The marketing and prospecting phase; you define your target markets, create marketing campaigns and implement sales strategies with the ultimate goal of client acquisition.  You are always trying to replicate your ideal client relationships.

Questions to Consider:  Are your client acquisition strategies consistent, repeatable and effective for growing your business? Do you treat your active prospects like they are already clients of your practice? Do you put yourself in a position to capture more ideal clients?

The categories below provide tools that will help you to Cultivate: TARGET MARKETS, LIST-BUILDING IDEAS, MARKETING CAMPAIGNS, ACTIVE PROSPECT ACTIVITIES, and ADVOCACY.

LIST-BUILDING IDEAS Use Your Expertise to Generate Leads Rob Brown Expertise based lead generation is a powerful tool for building a prospect pipeline full of qualified future clients. What's more, these prospective clients are looking for professionals with your know-how. If your prospect database isn't where you think it should be, take some time to build a simple campaign. When you do this with consistency, you will find it much easier to keep your calendar full of appointments and your business will grow. . . . keep reading How to get Your Prospect Database Under Control Rob Brown This article is part of our "Quick Campaigns" series. Each piece in this sequence is written in response to requests from our members and focuses on providing actionable strategies for improving client communication or prospecting effectiveness. In this reply we offer help to a member who is having difficulty keeping up with his prospect database. We offer a step-by-step solution along with a sample telephone script and letter. This campaign is simple; share it with your team and get started right away - the results will speak for themselves. . . . keep reading More

MARKETING CAMPAIGNS Do your clients and prospects need a retirement income reality check? Roberta Eckert These days, retirement is on every boomer's mind. And with good reason. With the economic meltdown of the past year wreaking havoc on retirement savings, unemployment hovering near the 10% mark and Social Security and other government programs under pressure, your clients may be experiencing a trifecta of bad news. Many folks who are nearing their retirements are questioning whether they will ever retire. This coaching session offers some tips on how to help your clients and prospects assess their retirement income needs; it includes a downloadable letter to help get this discussion started. . . . keep reading What's Working Now: A Recorded Conference Call with Duncan MacPherson A couple weeks ago, Duncan MacPherson, co-CEO of Pareto Systems, and I hosted conference call. We discussed some timely advice on how to build your business. We also covered marketing strategies that are working in today's environment. This coaching session contains a link to the complete call. . . . keep reading More

ACTIVE PROSPECT ACTIVITIES Do you treat your top prospects like they're already clients? Rob Brown Have you ever lost a big prospect just when you thought you were going to close the business? Although there are no silver bullet solutions, the best long-term strategy for avoiding unexpected prospecting surprises is treating your top prospects as if they are already clients. This coaching session offers 5 steps to make this process a part of your routines. . . . keep reading Do your clients and prospects need a retirement income reality check? Roberta Eckert These days, retirement is on every boomer's mind. And with good reason. With the economic meltdown of the past year wreaking havoc on retirement savings, unemployment hovering near the 10% mark and Social Security and other government programs under pressure, your clients may be experiencing a trifecta of bad news. Many folks who are nearing their retirements are questioning whether they will ever retire. This coaching session offers some tips on how to help your clients and prospects assess their retirement income needs; it includes a downloadable letter to help get this discussion started. . . . keep reading More

ADVOCACY Do your referral conversations produce meaningful results? Rob Brown Sometimes financial advisors allow their referral strategies to become cumbersome and clunky. For some unknown reason, you overcomplicate them. You forget the value of the work you do for your clients, so you apologetically stumble through your referral conversation. Or you don't have one at all. If your approach to referrals needs some fine-tuning, this blog post offers four important questions that should help you get your referral conversations back on track. . . . keep reading Wecast Replay: Are you ready to run a referral-only practice? Rob Brown With a referral-only practice, you end up doing more business the way you enjoy doing business with the type of people who make it more fun. Plus, a good stream of referrals can eliminate the need for other timely and more costly marketing strategies. This webcast replay will help you answer the question: "Are you ready to run a referral-only practice?" . . . keep reading More