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Sales Tips

Bank Survey Reveals only 16% of Canadians Polled Achieved their 2017 Financial Goal... and It's Partly Our Fault.

There were a few eye-opening gems in a recent CIBC Survey (link) that checked-in with Canadians on their financial priorities, their opinion on how they were progressing on their goals and what kind of shape they felt they were in for retirement. The data points of particular note for me were:

Sure, I should do 'Discovery' but what am I really hoping to learn?

Without clear objectives that guide us to craft a plan or structure to our interview, it can easily become a wasted opportunity.
 
Our first objective in Discovery is Getting Selection Right
We need to commit to interviewing the client with the intent of understanding “what are they trying to achieve?” instead of just “what they're asking for?”. Not just “what are they asking about?” but “why are they asking about it?”. Be sure that we understand before moving forward to presenting a solution.
• What motivated them to ask for this now?

Why You? 3 Strategies for Effectively Communicating the Value You Represent

If we were to map out all of your product/service offerings alongside those of your
closest competitors it might be shocking how similar they look. Sure, there are some differences. Differences you can see fairly clearly because you live and breathe this stuff every day. But if they were left to figure it out on their own, would the person you are hoping to service with that product see those differences as clearly? Probably not.

Have plan for RSP Season

Many branches or individuals head into RSP season late and with no plan. They decide that they will get after it in late January when most of their clients start asking about RSP's and retirement planning. The successful individuals really start to prepare much sooner than that.

3 Things to Think About and Plan:

Establish goals.
We don't just mean result goals; also consider developing activity, or effort based goals. The clearer you are on what you have to accomplish, by when, the more likely it is to happen.

A principle of influence

Reciprocity is a universal principle of influence. As a social construct, people feel obliged to give back to others the form of behaviour, gift, or service that they have received first. Friends invite you over to their house for dinner and you feel obligated to return the favour. Someone drops off a small gift to your office at Christmas and you feel the need to run out and get them something.

Are you making these calls?

As technology becomes more and more prevalent in our society, financial institutions have gone through an interesting phenomenon. They used to see the client all of the time because they HAD to come into the branch to accomplish everything. Well now they don’t and the result is that many