Ep 251: Accelerating Inbound Referrals By Planting Better Seeds With More (Radical) Relevance with Bill Cates
Financial Advisor Success
Michael Kitces
4.8 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 19 October 2021
⏱️ 90 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Bill Cates is the founder of Referral Coach International, an organization that helps financial advisors attract more ideal clients through referrals. He teaches advisors how to use their communication and messaging to make themselves more “referable” and to ask for an introduction instead of a less meaningful referral.
Listen in as Bill shares why he makes a clear distinction between referrals and introductions, why clients are sometimes reluctant to give introductions, and how advisors can overcome those concerns. We also discuss why it's important for advisors to help clients work towards their bucket list goals in addition to their financial goals, how they can hone their messaging so that they can achieve “radical relevance” in the eyes of their clients, and why clear messaging is more important than ever in a post-pandemic world.
For show notes and more visit: https://www.kitces.com/251
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner, speaker and consultant Michael Kitsas, to hear stories of how leading financial advisors navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next |
| 0:22.3 | level in your advisory business. And now here's your host, Michael Kitsis. Welcome, everyone. |
| 0:28.5 | Welcome to the 251st episode of the Financial Advisor Success podcast. My guest today's podcast is |
| 0:34.9 | Bill Kates. Bill is the founder of Referral Coach International, |
| 0:38.3 | which helps financial advisors attract more of their ideal clients through referrals. |
| 0:42.4 | What's unique about Bill, though, is that he teaches his financial advisors how to generate more |
| 0:46.8 | and better referrals from their clients by focusing their communication and messaging in such a way |
| 0:51.0 | that makes them more referable in the first place, and then not following |
| 0:55.3 | up by asking for referrals, but seeking introductions instead. In this episode, we talk in depth |
| 1:01.8 | about why Bill makes a clear distinction between a less meaningful referral where a client gives |
| 1:06.3 | an advisor's name to contact and an introduction, where the client actively introduces someone to their |
| 1:12.0 | advisor. The two main reasons that Bill says clients are reluctant to give introductions and how |
| 1:16.8 | advisors can proactively address those concerns by communicating with clients how referrals are |
| 1:21.1 | handled internally. And how Bill suggests that advisors can plant the seed for clients to be receptive |
| 1:26.0 | by providing introductions and |
| 1:28.1 | periodically checking in with clients to ask for their honest feedback, not just on whether |
| 1:31.8 | they're satisfied with the advisor's service, but whether it is meeting their expectations. |
| 1:37.5 | We also talk about Bill's advice on the importance of making sure that when asking clients |
| 1:41.7 | for introductions, that the conversation frames the discussion in such a way that clients can visualize the specific types of people that would be a good |
| 1:48.4 | fit. Wybo recommends that advisors put some effort into not only helping clients reach their more |
| 1:53.4 | traditional financial planning goals, but also discovering what's on their bucket lists and helping |
| 1:57.6 | them work towards those goals as well. And how by marrying a target market |
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