No Short-Cuts

There is a simple formula in advertising that seems to be accepted by nearly anyone that hears it:

The Right Message, presented to the Right People, the Right Number of Times = Results.

Yep, it take into consideration three “right” things and promises to work if you get those three “rights” right.

However, most businesses fail at at least one of those “right” things, and that diminishes the outcome.

Let’s say you are a financial planner and you want to grow your business.  The way most financial planners do this is by contacting all the friends and family they know and try and convince them to become their client.  Then as time passes, they get referrals from those clients and over time, they grow.

If there was only a short-cut to grow faster…

There is, and that is to expand the number of people you are inviting to do business with you at a faster pace than the organic model I just mentioned.

This is where some paid advertising and marketing come in.

I know of one financial planner that will buy a list of potential clients from a service that gathers this information and then mails them invitations to a lunch or dinner where the meal is free but you have to sit through some form of sales pitch presentation.  This used to work for some when it was introduced a couple of decades ago, but over time, the return on investment has been getting smaller.

The cost for one of these events is usually a few thousand dollars.  Between buying the list of prospects, doing the mailing, the cost for the dinner and all the assorted costs of the presentation, it ads up.  Then there is the follow up.  A small percent sign up at the meal, some might become your customer after a few follow ups, but financial planners are given a formula that tells them when to quit pursuing a potential client and move on.

This so-called short-cut has plenty of short-comings, let’s look at some of them.

The messaging in the invite is a thinly veiled “bait and switch” tactic.  The only reason it is legal is that the invite you recieve has plenty of disclosures printed on it and they do say you will learn about something financially related.

I wonder if this tactic is reaching the Right People?  Years ago, I worked for a couple of radio stations that did live remote broadcasts at car dealers and gave away free pizza or hot dogs to listeners that came by.  Most of those listeners were not able to afford the higher priced cars the dealers were trying to sell.

When you are giving away a steak dinner as an incentive for financial planning advice, who are you really going to attract?  My guess is people without a lot to invest, or those who are looking for free stuff instead of value.

At the very beginning of a financial planners career, they invite people who know them to become their clients and those that do are doing it because they TRUST the financial planner.

Trust is the missing ingredient at these financial planner dinner schemes.

Trust has to be earned.  There are no short-cuts.

How do you earn trust?

Let’s look at that formula again and this time the focus is on the Right Number of Times.

Assume you’ve got an appropriate message and a way to target it to the Right People that are your ideal clients and customers.

The Right Number of Times an individual person is exposed to your offer is essentially the number of times it takes for that individual to Trust you and your business enough to spend with you.

This month, we had a Financial Planner come to us at WOWO radio and he wants to grow a become as well known and successful as our most well-known Financial Planners.  We were upfront and told him that it could cost him well over $100,000 per year, maybe double that to rise to the ranks of those he mentioned.

Why so much money? To big in the big leagues, you need to compete with enough right messages to reach and those numbers are what is working.  We did offer another option which is closer to $25,000 per year to get started that is very specifically targeted.  

However, when we met again and he gave us a starting budget of under $5000 per year, we almost told him no.  

I can’t offer him what he wants for that small of an investment.  His proposal to us was to spread out his messages each month and try and reach different people all month long.  I’m not sure how he got that idea, but it is the exact opposite of what he needs to do.  I asked him if he is willing to wait a year for his first potential client to contact him. (Yes, he might get it sooner than 12 months, but that’s just being hopeful and I prefer a plan over hope.)

When we meet again, we will offer him the opportunity to spend the budget he has given us to work with, but to do it wisely with a plan that will help him establish name recognition and trust with a group of our WOWO listeners that listen “when it’s dark outside”.  If he accepts, his ads will air late at night and overnight where the price for ads is low enough for him to get the right number of messages every month, not just over a year or longer.

No short-cuts to success is a lesson we all need to learn for all areas of our lives.  Also, if your Plan A is impossible, look for a Plan B, or C. And finally, 

The Right Message, presented to the Right People, the Right Number of Times = Results is a good rule to start with.