now?
• How many of those leads are prospects?
• How many of those prospects are qualified?
• How many contacts with leads/prospects/qualified prospects do you have each week?
• How many times do you follow up with each prospect?
• How many appointments are you averaging per week?
• If you have 10 appointments with qualified prospects, how many convert to clients?

Do not guess the answers to these questions. They should be answered by the data you should be keeping. Once you measure and know your numbers, you can improve across the board. For example, if you’re contacting 100 leads per week, try contacting 120. If you’re only following up twice, try following up three times to see if that makes a difference. If you only have two appointments every three weeks, try your hardest to get three in three weeks.

Once you have a tracking system in place, you will be able to continuously set higher sales goals based on actual metrics. Since your productivity ties directly to your income, knowing and improving your numbers means that you can make more money.

Someone once told me that sales isn’t a numbers game, it’s an effectiveness game. This is only partly true, because sheer volume can crush sales skills. Even if I’m awful at selling, if I can talk to enough people, I will win each and every time. If you have a 100% closing rate but only talk to one person, you’re still broke.

The key to success is high volume AND great sales skills. 

P.S. If you're a financial advisor who wants to get more clients from LinkedIn, make sure you check out How to Get Clients With LinkedIn: How Financial Advisors Can Set Appointments and Convert Prospects With LinkedIn