In our Mastermind meeting this week, one of the participants was talking about her experience interviewing potential financial planners to help her. We’ll call her Robyn.

Robyn’s looking at selling her business in a few years and wants to know the best strategy and timing to maximise her return on her investment and minimise the tax to pay.

She shared with me that she had met with three different planners and still could not decide which one to work with.

What we discovered was that they had failed to demonstrate to her that they knew what they were doing and that they could help her.

Robyn expressed that they may not want to tell her the strategy etc. until she has signed up because:

1. That’s how they make their money
2. They may think she will get the information and do it herself.

“I don’t want to do it”, she said.  “But I do want to know they can do it.”

This is where case studies and testimonials can be very helpful.

Your potential clients are looking for confidence. They want to know that you have helped others in a similar situation so therefore you might be able to help them.

A picture came into my mind as were talking.

It’d be like interviewing a cleaner to clean your house or office. They can tell you how they’re going to clean, what chemicals they’re going to use, how often they’ll clean certain areas etc. and even though they may have told you the “how”, it doesn’t mean you want to do it.   Giving you their strategy and technique gives you the confidence that they know what they’re doing so you can engage them.

It’s a similar thing with the financial planners.  Robyn doesn’t want the knowledge to be able to go and do it herself. She wants the confidence that they know what they are doing. She wants to feel comfortable that they can advise her on the best strategy and that they have the technical expertise to help her.

Sometimes, as service providers, we can get caught up thinking we can’t share what we know in case others will take the knowledge and use it and therefore not engage us.  This is scarcity thinking. For the most part, your prospective clients don’t want to do the work, they want to engage you, so give them a good reason to.

Give them confidence you can help them. Share what you know that will be most helpful to them and provide examples of how you have helped others in the same situation.

As one of my other clients says, “selling is a transference of confidence”. He or she who has the most confidence gets the business.

Might be time to take a look at your offer and how you present it.

Are you instilling confidence in your prospective clients?

Are you demonstrating to them that you have the knowledge, skills and expertise to help them?

P.S. Our next Leading Yourself and Leading Others Experience and Loyal Lieutenant Masterclass Series will both start in February 2024. Early bird discounts apply, so keep an eye out for more information to come.

P.P.S. Invite your friends to get the Weekly Thoughts delivered directly to their inbox. Go to https://shirleydalton.com/weekly-thoughts.

How many times have you said or heard, “I won’t bother”?

The reason I’m mentioning it this week is because I’m thrilled to announce that I have recorded an audio version of my book, “The Loyal Lieutenant: How The Second-in-Command Brings The CEO’s Vision To Life” and 10 lucky readers will receive complimentary access to listen to the book rather than read it.

Thanks to Lee Woodward for his skill, advice, mentoring and support, we now have an audio version.

When we celebrated 13 years of Weekly Thoughts a few months ago, I gave away a complimentary enrolment to The Loyal Lieutenant Masterclass Series (which retails for $1997 and which starts on Tuesday 5^th September) and received just one reply, so of course, that one reply became the lucky winner.

I was surprised.

It made me wonder whether you have some Limiting Beliefs or are engaging in Automatic Listening, deciding that you won’t win and therefore not bothering to simply hit Reply with a “Yes Please” message.

Or perhaps your narrative goes something like, “Shirley knows me, so she wouldn’t give it to me”.

Remember, our beliefs dictate our destiny, so now might be a good time to reflect on what’s going through you mind at any given time.

There’s a great story about a man who got bogged in snow in a rural area at night. He got out of his car to get a shovel from his boot, only to find he didn’t have a shovel.

Looking around, he could see a light in the far distance. He decided to walk towards the light and see if he could borrow a shovel.

As he walked towards the light he started thinking. “Oh, it’s probably dinner time. I’ll be interrupting. They might be scared by a stranger and shoot me. There might be dogs on the property that will chase me. They mightn’t even have a shovel. They might not want to lend me their shovel.”

As he walked and walked and walked, his internal chatter got more and more negative, until he finally reached the steps of the house with the light.

He walked up the steps and knocked on the door.

A man opened the door.

Before the man could say anything, the stranded motorist looked at him, shook his head and in response to his own negative self talk, answered, “You can shove your shovel up your ……. I didn’t want it anyway” and with that turned and walked off.

Don’t let this offer be an opportunity for you to engage in negative self talk, limiting beliefs or automatic listening.

If you’d like to receive access to the audio version of the book, please click Reply and type “Yes Please”. You never know, the outcome might surprise you. It might actually be more positive than you think or expect.

So, don’t think, just do.

P.S. Our next Loyal Lieutenant masterclass series starts Tuesday September 5th.  Check it out here https://shirleydaltoncourse.com/webinar

P.P. S. Invite your friends to get the Weekly Thoughts delivered directly to their inbox. Go to https://shirleydalton.com/weekly-thoughts