198 Focus Sessions: Marketing

Sell and Manage 10 Times the

Clients in 3 Days Per Week
David Batchelor, Dip PFS, CFP

I will share with you things that you presently think are Now, seeing existing clients is important, and we need
impossible, because when I started them, I thought that they to service them and love them and care for them. But as our
were impossible, and everyone told me that I was mad. But businesses grow, there can simply be too many of them, and
as I tell you my experience, and you see what we are doing often too many where there is little future business.
and how we do it, I know that you will want to make massive So here I was. I wanted to see bigger clients to grow my
changes to your practices because these changes will do the business, but I didn’t know how to find them. On top of that,
following: I was using most of my time servicing existing clients who
• Reduce the time that you spend on work needed me but in an activity that generated little new business.
• Improve the average sale size to each client I am sure that many of you are in the same positon. Look
• Increase client loyalty at this calculation, and run it for yourself. [visual]
• Increase the profitability to your practice If you work 40 weeks a year and work five days per week
• Make you unique to the competition that gives you 200 working days. Of these days, I spend only
It all started with a problem in the practice back in 1999. 150 days in the business as I spend around 50 days in my
In those days, I was working, as most of us do, from other business.
referrals, and I had a simple referral system that worked well I don’t know how many of those days for you are client
enough and got me to Top of the Table each year. The prob- facing, but in my case three-fourths are client facing. This
lem was that my growth was limited. No matter how much gives me 112 client-facing days, with the rest set aside for
I tried, I could not increase my case size or my numbers administration, MDRT attendance, continuing professional
because the people I was seeing referred me to people like development, and so on.
them, and while they were lovely people and I liked helping Now, I see all my clients in my office, which means that
them, I needed bigger clients with bigger issues and bigger on a good day I can see four clients, but usually it’s more like
problems so that I could provide bigger solutions. three clients. This gives me 336 appointment slots for clients.
But I also had another problem, one that many of us are I have 243 clients. These are people who are paying me
experiencing, and that was review overload. a retainer to be a client. If they each take one slot a year
Over my first eight years in practice, I had amassed a sig- (assuming I see them only once a year), this leaves 93 free
nificant number of clients. At that stage, I didn’t understand appointment slots.
the difference between a client and a customer, and while For most new client sales, I take two appointments,
I had a client segregation structure so that I wasn’t spend- usually a first meeting to establish the need and build the
ing time with people who, frankly, didn’t need my help any relationship and the second to present the solution and agree
more, I had too many existing clients to see. the sale. I don’t do any paperwork or administration with

David Batchelor, Dip PFS, CFP

Batchelor is a 20-year MDRT member with two Court of the Table and 18 Top of the Table honors. He
was a founding director of the Personal Finance Society in the United Kingdom (UK) and currently serves
as UK coach for The Strategic Coach program. He has worked with more than 100 entrepreneurs to
improve their businesses.
Wills & Trusts IFP Ltd
91-92 High Street Thame Oxon, Thame, 0X9 3 EH, England UK
email: [email protected] phone: 44.184.4212907

View this presentation in the Resource Zone at mdrt.org or purchase from mdrtstore.org.

Annual Meeting Proceedings | 2017 ©Million Dollar Round Table

 Sell and Manage 10 Times the Clients in 3 Days Per Week 199

the client; this is completed by one of my paraplanners. But Then ask yourself, What if I could complete a client
while I’m good, I don’t have a 100 percent closing rate; in review in one-tenth of the time it takes now? How much time
fact, it’s 84 percent. This then gives me 78 client appoint- would I save?
ments that will lead to sales and a maximum of 39 new Here is the best bit, and you’ll need to trust me on this.
people to see each year. The clients will love you for it! They love doing things in
As you look at this calculation, you can work out your groups rather than one-to-one. I know it seems wrong, but
numbers to give you an idea of the time that you have to do they attach more value to it. And remember that value is in
business. [visual] the clients’ eyes.
This assumes everything goes to plan. And I don’t know So what did my team and I do? How did we move from
what your life is like, but stuff usually happens to me. Stuff 121 sales and reviews to group sales and group reviews?
also happens to clients, so appointments get canceled and Well, let’s look at two different areas: first, the sale and,
it’s too late to replace them, or clients get ill, or clients second, the servicing. As I explain this to you, don’t neces-
need three appointments to close. All manner of things sarily think about doing everything, but think about what
happens, which means it’s tough to hit the 39 new sales a you could take and implement quickly and easily to make a
year mark. real difference in your practice.
So this is the problem. I was stuck in a 365-day year with
only 24 hours available per day. There is only so much I can The Sale
do. I wasn’t interested in getting significantly bigger clients I don’t have time to go into a great deal of detail here because
because I liked working with the type of client I had. I just we have developed this technique over the last few years, so
wanted them to be a little bigger and to have more of them. I just want to jump to the parts that make all the difference
So what to do about it? and give you real figures so that you can see how this might
Well, I was lucky enough to be attending a coaching ses- help you and your clients.
sion where I had an epiphany. The epiphany was this: “If you Let’s start with cold prospects.
see people one at a time, you will sell people one at a time.” Each year, we send cold direct mail to close to 250,000
Also, this: “If you complete reviews one at a time, you will people and in some years up to 1 million people.
only do one at a time.” The objective of the direct mail is to get the cold pros-
It’s obvious, I know, but it is something that we have all pects, whose names come from a purchased database, to
been trained to do because this is the way it’s always been attend an education event where we are selling a paid-for
done. And then I heard another statement that made a first meeting. I know this is how many of you do business, so
change in the way I think, and it’s this: “What got me to there is not a great deal new here.
here won’t get me to there!” This is how we have worked for 10 years or so. [visual] We
Again, simply, if I keep doing the same things, I will keep get cold prospects to come to an event, where we sell them
getting the same results. What I needed to do was something a first meeting. The first meeting is a one-to-one meeting,
different. Something original. Something that led to better which leads to a wealth management plan being issued to the
results. client. At the second meeting, we discuss the plan and agree
The answer was to use group events to find and sell new the business, and then the prospect, who will now become
clients as well as to service existing clients. a client or customer, meets with a paraplanner to complete
Think of it: Instead of selling one-to-one, sell one-to-four the paperwork.
or one-to-ten. Instead of doing client reviews one-to-one, do Seminar selling is great, and we do a great deal of it.
them in groups of a dozen or so. In fact, we did 36 prospect seminars last year. But with
I know this is a stretch because it seems to go against this technique, the numbers are always capped. Here are
everything we’ve been taught year after year. But if you can ours. [visual]
imagine it, imagine increasing your productivity 10 times As you can see, we will mail 10,000 prospects and will get
but without working any harder or longer. between 15 and 80 people in a room.
Take a moment and ask yourself, How much business From this, our closing rate, or the number of yeses—
can I do if I could close five clients at once? How much extra where the client agrees to make a payment for a first
business would that generate? meeting (remember, in the UK there are no commissions,

©Million Dollar Round Table Annual Meeting Proceedings | 2017

200 Focus Sessions: Marketing

only fees)—is 43 percent. On average, this gives us 15 out life cover, or use a trust, for example. But we tell them
new meetings. that we are not advising them to do this. We can’t give advice
Our closing rate on these, where we sell more than just at as this is an educational event and we are not selling any-
the meeting, is 70 percent, giving us 10 sales. thing. We give them enough information to be informative
Of these sales, two become long-term clients rather than but not quite enough to make a decision on a solution. What
just short-term sales. they are clear about is the problem and that the problem, or
These figures have been reasonably stable for the last 15 problems, relates to them.
years, and so what I wanted to do was to find a way to improve They then decide what they want to do, and the options
the figures. And this meant doing something different. are very clear: come to a workshop or don’t come to a work-
This is a great way to group events, but it has the same shop. Remember, there is no selling; we are just giving them
problem in that it leads to a one-to-one sale, which means a decision to go further.
that we are back to the same problem of having only 365 Here is a screenshot of the simple feedback form that
days in a year, each day with 24 hours. [visual] The jump they complete. [visual] As you can see, it segregates them
that we then made was to take the prospects from a seminar into groups. This is very important as we want to get similar
event into a group workshop, where we could make multiple people in the room together.
sales rather than 121 sales. Think about your practice and how you get clients to
You can see from the diagram that we will send, for make decisions. Can you use this, or a version of this, to
example, 6,000 cold mailers. [visual] From this, somewhere qualify your prospects? If you have other advisors, perhaps
between 50 and100 people will book the educational event. junior advisors, can you use this type of premeeting form to
The event is always something specific that they may be qualify whom they will meet with?
aware of, for example, a change in tax, a change in legisla- At the end of the education event, prospects hand in
tion, the investment markets suddenly falling, interest rates the forms, and, where possible, we book them into a group
going up—that kind of thing. workshop. Remember, the objective is to book them into a
At the event, it’s all educational. There is no selling. What workshop, not a one-to-one meeting. In 80 percent of the
we are doing is throwing value at them to build up the reci- cases, this is not possible, and so they are called within 24
procity. At this point, we are not trying to sell them anything. hours to book them into a group workshop.
It’s purely about value in their eyes. If you remember from One interesting fact is that about 10 percent of the people
Robert Cialdini’s 2005 Main Platform presentation, reciproc- who said that they wanted to go further changed their mind.
ity is one of the six motivators that we can use to get people But 20 percent who said no also change their mind and
to take action. What we are leading them to is to make the called up after the event to book into a workshop.
decision that they need to take action and get further help So what happens at the group workshops?
and need more information to decide what needs to be done.
We’ve tested lots of alternatives, and a two-hour event Group Workshops
produces the best results. The event is broken into two The group workshop is designed to do three things:
halves. The first half is a presentation and runs 50 minutes. 1. Allow prospects to decide what action they need to take
The second half is all Q&A and again runs 50 minutes or 2. Allow prospects to decide if they need a one-to-one
so. We do not offer food. When you do, you just get people meeting as the solutions are not clear
coming for the food; instead, they just get tea and coffee. 3. Get the attendees to take action
The secret here is how the Q&A session is run. The group workshop is much blunter and less educa-
At the end of the first half, we ask them to complete a tional in nature. In this workshop, we focus on no more
Q&A form. Here is an example. [visual] The attendees are than one or two problems, which have no more than three
asked to complete this and hand it in at the end of the first clear solutions. This makes it easy for clients to self-select the
half. The team then collects the questions sheets and can appropriate solution or establish that they are more complex
then plan the answers. In this way, we can totally control the and so need a one-to-one meeting.
Q&A. We can decide what questions to answer. Remember, we have qualified them and broken them into
In the educational event, we will tell them the solutions groups and we know what their issues will be, and so the
to whatever issue we are discussing: buy an investment, take workshop is designed around these issues.

Annual Meeting Proceedings | 2017 ©Million Dollar Round Table

 Sell and Manage 10 Times the Clients in 3 Days Per Week 201

For example, take an inheritance tax or an estate tax you have always done it one way, doesn’t mean you need to
problem. do it that way going forward.
The workshop will start with a brief reminder of what Let’s now move on to the review process—and this is the
we covered in the educational event and then focus on thing that will be a big jump for you as it was me.
no more than three issues or problems that we know are
generic to the group in the room. Remember, we have The Review
qualified them, so people in the room will all have a similar Over the years, I had got myself into this position where I
problem. had to complete an annual review with clients each year. As
It is a workshop, so a discussion with the prospects is I mentioned previously, this just started to use up my time,
expected. To generate the discussion, there will be a work- and so what I decided to do was to use the group technique
sheet or workbook for them to cover. This will effectively to complete annual reviews in groups.
create a fact find and a decision tree for us to use later. Now 80 percent of our clients have their annual review
In some workshops, there is just a worksheet; in others, completed at what we call the “client review workshop.”
we have a 30-page workbook. It all depends on the complex- Look at the first calculation we did. In your business, how
ity of the issues that we are covering. many annual reviews or service meetings do you have?
For example, they will have a worksheet to complete Now think about reducing that by nine-tenths. How
that will calculate their inheritance tax. From this, we will much time would that free up?
have a summary of their estate going forward. We will set As I said, 80 percent of our clients have their review com-
out the three most widely used solutions to inheritance tax, pleted in a workshop environment and they love it as you’ll
explaining the pros and cons of each, all the time answer- see later. The biggest obstacle is us! We think that clients
ing prospects’ questions. Questions are buying signals in always want to see us one-to-one. But do they? I’m here to
disguise, and so the more questions, the better. An impor- tell you that they don’t, in fact most prefer not to.
tant note here is that when we answer one question, we also Let me explain how we organize these workshops so that
answer it for all the people in the room. you can see what happens.
We are using a decision funnel so that prospects can make Client review workshops are all completed in January.
well-thought-out decisions. We find that clients like to think annually, and meeting
Because prospects are in a room with other people doing in January gives us a time to review the previous year and
the same thing, they learn from other people’s questions. We put plans in place for the coming year. In the UK, our
then use Cialdini’s second principle: social proof. Once one tax year runs April to April, so this gives us time to do
person decides to take action in the room, it’s easier for the tax-year planning.
others to follow suit. The workshops are run with between 10 and 18 people at
These workshops typically have 12 people in the room our office, where we now have our own seminar room. When
(usually six couples). At the end of the meeting, they are sim- we started this technique, we didn’t have a seminar room
ply asked to complete a decision sheet on which they note and so rented a room at a local hotel. We did this for the first
what action they want to take. I have two of my paraplanners four years before we moved to a larger office.
in the room, who then collect the forms, agree on a date for On each workshop day, we run two workshops, one at
administration with the prospects, and book the business. 10 a.m. and one at 2 p.m. In the past, we ran one at 6
In cases where a one-to-one meeting is needed, I will discuss p.m., but we found that we don’t need to offer this evening
their needs at this meeting to qualify them. If a one-to-one option as clients will attend the daytime sessions, even if
meeting is needed, then one is booked. they work full-time. This is because of the value that they
Our closing rate—people who say that they want to receive from attending.
implement a solution—is 85 percent. That’s usually 10 new The workshops are booked in November, and each cli-
clients in one go! ent is given two workshop day options to select from. The
Think about your clients and how many have the same clients are grouped so that we can make sure that people who
solution: the same trust put in place, the same type of annu- run their own business are in the same room as other busi-
ity, the same critical illness cover. If many people buy the ness owners, retired people are in a room with other retired
same thing, then why not sell them in groups? Just because people, and so on.

©Million Dollar Round Table Annual Meeting Proceedings | 2017

202 Focus Sessions: Marketing

Prior to the workshop, the clients are sent a preparation to discuss other areas that may not have come up in a
sheet. [visual] As you can see, this gives us all the informa- one-to-one meeting.
tion that we need to update their fact find. It also asks them Now, when we started this, I was pretty scared, and some
what they want to cover in the workshop. These forms are of my team members were not very keen. They thought it
with us at least 30 days prior to the workshops, and so it’s might seem impersonal, or that we were going to lose the
the clients’ feedback that creates the content. By covering the relationship with the client. But what we have found is that
clients’ issues, we generate value. Here is an example of the the reverse is true.
content from this year. [visual] By getting clients together into one room, the client
If we look back at the client prep sheet, this is the part loyalty is increased. The clients feel that they are part of
that clients complete at the workshop. You can see that we something, that they are not alone as a client, and so it justi-
address their attitude to risk, something our regulator is very fies their decision to be a client simply because other people
keen on. It asks them if they want to make any additional in that room also made that decision.
contributions to investments or pensions, and, most impor- How has this affected productivity?
tantly, it asks if they need a one-to-one meeting, and when If we look at this past January, we had a total of 10 days of
and for what purpose. workshops, where we had 20 client review workshops. This
You see, what we have found is that the client review resulted in 336 client reviews. In just 10 days, we completed
workshop covers the servicing requirement so that we 336 client reviews. Prior to this, it would have taken me
sit down with people only when there is more business around 100 days to complete that many reviews.
to transact. But we have also found another interesting By using group reviews, we have increased productivity
point; we write more business because the clients are by 10 times: 10 days instead of 100. And at the same time,
with other clients who have done business. It allows us we increased the amount of sales—and client loyalty.

Annual Meeting Proceedings | 2017 ©Million Dollar Round Table