Connecting on LinkedIn with prospects usually isn’t the challenge for financial advisors. Starting conversations is. Reaching out to potential clients can become monotonous… sending, sending. Trying new message scripts and templates to no avail. Crickets.

The problem is your message. Clearly. Maybe that’s why you’re here. Let’s quickly dive in to why effective LinkedIn messages for financial advisors are such a challenge.

Are you blending in?

You get a connection request on LinkedIn. You accept it and almost INSTANTLY get a message from someone you have never met explaining their business in a canned template format, not even knowing what you do or if they could help you. 

If you’re like most people in this situation, you ignore the message or delete it and move on with your day. Sure, they’ll send follow-ups, but they’re still just telling you the exact same information as the initial email and asking YOU to take time out of YOUR day to listen to them pitch to you for a half hour over the phone. 

They don’t even know what it is that you DO.

Does this sound familiar? Even worse, are you the person on the wrong end of the canned templates?

What if you did this?

What would happen if INSTEAD of the traditional canned template, you got a message sparking curiosity? What if it was so brief, blunt and stood out enough to make you curious? 

So curious you felt an urge to hit reply.

Or what if you received a message like this?

“John, I was looking at your profile, and I saw that you spent some time doing Doctors Without Borders a few years ago in Kenya. That is super cool, and I would love to hear more about that.

Assuming you actually did spend time with Doctors Without Borders in Kenya, this would raise your eyebrows a bit, right? This person did research on something that probably means a lot to you and wants to talk more about it (assume they’re being genuine).

The problem is templates

For some reason, financial advisors are often more guilty of this than other industries. It seems there is a preconceived notion that if you can send more emails in a shorter amount of time, it will automatically be more rewarding--hence the idea of canned templates and scripts.

These canned template messages get deleted, instantly. You may think your template doesn’t look like everyone else’s, but it’s 2019 now; everyone’s template gauges are high and ready to evaluate the large number of messages they get every day. 

Think about all the times you get those messages.  You might roll your eyes, sigh, get annoyed they took time out of your day. The sender didn’t bother to do research on you.

No matter what your reaction, most of the time, you recognize a template when you see one. Impersonal, mass mailed spam.

Delete key!

Example: Mark in Atlanta

Mark is a financial advisor using LinkedIn connection request scripts to reach prospects for his Financial Planning business. He's a member of our sales outreach Academy.

His challenge: His requests are starting to become less effective for starting conversations. Usually people will accept them and then -- silence. 

Probably like you, he needed to start conversations with people who felt too busy to consider changes. He was pressed to:

• find email address
• help prospects feel an urge to ask for help
• write messages helping prospects discover, on their own, enough reason to consider and make change 

None of these are easy feats, so Mark set out on a mission to really learn a new mindset and structure that he could take with him throughout his entire career.

Since he was a member of the Academy, he knew he should be:

• Understanding current client motivators in order to power effective outreach messages
• ditching canned templates (these didn't work because what motivates one client doesn't motivate another)
• researching clients as a means to catch their attention, stand out.
• exploiting the nagging fears that clients should be addressing but are hesitating to act on

The above tend to work because most financial advisors use email templates that alienate prospects.

It must be done the right way.

Mark developed what he thought was a great template. It was strong. But it was still screaming “mass emailing to a wide audience” and guessing at clients’ pain points.

No research means few responses from the prospect. His template wasn’t working well enough.

Mark’s (non-performing) template

The under-performing template he was sending out to prospects with connection requests looked like this:

In theory, this message looks good, right? In fact, it has strengths based on a writing technique we teach. 

But it’s a template, and that’s clear. In the second sentence, he is pushing a pain he is guessing clients have, in a blanket way, which screams “mass emailing to a wide audience.” 

1. It is not specific or provocative enough, and it shows prospects that you did not do research.
2. The yes/no question also does not facilitate conversation. Because if they want to answer “no,” they will simply ignore the message.

That’s not very helpful, is it.

What if Mark were to shorten this email and make it more specific and provocative?

Instead, help them want to ask

Your clients are open to discussing change with you. Even if they have a financial advisor relationship in place. But they’ll need to feel an urge to respond. An urge to ask for more details.

Your LinkedIn message template is probably saying too much, too fast. Or asking for too much, too soon.

Remember, your goal is NOT to book a meeting when making first contact with a client. 

Be warned: Asking for what you want, right away, will fail.

Here’s how to frame what may be plaguing your LinkedIn message template:

1. This is a first date. The meeting will come. Trust in it. Don’t rush. ATTRACT the meeting/demo to you. This way you …
2. Let customers qualify themselves—so you don’t have to! This is the point of LinkedIn prospecting. Scale-ability.
3. You are irrelevant. ALL discussion about you is forbidden in script #1.

Attract the potential client to ask YOU for the meeting. Get invited to discuss a challenge, fear or goal your prospect has.

This LinkedIn outreach strategy works best. But it takes provocation.

If you aren’t provocative in a way that earns attraction (provoke curiosity) you aren’t getting response.

Because your client is filtering emails on-the-go. He/she is mobile. Getting a reply demands you are brief, blunt and provocative.

You can do it

Stop doing what everyone else is doing. Make LinkedIn work for you—rather than the other way around!

To get the other person talking you’ve got to provoke an “interesting enough” thought.

A reason to hit reply and talk about themselves. Right away. No hesitation. Success often boils down to your ability to give prospects an irresistible reason to talk. This is what we learn how to do in our Spark Selling Academy.