How to Sell Financial Services

Today’s competitive landscape is challenging, especially for those in the wealth management sector or selling financial services. Buyers have more data available to them and they can buy their investment products anywhere. Relationships alone used to be enough for an agent selling financial planning services, but not anymore. Now agents need to harness social media to build awareness and trust while also creating an effective referral business strategy.

Also read:

• The Ultimate Guide To Increasing Insurance Sales: 7 Expert Tips
• The Ultimate Guide To Selling To The C-Suite
• The B2B Buying Process Explained: 9 Influencing Stages & Factors

6 Ways To Increase Financial Services Sales

At SOCO/® we’ve trained 10s of thousands of financial services agents around the world so we understand it’s crucial to revise and reform your growth strategies to sustain your business in the long term. In this article, we share the financial services sales techniques advisors need to use to increase sales.

1. Product awareness

Do they know ALL of the services you offer? There’s a good chance they don’t.

2. Differentiate from the Competition

With so many banks, insurance companies and financial services available today, one of the keys to selling financial services are differentiating from the competition.

You need to know why you’re better and different from the competition. I highly recommend completing our Competitor Analysis Worksheet, which will help you identify who your top competitors are and how they position themselves, so you can identify how to position yourself and your company to stand apart from the competition.

3. Cross Sell Financial Services

People love doing business with people they know, like and trust. For this reason, financial planning advisors need to be leveraging this as a growth strategy. You already have a pool of people that like doing business with you; find out what else they need that you can provide. Even if you’ve mentioned your entire roster of products in the past, things change. Your clients might be in a different place now and might actually need those or products or services they didn’t think they needed in the past. When it comes to cross-selling financial services, fully understand the needs of your customer, then suggest the appropriate products based on their situation.

4. Ask for Referrals

While you’re reconnecting with your past customer, ask them, “Do you know anyone that could benefit from my services?” Sometimes all you need to do is to ask to prompt your customers to think of their friends or relatives that could benefit from what you offer. Even if they don’t have anyone in mind now, by you asking, you can be sure in the future they’ll be thinking of who they know that might your services. Especially if you’ve delivered exceptional customer service to them in the past.

5. Use social media to sell more

When financial services agents embrace social selling, they can use social networks to reach more people than word of mouth marketing ever would. Share valuable content relating to your services on your social profiles. Don’t share sales pages, instead share news about success stories, or when appropriate failures that would have been avoided had they used your services.

When agents post consistently with valuable content, they stay top of mind with their customers, demonstrate their expertise on the subject and maximize their potential for repeat and referral business.

Check out our Social Selling course for more details on how to effectively use social media to sell your services.

6. Be an advisor

Consultative sales professionals know to ask questions before suggesting the solution. The same rule applies when selling financial services. Just as a doctor, wouldn’t take 1 look at you and prescribe a treatment, an agent shouldn’t do the same. Instead, ask questions about their long-term and short-term goals, their financial situation, what they’re used to in the past, what products they’re familiar with or not familiar with. As a Financial Service professional, you need to create a needs assessment, a list of diagnostic questions, to uncover the needs of your clients.

Financial Services Sales Training

Whether for yourself or your company SOCO/ can help. We’ve trained 10s of thousands of financial services agents around the world for many of the top companies and can help you too. For our on-demand e-learning to get certified in SOCO® Selling™, check out our Sales Accelerator program that expands upon many of the skills shared here. To train your team, reach out to one of our program advisors who will be happy to discuss different training options with you.