Plenty of financial advisers, wealth planners and mortgage brokers run public seminars to attract new clients. The model has been around for years and has only recently migrated to the online virtual platform. The old days consisted of plush hotel rooms, canapes and wine.
But the content hasn't changed. The objective is to inform and educate your prospective clients on financial planning or mortgage financing with the ultimate aim of encouraging them to come to you to talk specifically about their challenges and goals. At that point, the time clock can start, and you'll begin to earn your worth.
The gravest mistake is to give too much information, and people will do it themselves. This isn't true as many people would want you to handle it all for them.
The secret to this is to hold back a little. The bit you hold back is the part you charge for, but what is that bit? Two bits, actually, so let me explain.
The first is simply to explain the problems they might be facing and the implications of the continuing issues. Then you introduce the answers, but you only give generic solutions to the problems.
So, for example, you could talk about the issue of falling tenant yields on buy to let properties, particularly in high price areas. Falling yields mean a drop in income and all the associated concerns surrounding this. Generic solutions are holiday lets, houses of multiple occupation, residential conversions and improvements, development of commercial into residential and so on.
How you can go about financing and looking for this business can be discussed individually and becomes your call to action. To sit down either face to face or virtually on camera to discuss your personal situation in more detail and how you can help them.
The second secret to seminar selling content is interpreting the "white noise" and applying it to their world.
You see plenty of information on the internet. This is "White Noise". It's generic, standardised and neutral. Anyone can get hold of it; it's freely available and presented in increasingly easy to understand ways. Just look at YouTube. You can view some quality videos on any topic, professionally recorded and produced. These are often financed by advertising, but most people don't mind getting free information.
But white noise is just that. Neutral, standardised and vanilla.
You deliver beyond the white noise; you can interpret this white noise into the context of your client's world. You can tailor the noise to fit their situation, shape and contextualise it for your client. This is the promise you give when running your seminars. You can give this out at the seminar or tease some, but the juicy customisation is something the client needs to start paying for. And they will.
Beware of falling into the trap of giving as much information as possible; people can get this elsewhere. Focus on the problems and challenges they face and how these can multiply unless dealt with. Then talk about case studies and generic solutions. The Call to Action is to tailor all the white noise into solutions dedicated to them. Remember, the purpose is not to provide free information for them to go and solve their problems but to encourage them to contact you to take it to the next stage.
And you must offer the next stage. Make it as easy as you can to organise this. A 15-minute video discovery session to assess their situation and to see if you can help. Complimentary, a time to suit both of you. Make them aware that you only have a certain number of slots available, you're busy successful, but you have spaces for a few new clients to join your client base. Scarcity is good but something we can talk about another time.
