In a recent Duct Tape Marketing post, John Jantsch put his finger directly on a very common marketing challenge for advisors. He writes:
"There is a Buddhist concept called the monkey mind. The monkey mind is the name for that clamoring in your head that hates the silence, hates the mundane, hates to sit still.
I think small business owners suffer from the marketing monkey mind. They can't stand to listen to the same marketing message over and over, they yearn to bounce off the walls in search of the new, new marketing message and they hate, more than anything, repetition.... Stop changing what you say, what you look like, what you do—stick with something long enough, repeat it over and over until it makes you ill (or becomes a mantra)."
Jantsch is talking about small business owners, but his observation fits advisors to a T—although in their case, it's more typically tactics that change, as opposed to branding or marketing messages. As long-time advisor coach Joe Lukacs once told me:
"Lack of consistency is a real problem in this industry. Advisors often stop doing what works out of sheer boredom. If you want to try new strategies, try small tests, slotting in the new methods without taking time away from proven techniques. You may have to work a little harder for a short amount of time, but don't abandon what works. Recognize what works, bottle it, and stay consistent."
This advice is true for referral marketing as well as marketing and prospecting in general. As Jantsch suggests in his post, the end goal of any type of marketing is to get prospects to target YOU, rather than the other way around. Know which markets you serve. Be clear about what makes you unique in serving them. Figure out who your best referral sources are for those markets, and then be consistent in asking them for introductions and otherwise engaging their help to get the word out. You'll start to develop critical mass in your chosen markets, and the referrals will begin flowing more and more freely.
You can conquer monkey mind and make referrals truly automatic in your practice by remembering Jantsch's and Lukacs' sage advice: "Stop changing what you say, what you look like, what you do. Recognize what works, bottle it, and stay consistent."
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