In part one, we talked about the coffee talk meeting as a co-created experience. The key is to build momentum for next – the all-important second meeting in business. Here are 10 tips to ensure you get your share of the pie in your next coffee talk meeting. 

1. Asses a client type category that you think your prospect falls into such as a Rental Car CFO, top producing commercial Real Estate Executive or Brand Director for large Pharma. This can help you get some fluency in the specific trends these folks encounter.
2. Introductions: Try it’s nice to “see you” vs. nice to “meet you” It implies more intimacy and projects confidence.
3. Check timing: ask if your contact still has the full hour that was pledged. You want to make sure you can bring your conversation to a good segue if time gets cut short.
4. Ask these three “journey” questions during your meeting for light discovery 1.) What’s been your journey? (Gets at the prospects view of their path) 2.)Where are you now? (Gets the prospect to divulge the current state) 3.)Where are you going? (Gets at goals, and potentially some dissatisfaction in the current state)
5. Take notes selectively. In your notebook, draw four rectangular boxes one over another on one page. As you hear a key point, fill in the box. Remember this is a connection meeting, not a court case.
6. Based on your journey question answers, offer to help in your own special way of authentic generosity.
7. Context is king - if your meeting is scheduled for an hour – protect the last 10 minutes like gold.  Use this time to play back and clarify key points and suggest a next meeting.
8. Have one specific ask. This should be tied to what you thought the client type (prospect) could realistically help you achieve. Link the ask to the value of the current conversation and extend that to a second meeting.
9. Craft a hand-written thank you as soon as you can. Bullet your playback points as a tee-up to meeting #2.
10. A few days later, send an email follow-up that looks something like this:

 
“Hi Ellen, it was great seeing you this past Tuesday and thanks for being so generous with your time. We covered a lot of ground together but wanted to follow up on some of the things we both thought were important:
•    This is the video of my Chamber talk on messaging
•    A Whitepaper on what the best are doing around prospecting in wealth management
•    A link to my blog post on social media that I told you about. Nice tie to your team’s challenges.

Thanks also for your help in connecting me to Steve over at TKD Securities. I know we said that we’d connect at the end of the month - here are some additional dates and times for us to reconnect on the prospecting topic. Please feel free to pick one that works or suggest another. 
•    June 6 – after 12p
•    June 7 – all day
•    June 13 – before 3pm
 
Thanks again, Ellen. I look forward to seeing you soon." 

If no response in two weeks, send a calendar invite with the same message above around timing flexibility. This assumes that you made firm and purposeful connections in the coffee talk meeting and the next meeting was implied and agreed upon.  

As always we value your comments and success stories. Please send all good news to bwalton@billwaltonsalestraining.com. 

CLIENT ACQUISITION EXPERT BILL WALTON LAUNCHES “THE CLIENT SIDE PODCAST”           TO SHARE SALES SUCCESS STRATEGIES WITH WEALTH MANAGEMENT PROS
Co-hosted by branding expert Shakira M. Brown, the podcast aims to help financial services firms “mean more” to clients.
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​FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE– Award-winning financial services client acquisition specialist Bill Walton, founder of Bill Walton Sales Training (billwaltonsalestraining.com), recently launched the Client Side Podcast (https://clientside.podbean.com) to share strategies wealth management professionals can implement to acquire and retain more clients. Co-hosted by award-winning media and branding expert Shakira M. Brown (smbstrategicmedia.com), the podcast will cover how being a “thinking partner” and practicing the “joy of helping” can attract new prospects and offer more value to clients.
 
In the premiere episode “The $30 Trillion Chase,” Walton and Brown address the $30 trillion chase: the $30 trillion dollars that has begun to shift from one generation to the next as baby boomers pass on their legacies. Plus, discover how to “Mean more to clients” in Walton’s “Bill-ism” of the episode. Listen now and subscribe to hear future episodes at https://clientside.podbean.com.
 
With more than 20 years of experience helping financial services firms “mean more” to clients, Walton applies his expertise to help professionals in the wealth management industry win and retain more business who are often burdened with limited time and resources. Walton launched “The Client Side Podcast” to further share his signature “just add water” value added programs and live pipeline coaching approach with a larger audience. Along with his two books, Taming the Four-Headed Dragon and The Winning Way with Brian Tracy, the podcast aims to help professionals in wealth management, banking and insurance mean more to their clients.
 
“We’re in the midst of a massive shift in generational wealth, and wealth management firms need to be ready to shift their focus,” said Walton. “These companies need to avoid heading down a commodity path in their respective sectors. I’ve spent years helping businesses meet client expectations and aim to encourage a value creation approach – one that offers insight over product and service – through this podcast.”
 
Listen to the first episode of the Client Side podcast and subscribe for future episodes at https://clientside.podbean.com.
 
The Client Side Podcast is recorded at IBIS Venue Center in Hamilton, NJ. Learn more about these professional meeting spaces by visiting www.ibisvc.com.
 
For questions or comments about the podcast, email podcast@clientsidepodcast.com. 
 
About Bill Walton
Bill Walton is the CEO of Bill Walton Sales Training a Client Acquisition firm with over 20 years of experience in helping financial services firms "mean more" to clients. He has worked extensively in wealth management, banking and insurance as a sales coach, facilitator and author. Learn more about Bill Walton and download the free whitepaper “The New Era in Prospecting in Wealth Management” by visiting www.billwaltonsalestraining.com. Visit his blog for even more tips on client acquisition at: https://www.billwaltonsalestraining.com/blog.
 
About Shakira M. Brown 
Shakira M. Brown is an award-winning PR and marketing expert with over 20 years of experience leading communications strategies for various small and high growth corporations, public companies, celebrities, personalities and professional services firms. As a speaker, Shakira as “The Small Biz Whisperer” has addressed audiences of her peers in public relations around the country. Shakira is available for speaking engagements; please contact shakira@pradviser.net with inquiries. 
  

Thanks for reading part 1 in our series that spoke to the need to connect uniquely with HNW prospects with CREATED wealth as their main characteristic. In part 1 I wrote about serial entrepreneurs, mature business owners and C-Suite execs and the pebbles in their shoes that Wealth Management firms can address. In addition to this client type approach, firms need to be ready for the millennial-like client who will be looking for their own brand of relationship with you... or with another firm.
 
So to continue our client acquisition glide path, let me share with you three more client types that should also be part of your HNW prospect segmentation. This set of client types can best be associated with INHERITED wealth. Source of wealth is hugely important when making distinct connections with HNW prospects:
 
Client Type # 4 – Family Office
Potential Problem Areas

• Most assets in Real Property
• Direct ownership
• Perceived need for institutional diversification
• Lacks a total snapshot of true wealth

Prospecting Opportunity

• Commercial Banking
• Structured titling (Real Estate)
• Experience with investors that have direct ownership
• PIMS – aggregating personal information and reporting
• Single view cash and payments management

 
Client Type # 5 – Large Asset Owners
Potential Problem Areas

• Concentrated in one subset (i.e. Timber)
• Need to pass on illiquid wealth
• Diversify away from real assets
• Complicated family dynamic across generations

Prospecting Opportunity

• Structuring of liquidity for real assets
• Lending against real assets
• Specialty asset management (purchase or ongoing management)
• Generational planning and wealth transfer

 
Client Type # 6 – Philanthropic Organizations
Potential Problem Areas

• Board of advisors – Investment Committee
• Focus on prudent management with need for annualized returns to break even
• Not big on change or adapting to new approaches
• Board engagement – varying tenures, decision making, impact stewardship

Prospecting Opportunity

• Investment policy statements
• Legal support for Fiduciary
• Outsourced CIO
• Real asset investment
• Targeted asset allocation

 
For more ideas to support an effective client-type prospecting strategy, sign up here for a link to the corresponding chapter in my book, Taming the Four Headed Dragon (https://www.4headeddragon.com)