When it comes to prospecting, one of the fastest and efficient ways to get in front of the most amount of quality prospects in the least amount of time is to conduct a seminar. This method remains to be a standard for top financial professionals who understand that marketing is the foundation for growing their business. With such a large investment needed, it's important to make sure you're doing everything you can to make your seminar as effective and profitable as possible. In this episode of Money Script Monday, Dan goes over the seven best practices for seminar marketing so you get the most out of your investment.

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Video transcription

Hello there, and welcome back to another episode of "Money Script Monday." My name is Dan Tatulli, and today we're going to be talking about seven best practices for seminar marketing.

If you're watching this video as it's being released, we are in a new year, 2018. We're in the middle of January. And I can tell you that there is no better time to conduct a seminar other than January, February, March, leading into April, that tax season.

Why is that? Not only because of taxes, but it's a new year, new me, right? I'm doing it right now, the resolutions of I want to get fit, I want to get my finances in order. So, what better way to have an invitation drop in their mailbox, letting them know that you have a seminar coming up?

If you don't have anything scheduled just yet, I would think about booking a seminar February and/or March right now.

A little disclaimer before we get started, there are lots of best practices for seminar marketing. We spend a whole two days on it in our IUL sales training. I just kind of picked apart what I felt was the seven most important ones for you. So, with that, let's get started.

#1: Schedule Appointment

Number one, schedule the appointment. This seems kind of elementary, but a lot of advisors, they don't want to seem salesy or pushy, so they'd rather collect the information and give them a call the next day, or maybe next week, and when it's convenient for them.

But I can tell you, the most successful advisors who are actually closing the cases are the ones who are scheduling the appointment that night. Make sure your assistant's in the back of the room, laptop open. You have the next two weeks blocked off for everybody in attendance, to make sure that you're scheduling that appointment that very night for them.

#2: Disclose Information

Number two, disclose information. I'll give you an example that we had a Social Security seminar, and a lot of our agents had good intentions of leading with education, right? Educate, educate, educate.

But what they forgot to tell the people that night was that they were a financial advisor. They offer life insurance, and annuities, and maybe even investments, to where when they were booking those appointments and people were walking in, they were expecting to be talking about Social Security.

And the conversation kind of steered into, let's say, fixed index annuities, and that's when people backed up and said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, who are you?"

You don't want to do a bait and switch. Make sure when you're presenting right up in the beginning of that presentation, let them know of all the services that you offer, and tonight's seminar is just one of the many things that you can provide for them.

#3: Tell Your Story

Number three, tell your story. I'm not going to go too much into this. Kevin Nuber actually did a great job in a previous episode talking about this exact topic.

I would recommend watching episode 30, which is telling you how to craft your own story.

This is your own personal story of how you got into the business, the struggles that you had, how you overcame them. Show pictures of your family because, again, you want to show that you're personable, that you have a life outside of finances.

Again, watch episode number 30, where Kevin tells you how to craft your own personal story.

#4: Between the Slides

Number four, between the slides. A lot of advisors focus so much on what's on the slides. We want more stats, and more information. I feel like sometimes we've been cursed with knowledge, right?

The curse of knowledge. We have so much information that we want to tell people. But it's not what's on the slides, it's actually what's between the slides.

What stories are you telling? How are you transitioning them, taking them from topic A to B? How are you connecting with your audience emotionally?

Those are the things... Don't worry, don't focus so much on the slides themselves but the stories in between them that's tying them from beginning to end.

#5: Control the Area

Number five, control the area. If you're scheduling that seminar, make sure that the room looks good.

For the presentation up front, make sure that the bathrooms aren't right next to it because you don't want people walking in and out, and doors closing. We had one of our agents do a dinner seminar, and he had the bar right next to him. So, you know, the glasses were clinking, and all that.

Make sure that the room is set up, look where the exit doors are, the bathrooms, the bar, and just make sure everything's coordinated with the waiters and waitresses.

#6: Greet Guests

Number six, greet the guests. Leading up to the seminar, hopefully, you've given them multiple impressions already.

They've already received an invitation from you, they've received an e-mail confirmation, your assistant has called them to confirm they'll see them tomorrow.

In addition to those, make sure that you're walking in and greeting them. Greet the guests as soon as they walk in because what's going on internally in their mind? They have their wall up, right? And their arms are like this, and they're saying, "What's this guy or gal going to sell us today?"

So, make sure that you're greeting the guests. And again, just show them that you're personable, that you have a personality, that you're a human being, and not just all about finances.

#7: Stack Slides

And then lastly, we're going to talk about the stack slide. So, what is that? Think about it much like an infomercial how they're giving away that main thing, but then, they say, "For the next 10 callers, you'll also receive A, B, and C."

That's kind of what you want to do at the end of the seminar. I'll give you a case and point with our LifePro Wealth Builder Sales program.

The main call to action is Your Personal Wealth Report. Book a consultation with us, and you'll receive that report. But actually, at the end of the presentation, not only are our agents doing that, but they're also saying, "If you sign up with me tonight, you're going to receive a consumer guide."

People are walking away with an actual packet, a physical packet that and are happy that not only are they going to get the appointment, but they also received the report.

They're walking out with a consumer guide. We also have a video membership. They're walking out with the video cards and cover letters, and the entire packet.

So, make sure that you have a slide that shows bullet point by bullet point of exactly all of the value that they're going to get by moving forward with you.

That wraps it up for the seven best seminar practices. Again, there are so many more that I'd love to tell you about, but I wanted to make this short and concise for you.

If you have a seminar coming up, I would re-watch this video the night before or right before the seminar just to make sure that all of these things are in the back of your mind when you're conducting that seminar.

With that said, if you don't have a seminar coming up, talk to your FSR and see if it’s a good fit for you and your practice. You know the number here, it's 1-888-LIFEPRO (543-3776).

Get started today for the New Year! Talk to your FSR about a marketing plan for 2018, and make sure you get some seminars on the books. Thank you very much.