Relationship Marketing

John Melchinger--The Marketing Coach™

The nature of relationships correlates precisely to the development of trust between consumer and provider. The psychology of relationships - as opposed to the psychology of selling - has more to do with the success of marketing and selling than any other factor in marketing a private professional practice. This is where you'll get the good stuff. Values based marketing spoken here.

Crossword Challenges

You want to open their eyes to the possibilities from working with you. Nudge them into the realization that yours is the expertise they need to achieve their quest for more. You also want to show them your relationship oriented, professionally balanced style. It's about zingers, not gotcha's.

Marketing Rationale

A few ironic truths.

• Consumers know more now than ever before, yet too little knowledge is a dangerous thing. There is still much more focus on rates than yields. Market investors still buy high and sell low because they scare easily.
  
  
• The Internet provides the greatest library of information the world has ever know, but much of it is not correct and there is no good way to sort out reliability. The information age has created information glut. Who can help us sort through the fustian and bombast to get to the kernels of real information that enable us to make informed decisions?
  
  
• Most practitioners proclaim to be expert at something, but pinning them down is often as difficult as pinning the tail on the donkey.
  
  
• You can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, and yourself as long as you insist. Political campaigns have shown us that we can lie about the competition and say bad things and get away with it. Advertising now often bashes commissioned selling versus salaried advising. How long will anyone be fooled…or remain deluded?
  
  
• And the saddest truth of all: It isn't what you don't know that hurts you. It's what you know for sure…that just ain't so. Learn what's new then improvise, adapt, overcome…or die of dry rot.

Challenge Complacency

People with money have a sense of self-empowerment and often make decisions based on what they think they know, believing that they know enough. Like a frog in a well thinks the sky it sees is the whole sky, many people with money believe they know enough, or that they have enough resources for obtaining advice, that they can make informed decisions. So, your competition is not only the consumer's complacency but their present advisors' expertise as well.

Challenge them! Fight their complacency. Wake them up to it, then wake them up from it. Make them wonder if their complacency is dangerously wrong. Shake them. Nicely, of course, but shake them.

A Versatile Format

The crossword challenge is a versatile format. It shows your expertise in any area you want to promote. It is made up of words and definitions as you want them.

The format is simple. Basically, you make up a crossword puzzle and send it (without the answers, of course), to your prospect. Your simple message is the challenge. Something such as, "If you and your estate planning advisor cannot complete this crossword puzzle in ten minutes or less, you may need to meet with me" works well. They will either discard it (not likely) or take the challenge. They may call and ask for an answer. Make an appointment to meet them. Do not give out the answers over the phone. Never. Always meet to discuss it.

For practitioners I've done this with, the difficult part is putting the puzzle together. There are two parts to the process: first, deciding the words and their definitions, crossword style; second, building the puzzle. Step two is easiest because there is some great, cheap software that does this for you quite easily. I personally like the New York Times crossword software that sells for about $15. for the CD. I believe it is called Xworld, but these inexpensive software CDs change often.

The tougher work you'll have to do to get this underway is to pick the words you'll want to demonstrate your expertise in this challenge, and then write out the definitions. If you need to get compliance clearance from some oversight function you are obliged to fulfill, then there's that step too.

To view the example from an estate planning marketing campaign, click here.