- How can financial advisors set twelve-month goals to maximize growth opportunities at financial advisor conferences?
- How can financial advisors identify specific learning objectives for each goal and align them with conference sessions?
- What is a strategic approach to networking at conferences and how can it be used to maximize growth opportunities?
- How can technology be used to automate the follow-up process and make the most of financial advisor conference opportunities?
- How can technology benefit financial advisors in their conference attendance and growth opportunities?
Leverage the Power of Technology to Turn Financial Advisor Conferences into a Success for Your Practice #
As a financial advisor, your development is closely aligned with the investments you make in developing new skills, new relationships, and new practice capabilities. Financial advisor conferences offer a great opportunity for learning, networking, and finding new ideas to bring back to your practice. However, it can be hard to make the most of these opportunities when you have to contend with thousands of attendees, dozens of potential sessions to attend, and a packed social calendar. By incorporating technology and strategic networking, you can maximize your return from attending financial advisor conferences.
Step One: Set Twelve-Month Goals for Your Practice #
To get the most out of any financial advisor conference, it is essential to be clear about what you want to achieve in your business. Start by setting three priorities that you will focus on in your business over the next twelve months. These can include goals such as growing your book of business, starting a transition process, or entering a new market.
Step Two: Identify What You Need to Learn to Achieve Your Goals #
For each goal, set a learning objective. List the things you want to learn or get better at that will help you reach that goal for your practice. For example, if you want to grow your book of business, you may focus on marketing as a learning opportunity. You could study digital marketing, website design, SEO, or social media. Once you know what you want to achieve, it is straightforward to review the schedule for each upcoming financial advisor conference and select two or three educational sessions for each of your learning objectives.
Step Three: Be Strategic about Your Networking #
Financial advisor conferences can be overwhelming with so many people to talk to and so many promises to follow up with. To get the most out of networking at a conference, take a strategic approach. Before the conference, identify the people you want to meet, such as vendors, other advisors, and clients, who might be able to help you with your practice objectives. Review the conference events to see when you might have the best opportunity to meet them. Be clear about what you want from them.
Step Four: Best practices for using technology to automate conference follow-up with leads and contacts #
One of the biggest obstacles to maximizing conference opportunities comes after it is over. You return to your office with a head full of new ideas and a ton of new contacts. But clients and the day-to-day running of the practice can make getting all that follow-up organized difficult to do.
Here are a few tips and best practices for using technology to help with this process:
Use an advisor-specific CRM system: A customer relationship management (CRM) system can be a powerful tool for organizing and managing leads and contacts. By having all of your contacts in one central location, you can easily keep track of follow-up tasks and progress, schedule follow-up calls and meetings, and analyze your performance over time.
Use a contact scanning app: A contact scanning app can help you quickly and easily digitize all of the business cards that you collect at the conference. This can save a lot of time and hassle compared to manually inputting all of the information into your CRM. The CRM, one specifically designed for financial advisors, can turn the painful process of inputting contact info, scheduling tasks and trying to organize follow-up calls and meetings into a breeze.
Tag and segment contacts: Once your contacts are in your CRM, you can use tags and segments to organize and sort them. For example, you can tag leads by the industry or market they're in, or segment them by the stage of the sales process. This will help you quickly find the leads and contacts that are most relevant to your business objectives.
Schedule follow-ups: Use the scheduling feature of your CRM to schedule follow-up calls and meetings with leads and contacts. This will help you stay organized and ensure that you're following up with leads in a timely manner.
Use marketing automation: Automation tools in your advisor-specific CRM can help you personalize and optimize your communication with leads and contacts. These tools can allow you to set up automated email and SMS campaigns that deliver targeted content and messages to specific segments of leads based on their interests and behaviors.
By utilizing technology to effectively track leads and manage contacts, financial advisors can stay organized and ensure that they are following up with leads in a timely manner, leading to increased chances of conversions. It can also help them to have a better understanding of their leads and make more informed decisions. The more steps you can automate, the easier life will be and the more likely you’ll be to capitalize on all the great opportunities you opened at the conference.
Wrap Up #
In conclusion, the most effective way to get the most out of attending financial advisor conferences is to come up with a plan ahead of time and to utilize technology to make the follow-up process smoother and more manageable. By setting twelve-month goals, identifying what you need to learn, being strategic about networking, and utilizing technology, you can maximize growth opportunities at financial advisor conferences and take your practice to the next level.
Advisor Conference Attendance Checklist: #
- Set twelve-month goals for your practice
- Identify what you need to learn to achieve your goals
- Review the conference schedule and select 2-3 educational sessions for each learning objective
- Identify people you want to meet (vendors, advisors, clients) and review conference events to see when you have the best opportunity to meet them
- Utilize technology to digitize business cards and automate follow-up activities
- Prioritize and plan your networking
- Bring a scanner to digitize business cards
- Set up your CRM for new contacts and scheduling of follow-up calls and meetings
- Have a plan for follow-up and execution of ideas and opportunities after the conference
- Be aware of the conference events and plan your agenda ahead of time
- Prepare the agenda for the people from your team who will be joining the conference and their goals
