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©2014 All Rights Reserved Brokerville www.brokerville.com 888-893-2990 1 Twenty Five Ways to Boost Seminar Results Table of Contents How to Increase Seminar Attendance and Appointments........................................... 3 Improve Your Seminar Results ................................................................................... 6 Seminar Tip ................................................................................................................. 6 Two Ways to Pack a Seminar Room ............................................................................ 7 Best Time for Seminars ............................................................................................... 7 Seminar Producer Blows the Doors Off ....................................................................... 7 Add-On Slides for Your Seminar Program ............................ Error! Bookmark not defined. From Rags to Riches ................................................................................................... 8 Seminar Attendance After September 11.................................................................... 8 They’ll Come to The Seminar To Get Your Book ........................................................ 10 Seminar System Owner Pockets $6 Million Per Seminar........................................... 10 Critical to Seminar Success ....................................................................................... 11 Don’t Sell Financial Plans .......................................................................................... 11 Closing More Sales with Seniors ............................................................................... 11 Increasing Attendance .............................................................................................. 12 Mailing Details .......................................................................................................... 12 80% of Success is Following the Instructions .......................................................... 13 Maximize Attendance—Avoid These Mistakes........................................................... 13 Maximize Appointments............................................................................................ 14 Please Watch Out For These Seminar Issues ............................................................ 14 Instant Improvement in Seminar Results ................................................................. 15 Advice from Successful System User......................................................................... 15 Fail-Safe Way to Fill Seminars .................................................................................. 15 To Maximize Seminar Results ................................................................................... 15 The Key to Serving and Profiting from Affluent Seniors............................................ 17 When You Do Seminars Outside of Your Area ........................................................... 17 Remedies for Poor Seminar Attendance ................................................................... 18

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Page 1: Twenty five ways boost seminar results

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Twenty Five Ways to Boost Seminar Results

Table of Contents

How to Increase Seminar Attendance and Appointments ........................................... 3

Improve Your Seminar Results ................................................................................... 6

Seminar Tip ................................................................................................................. 6

Two Ways to Pack a Seminar Room ............................................................................ 7

Best Time for Seminars ............................................................................................... 7

Seminar Producer Blows the Doors Off ....................................................................... 7

Add-On Slides for Your Seminar Program ............................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

From Rags to Riches ................................................................................................... 8

Seminar Attendance After September 11 .................................................................... 8

They’ll Come to The Seminar To Get Your Book ........................................................ 10

Seminar System Owner Pockets $6 Million Per Seminar ........................................... 10

Critical to Seminar Success ....................................................................................... 11

Don’t Sell Financial Plans .......................................................................................... 11

Closing More Sales with Seniors ............................................................................... 11

Increasing Attendance .............................................................................................. 12

Mailing Details .......................................................................................................... 12

80% of Success is Following the Instructions .......................................................... 13

Maximize Attendance—Avoid These Mistakes ........................................................... 13

Maximize Appointments ............................................................................................ 14

Please Watch Out For These Seminar Issues ............................................................ 14

Instant Improvement in Seminar Results ................................................................. 15

Advice from Successful System User ......................................................................... 15

Fail-Safe Way to Fill Seminars .................................................................................. 15

To Maximize Seminar Results ................................................................................... 15

The Key to Serving and Profiting from Affluent Seniors............................................ 17

When You Do Seminars Outside of Your Area ........................................................... 17

Remedies for Poor Seminar Attendance ................................................................... 18

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Greatest Estate Planning Resource ........................................................................... 18

Some Tips on Marketing to The Affluent ................................................................... 19

Maintaining Business Volume During Holiday Season .............................................. 20

Some Tips From Russ Alan Prince ............................................................................. 20

Seminar System Owners ........................................................................................... 21

Prospecting Different Markets .................................................................................. 21

Get More Seminar Appointments .............................................................................. 22

Get Cash .................................................................................................................... 23

30% of These People Attend My Seminar ................................................................. 24

A Good Suggestion .................................................................................................... 24

Is Golf Like Business? ............................................................................................... 24

Using Another Seminar Speaker ............................................................................... 25

Big Production Through Streamlining ....................................................................... 26

Advice From Successful Seminar System Users ........................................................ 27

Reminder .................................................................................................................. 28

Dripping Pays ............................................................................................................ 28

Running Your Appointments For Maximum Results .................................................. 29

Here’s How to Get Another Two Appointments Per Seminar and Improve the Quality

of Appointments........................................................................................................ 30

Post-Seminar Letter .................................................................................................. 31

How to Get ALL the Money When You Meet Prospects ............................................. 33

How to Get Prospect Calls Months Later ................................................................... 34

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How to Increase Seminar Attendance and Appointments

I hear feedback that seminar attendance is off. Since I do seminars myself, I have first hand

experience with this. I just did a seminar in the heat of summer--Saturday, July 26. 1 followed

the same formula that you have. I mailed 3,000 invitations for the Annuity Seminar (Nine Ways

to Cut Taxes). I had 23 buying units (30 would be normal) and got 16 appointments at the

seminar (maybe we got more, but another producer does the follow up and meetings so I don't

have the additional data). So I agree that attendance seems to be a little light, but anyone getting

16 appointments can make a fortune form each seminar.

I had to think about what could I possibly be doing differently than you since the formula in our

seminar systems came from my own system. Here's what I have uncovered.

You need to improve your biography-here's how:

As part of our invitation system we will write your biography for you. But you need to provide

the raw materials-we cannot make up facts and having a strong biography is important.

When people receive a seminar invitation, they need to be convinced to attend. There are two

things that convince them:

The topics (and we have carefully worded the invitation to be compelling) and the speaker

biography. If you look like every other advisor in town, odds are, they won't come. The public

has begun to understand that 80% of advisors add no value. All most advisors have is some

information about products. But people can get information about products on the Internet or

Money Magazine.

What investors want is someone who provides insight.

How do you reveal in your biography that you add value? You need to do everything possible

that other advisors don't do because they are too lazy. Here's the list to separate yourself:

Get credentials. This is so simple. There are a number of credentials that you can get in almost

no time:

Certified Retirement Financial Advisor-4 day class or do it from home with the

self study course www.crfa.us

Certified in Long Term Care-2 day class www.ltc-cltc.com

Graduate Estate Planning Consultant-3.5 day class

Once you have a credential, we can then add to your biography:

"Bob is one of 1,000 Certified Retirement Financial Advisors in the US. To become a Certified

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Retirement Financial Advisor, he completed a rigorous program focusing exclusively on

financial issues and concerns of retirees and passed a 4 hour proctored exam proving his

expertise.”

Get yourself published

You don't need to write a word. There are several ways to get yourself in print:

If you subscribe to our senior newsletter, take any of the articles and send them to the

newspapers in your area and follow the instructions in our Public Relations Kit

(www.javelinmarketing.com/products/pr). You need to do this month after month and the

newspapers will start printing "your" articles. We can then add to your biography:

"You may have read Bob's articles "Who Doesn't Need Long term Care Protection?" and

"Alternate Sources for Retirement Income" in the Herald and the Tribune."

Or, have us print any of the booklet or book titles we offer

(www.javelinmarketing.com/products/booklets and www.javelinmarketing.com/products/book).

Then we can add to your biography:

"You may be familiar with Bob's book, "Retirement Investing" and his educational booklets,

"Seven Ways for Retirees to Cut Taxes" and "Avoid Mistakes in Selecting Mutual Funds."

Have a Television Show

You can have your own local TV show and produce and air 6 shows for under $1,500 (you can

re-air the same shows again and again usually for nothing). Not only can you add this compelling

information to your bio, you can use your TV show to fill your seminar:

"You may recognize Bob from WBGTV where he is the host of Money Matters for Seniors, a

weekly show that educates seniors on how to be wiser investors and financial managers."

All of the above not only helps your seminars but also your marketing and ability to attract

clients in general. For example, imagine the increased response you get when your stationary

says "Bob Smith-host of WBGTV Senior Money Matters." You will be perceived as an advisor

who adds value, who provides insight.

And you certainly enjoy increased attendance at your seminars when your bio reads:

"You may recognize Bob from WBGTV where he is the host of Money Matters for Seniors, a

weekly show that educates seniors on how to be wiser investors and financial managers. Not just

a TV personality, Bob is one of 1,000 Certified Retirement Financial Advisors in the US. To

become a Certified Retirement Financial Advisor, he completed a rigorous program focusing

exclusively on financial issues and concerns of retirees and passed a 4 hour proctored exam

proving his expertise.

You may have read Bob's articles "Who Doesn't Need Long-term Care Protection" and Alternate

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Sources for Retirement Income" in the Herald and the Tribune. Or, you may be familiar with

Bob's book, "Retirement Investing" and his educational booklets, "Seven Ways for Retirees to

Cut Taxes" and "Avoid Mistakes in Selecting Mutual Funds."

Remember that the advisor down the street may not know any more than you do, but if he is

perceived as being better, he will do more business.

You need to be consistent

I send into the same zip codes month after month, year after year. It's the consistency that makes

a difference. If you do seminars sporadically, you will never build recognition in your market.

How big would Coke be if they advertised once a month instead of 20,000 times a day?

Consistency is the critical factor in exercise, playing an instrument or getting great results in any

facet of life.

A better delivery will get you more appointments

You get more appointments by being entertaining than having lots of information.

I now make sure that I have a joke for every other slide (get a joke for financial professionals

http://www.bigproducer.com ). If humor is not comfortable for you, we are preparing a set of

easy to learn magic tricks that will wow and entertain your audience. We will have that kit ready

for you in a few weeks. Read Frank Maselli's book, "Seminars, The Emotional Dynamic." Ignore

his instructions for filling the room or getting appointments (they don't work that well) but DO

use his recommendations for entertaining the crowd.

This may require you to have a different personality in front of the room, and like anything, you

can learn. I paid a world-class speaking coach $7,500 to get it though my head and it still took

me another year to implement it (i.e. change my behavior). You may need to have someone

video tape each seminar and then take it home for analysis.

Yes, this take some work but the payoff is obscenely high. For example, I was invited to do some

seminars at a State Farm conference. I was voted the best speaker there (and if you watch the

videos that come with your seminar system, you will see that at best, in the past, I was maybe a 7

on a scale of 10). I just got invited back at a hefty sum, for more talks. This will probably result

in me designing some marketing systems for their agents and six digits to me. All from giving an

entertaining talk (with some value in there also).

You can get some local help. Every community has a Toastmasters club. Join and go.

Allow me to share a Jerry Seinfeld story. Jerry was being interviewed and asked what accounted

for his success. He answered by telling about the comedians convention held every year in Las

Vegas. Budding comedians go to get the "answers" and "secrets" to becoming a great comedian

and getting on Jay Leno. Jerry said that if he were the convention organizer, he would tear down

all of the booths, throw out the exhibitors and the experts and put up one large banner that says

"Do the Work." Jerry then explained that when he was first on Jay Leno, he practiced his routine

over 200 times before appearing and that few others would have done the work like he did.

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Improve Your Seminar Results Here’s a brilliant comment from Jill Snyder, one of our seminar users. One of her retired

clients introduced her at the seminar. Can you imagine how genuine and impressive that is to the

attendees, to have a senior (just like them), getting up to sing your praises?

Seminar Tip Cory Adamson says that in his biography on his seminar invitation, the more booklet

titles he lists as having authored, the better his attendance. If you have not seen our booklet

offerings that get printed with your picture and biography, check out www.advisorbooklets.com.

Note the two new booklets available:

Seven Ways Retirees Can Cut Taxes This booklet highlights the virtues of annuities and VUL with these

articles:

Immediate Annuities—A Little-Understood Tax Saver and

Income Booster

A Better Alternative to Tax-Free Bonds

Do You Pay Tax on Your Social Security Income?

Why Defer Tax?

Tax Relief for Mutual Fund Investors

Protect Your Assets and Get a Tax Break Too

The Other Tax Free Way to Help Grandchildren (a Comparison

Of 529 Plans and VUL)

Order at www.advisorbooklets.com

IRA Distribution Mistakes and How to Avoid Them This booklet was designed to accompany our Advanced IRA

Distribution Seminar System and can be used by any planner

interested in this area. The articles include:

Never Take More Than Your RMD

Why the Stretch IRA Is Doomed to Fail

How Your IRA Custodian Causes Problems

Mistakes in Selecting IRA Beneficiaries

Using Your IRA as a Donation

Sheltering Your Retirement Money From Estate Tax

Use Life Insurance as a Transfer Vehicle (In a Qualified Plan)

What Investments Should Be in Your IRA

The Roth IRA—Why to Convert During a Bear Market

99% of the content applies to qualified plans also

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Two Ways to Pack a Seminar Room

My favorite method has always been direct mail; it produces quality attendees over

quantity. Three thousand pieces, at a 1% response, produce about 50 attendees. All of these

people have investment portfolios from $300,000 to $1.5 million (and there are always two or

three in each seminar with $2 million+). However, in some areas, direct mail does not work at

some times.

For reasons I cannot explain, direct mail will work fine in a specific area and then stop

working. The solution is newspaper inserts. By placing 20,000 inserts ($1,000-$1,200) in

targeted zip codes in the daily newspaper, you can get 30-35 responses. The quality of attendees

will not be as high as that generated by direct mail, but inserts work very well in areas when

direct mail does not.

By the way, you will often get advice to offer a meal to fill the room. That’s fine, but

stats I have gathered show that you get appointments with 30% of attendees when you feed them

a meal and 60% when you don’t. Why? Because when you offer a meal, you get many people

who come for the food and don’t make appointments. When you do not use food as “bait,” the

attendees are much higher-quality, motivated prospects. They are “buyers,” not “eaters.”

Best Time for Seminars

We have often recommended Saturday mornings as a good time for seminars. One

reason is that the seniors seem fresher in the morning. Now, there is clinical evidence that

seniors have an easier time paying attention in the morning. Check out the evidence at

www.seniormarketadvisor.com/Archives/mar02/advisory1.cfm.

Seminar Producer Blows the Doors Off

Kurt Hoffer, user of our Raise $1 Million Per Seminar System, infers that the number $1

million is inaccurate. Here’s what he wrote us:

I have been in retail sales since 1995 and giving seminars since then using

“Emerald’s Complete Financial Management Program.” That was way too

expensive and not disturbing enough. I was a teacher, not a motivator. I have

held numerous seminars in the past with consistent 2% to 3% responses from my

mailings. The seminars I used to hold were run by myself as the host, but not the

featured speaker. Now, with your program, that has all changed. I AM THE

REASON THEY ATTEND, to hear what knowledge I have to pass onto them ... but

they quickly realize the many mistakes they have made.

I use the overheads because I like to write examples from my mind, and they think

I am some smart guy. I will be testing PowerPoint for my seminar in MAY. I did

change one slide, the “Who Benefits from an Appointment” slide …my last point

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Terry Sawchuck

United Planners #1 Producer

is “IF you haven’t heard from your Broker or Advisor over the last 12 to 24

months.” I hammer this one home. Because of my client contact system ... I can

run circles around most advisors. I am just starting my 1st quarter reviews, which

is why I’m so busy in addition to the new clients.

OK, so now you want the really good stuff ... the revenue that I will generate from

just two seminars ... I hope you are sitting down for this!!! Client 1 $1.2 million

new assets, $23,000 gross; client 2 $1.3 million new assets, $27,000 gross; client

3 $2.3 million new assets, $32,000 gross; client 4 $800,000 new assets, $23,000

gross. That’s $5.8 million in new assets and $105,000 in gross now. This is a

combo of fees from wrap accts., insurance, annuities, and 529 plans. But look at

what is still not closed yet: additional $4.7 million and additional $72,000 in

gross!!! I had to take April off from my seminars, because I have so many follow-

ups to do.

Thanks for your comments, Kurt. I guess we need to re-title the system “Multi-Million

Dollars Per Seminar System.”

From Rags to Riches

Terry Sawchuck in Michigan saw business climb from

$180,000 to $1.4 million in two years and he says that our “Raise $1

Million per Seminar System” did it for him. Rather than do one

seminar a month as most planners do, he and his partner do one

seminar per week. They, of course, do four times the business because

they spend all day seeing people who came to the seminar.

Terry realized a simple fact and an idea that Bill Good

discusses—MORE. By doing more of what works, you simply

multiply the results. By doing four seminars a month, Terry

multiplies the impact of a successful system.

So why don’t more planners use MORE? Because human beings are risk averse. It’s in

your genes to keep yourself safe and alive. When you think of committing yourself or financial

resources, the risk-averse primordial part of your brain throws up a danger sign and you stop.

Even though your logic tells you that if one seminar a month is profitable, then more seminars

would be more profitable, you allow your emotions to dominate your logic. To profit as a

planner, listen to your brain, not your fear.

Seminar Attendance After September 11 Some financial advisors have reported poor seminar attendance. Others have reported

healthy turnouts. For those that have reported poor attendance, in 80% of the cases that I

reviewed, poor attendance was because of a bad biography on the invitation. They have these

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two common items to correct: they are vague or they are commercial.

By vague, I mean the sentences sound like this “John Doe has helped many people have a

more secure retirement,” rather than “Over 1200 retirees have used John’s advice to increase

their income as much as 50% and decrease their taxes up to 30%.” Which one of these speakers

would you rather hear? Make every sentence specific with numbers and names for a biography

that will motivate people to reserve a seat.

The second item is to make sure the biography is non-commercial. For example,

consider this sentence, “Bob’s focus is to help individuals on selecting the right investments.” It

makes Bob sound like a stockbroker, a salesman, and NO ONE wants to come to a salesman’s

talk. This sentence is much better: “Over 400 retirees have used John’s advice to learn to select

the best investments for their needs.”

The other significant item noticed on some invitations was a wrong seminar date.

Remember—the recipient must get your invitation in the same month as the seminar. That

means you can never have a seminar before the 9th

of the month (they should receive an

invitation on the first of the month with 8 days notice for a presentation on the 9th

).

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They’ll Come to The Seminar To Get Your Book

For those who own our “Six Mistakes” seminar system, you can now

add to your invitation “Every Attendee Receives a Copy of Joe’s Book

Mistakes Retirees Make With Their Finances.” We now have available

a book that tracks with the six mistakes of your presentation plus a few

more: Time Horizon

Long-Term Care

Mutual Funds

Stocks

Annuities

Income Investing

IRAs

Estate Planning

However, we can only license this book to one system user per local population of

250,000 people. You select the zip codes you want and it’s first come, first served. We will

unfortunately not be able to provide the book to everyone who owns a six ways system as there

may be more than one system owner in the same area and we assign zip codes exclusively for the

book. For those who want to tie up their zip codes right away, fully complete the attached order

form and fax it in. You can use the same order form to order the sample—just write “send

sample” on the form. Remember—if someone takes the zip codes you want, they get the

exclusive license rights to the book in that zip code.

The book is paperback, approximately 111 pages, has your picture on the front and the

back cover has your picture and biography. Inside, there is a page before the back cover with

your contact information. The order quantity is 200. You can also customize up to 20% of the

text when you order 500 or more.

Seminar System Owner Pockets $6 Million Per Seminar

After doing three of the seminar presentations from our “Raise $1 Million Per Seminar

System,” Darryl Jones reported to us that he averaged $6 million per seminar. He told me that fit

in with his goal of raising $30 million a year. I got a chance to talk with Darryl and he shared his

secret.

He is a true asset gatherer. At the first appointment, he focuses on selling himself. He

also explains to the client weaknesses in their investments (e.g. they are stuck in their back-end-

loaded funds). He then concludes with stating that he may not change anything in their portfolio

right now so that they do not incur unnecessary fees, but to move the portfolio to him to watch it

and then reallocate it later when the fees have diminished or vanished. This approach does not

earn Darryl much when he wins a new account (he says there are usually some modest fees or

commissions from investing that can be done right away). However, his approach allows him to

build massive amounts of assets, capture trail commissions right away, and position himself for

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huge income as his business matures.

He tells the client straight up —You can get these same investments anywhere; It’s the

advisor you deal with that makes the difference. He always tells them he won’t earn much from

their account because he will be making few or no changes but he gets paid with referrals.

A lot of planners say they want to gather assets yet Darryl is the first I have talked to that

puts this as the priority and does not focus on earning income from the account today. His

approach is exactly in concert with the seminar presentation that positions you as a better choice

than their current advisor.

Critical to Seminar Success Brian Tracy, well-known motivational educator, says “the reason

image is so important is because people are primarily visual and they form

their first impression of you by the way you look on the outside. If they do not

like what they see on the outside, they very seldom take the time to probe any

deeper. In any field of sales and marketing where the impression you make on

others is important to your success, it is absolutely essential that you look the

part that is consistent with the financial product or service you wish to sell.”

That’s why attending to the details in your photo and biography are

essential—we live in a culture where people make snap judgments. Take a

look at Brian’s photo. Would the average senior trust this man? You bet! He looks neat,

conservative, and clean-shaven. This is the image that seniors have been acculturated to respect,

the image they grew up with as “well groomed.” If you want to do more business, then attend to

what your prospects prefer.

Therefore, get the best professional photo you can. Ask yourself if facial hair or your

modern glasses will help your success.

Don’t Sell Financial Plans Very few prospects want to buy a financial plan. So don’t sell them!! When you get to

the end of the first appointment, explain to the client that based on the data you gathered, “I can

show you how to reduce your taxes by a third, lower your investment management expenses, and

protect your estate to save at least $250,000. If you feel that having these solutions that will save

several hundred thousand dollars is worth three hours of my time at $xxx per hour, then let’s

meet next week at 1 p.m. and I will prepare these solutions for you.” Sell the benefits, not the

plan. No need to ever mention the plan or show them a sample.

Closing More Sales with Seniors Many advisors ask me how to be more effective with seniors. They report that seniors

won’t make a decision. Seniors in fact won’t make a decision (which is a “no” decision) unless

you communicate to them in the right way. I have documented everything I know about selling

Brian Tracy

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to seniors in the “Close More Sales and Appointment Setting System.”

I also advise you to read Spin Selling by Neil Rackham for an overall increase in your

sales effectiveness.

Increasing Attendance These errors will screw up the biography on your invitation and cost you attendance:

Do not make your biography commercial. You cannot refer to yourself as “account

executive with ABC securities” or “Agent with Big Insurance Company.” The public will

realize immediately that your intention is to sell something, and serious, experienced investors

(those with larger portfolios who you want to attend) will not come to hear a perceived sales

pitch.

Use these non-commercial words to refer to yourself: lecturer, presenter, authority,

expert, consultant, and advisor. DO NOT use “financial consultant” or “financial advisor,” as

the public knows these are fancy names for people who sell insurance and investments.

Make every sentence specific. This sentence is vague and makes you sound like every

other advisor in town: “Bob Smith has helped many people increase their income and reduce

their taxes.” Therefore, you are no different and people have no interest in coming to your talk.

Here’s the way to make this specific: “Over 1200 Boston residents have used Bob’s advice to

increase their income as much as 50% and reduce taxes as much as 30%.” (Of course, please use

figures that are accurate for you.)

Do not mail to the wealthiest people. I have had a few of our system users call me to

say that their seminar attendance was less than they had hoped. In exploring the variables, we

uncovered that they had mailed to some upper-class neighborhoods, which I advise against. Do

not go after the rich people. They are too heavily prospected, many feel they can do their own

investing (e.g. the average physician), and you will not get a good response. The market you

want is the upper-middle-income senior: the retired plumbing contractor worth $2 million who

lives in the same house for 30 years, the retired engineer with the $800,000 rollover, the widow

who has the $600,000 portfolio. These people are not in the wealthy neighborhoods and they are

your best prospects. Earn their trust and you have them for life.

Select the upper-middle-income zip codes for your best response.

Mailing Details I get calls from our system users who report their results to me. A lot of people want to

change the system and then call to find out why their method does not work. I do not know

why your method does not work. That’s why I urge you to just repeat what works and follow

the instructions exactly.

In the last week I received two calls about unsatisfactory responses to seminar invitations.

In one case, the broker was using postcards. I tested this once; it flopped, and you will find

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nothing in my package about using postcards. I use an 8.5” by 11” flyer. It works every time.

Another gentleman used a mailing service and he assured me that they sent the invitations

no earlier than 10 days before the seminar. He asked the recipients to send in a business reply

card. He then looked at the reply cards he did receive and saw that they had been post-marked

over two weeks ago indicating that people received their invitations maybe three weeks before

the seminar. There is NOTHING in this system about reply cards.

I tested this timing of invitations. The earlier I sent the invitations, the worse my

response. Most of my instructions for you are the result of mistakes I already made. Please save

your money and do not repeat these mistakes.

As you will note, I do not use business reply cards. I want an immediate response and I

mail my invitation only nine days before the seminar and require a phone call to reserve limited

seats. I want to create time pressure. It works.

To the degree you deviate from the instructions, your results will fall.

80% of Success is Following the Instructions Every month I get at least one call from a seminar system owner telling me that the

attendance they’re getting is insufficient. They swear they followed the instructions to the letter.

Then I start asking a series of questions, only to find out that:

a. they selected the community college as a location, or

b. they selected the Girl Scouts meeting center as the location, or

c. they used the same mailing list company their firm uses, or

d. they scheduled the seminar at 9:30am Wednesday morning, or

e. they mailed the invitation three weeks ahead to give people plenty of notice,

or

f. their voice mail message was different than the one in the binder, or

g. they use the word “clients” or “seminar” or “ethics” in their biography when

the instructions say not to

It does not make me happy to see our system owners waste their money. I’ve already

wasted mine finding out that certain things work, and certain things don’t. Our program

provides a set of instructions so you won’t waste your money. 80% of success is following the

instructions.

My experience is that down deep, people are not different in various parts of the US.

What motivates a 64-year-old in Walnut Creek, CA will motivate a 64 year old in Mobile, AL or

in Scranton, PA. Please follow the instructions in the system. I don’t want you to waste money

and I do want you to have success.

Maximize Attendance—Avoid These Mistakes Attached you will find a checklist of the most common mistakes made that reduce

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seminar attendance. I want to elaborate on some of these:

1. Never have two alternative dates on a seminar invitation. In my tests, all it

did was split the attendance in half. Worse, you allow people to look at the

invitation, say to themselves that they will go to the later date, put the

invitation aside and forget about it. Provide only one date and force a

response—your attendance will be better. Besides, you will mail again next

month to the same person. If they didn’t come before and they really want to,

they get a second chance (and third….).

2. If you MUST change the bullet points on the invitation, please use the

alternate points in the invitation tab of this binder. Some people have been

rewriting the bullets without the skill for writing compelling points and these

are ineffective. It took me years to learn to write effective copy, so please use

the bullet points on the invitation or the alternates I have provided.

3. Use a LOCAL response phone number on your invitation. Do not use an 800

number, as this makes you seem like some “out-of-towner.” Seniors like to

deal with people in their own community.

Maximize Appointments On your seminar evaluation forms, provide the attendee only one choice—to make an

appointment. I have found it better to NOT offer other choices such as a long-term care quote or

a free newsletter. Attendees will generally take the easy way out and not make any commitment

but rather elect that you send them something. So do not give them that option. If they want to

know more, give them the option to come meet with you.

Please Watch Out For These Seminar Issues One small mistake (like using a bad picture, or selecting the wrong date) can ruin your

attendance. Here are a few tips to watch out for:

In December, you can hold seminars on the 9th

or 10th

. The critical issue: the appointment

times on your evaluation form must end on the 17th

. Do not let people schedule appointments

after the holidays, as you will never see them. Your first appointment MUST be before the

holidays. How do you get people to commit? Give them an incentive.

You tell them the first appointment must be before the holidays, because after January 1,

you can’t help them save any taxes with a tactic that most investors miss (tax loss selling).

Promise that you can show anyone who owns stocks or mutual funds how to save money on their

taxes IF they act before December 31. You know they’re busy, but would an hour of their time

be worth saving $3,000 or $5,000 or $10,000 when they go to write out their check to the IRS

next April? Instead of writing a check to the IRS for $10,000, how would you like to pay only

$5,000 and use the savings for a nice two-week cruise?

On your seminar invitations, please use the same fonts that I use (Times New Roman for

most text, Tahoma for headers and titles). Please have a border around the title and a border

around the page. Your invitation should look exactly like the invitation in the “Invitation” tab of

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your seminar binder. Items like fonts and borders have a significant communications effect.

Please use what we have found works.

Instant Improvement in Seminar Results Please review the binder again before your next seminar. It will take only 90 minutes to

read it through, but just one instruction you may have missed can boost your attendance by 20%.

You cannot borrow one or two good ideas from our seminar package, patch it to a seminar

system you are already using, and expect to get the same results that we do. We use the entire

system—every detail, to get 20 QUALIFIED buying units in the room by mailing 3000

invitations. Please do the same to achieve the same success rate.

Advice from Successful System User Great reminder from Tom Qvistgaard—the morning after the seminar (Monday morning

in the case of Saturday seminars), you (not your assistant) must call and confirm every

appointment starting at 8AM. Then immediately call those who did not make an appointment,

and you will get another couple of appointments. If you wait a day or two, you will lose out, as

these warm bodies quickly become cold fish.

Tom says, “I consistently increase my appointment ratio from the date of the seminar to

the next business day by 10-20% just by calling everybody. If you don’t make those calls, I can

guarantee they will not call you. I made that mistake with my November seminar. Don’t spend

all of that money just to sit back and wait for results.”

Fail-Safe Way to Fill Seminars In a very few areas, direct mail for seminars does not draw as much attendance as in most

of the US. The system that seems to work anywhere is newspaper inserts. I do not recommend

this as the #1 method of filling seminars because I am a proponent of getting the highest-quality

attendees rather than the highest quantity. Attracting high-quality attendees is achieved by

mailing to a filtered list as you do with direct mail. Newspaper inserts do not allow any filtering

(except by zip code).

If, however, you are in an area where all your direct mail efforts do not work, then use

inserts. To keep the quality of respondent up as much as possible, you can put a qualifier on your

insert under the title, such as, “For people with investments of $250,000 or more.” If direct mail

does not work as you would like, try inserts for higher attendance. In most areas inserts cost

about five cents each. Inserting 10,000 draws 18 responses in the test I’ve completed. You can

also place inserts in senior publications if they will be distributed not more than 12 days before

your seminar.

To Maximize Seminar Results

1) Copy everything in the system, to the smallest detail (e.g. do not change the

fonts on the invitation, they have been selected on purpose and they work)!

2) Stay away from public facilities for your seminars—experienced bigger investors

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view these as places where inexperienced, unsophisticated investors go for

education and bigger hitters will not come.

3) On your biography, accentuate the positive in your history as in these examples:

You think:

I’ve been in the business 20 years, nothing

exceptional.

My clients are just regular people.

I’m new in the business and have nothing to

say.

I’m real young.

Biography says:

John Doe has assisted over 2000

conservative investors safely invest over

$500 million.

John has advised retirees from AT&T, IBM,

and General Motors.

Rather than hear the same old stuff about

financial management, you will hear from

John the startling truth about mutual fund

fees and costly annuity mistakes, and how

many retirees can avoid running out of

money by correcting some simple mistakes.

Uninfluenced by all of the conflicting

opinions in the financial markets, John has

done his own research and will reveal the

truth about how many investors are led

astray and how you can avoid common

mistakes. John received his first mutual

fund shares at age eight and has been

studying the stock market ever since!

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Having a good biography will help your seminar attendance. And having a good

biography is not a matter of having lots of credentials. It’s about creatively stating the truth in a

way that addresses your prospects’ concerns. Having a good biography should answer your

prospect’s question, “Why should I go hear this person—what’s in it for me?”

The Key to Serving and Profiting from Affluent Seniors

One of the most frequent concerns I hear is that seniors are hard to close or they

procrastinate. I get asked, “How can I change my presentation so that seniors will buy?” It takes

a whole book to answer that question. Now available, the first book focusing on doing more

business with America’s most affluent class, Marketing Financial Services to Seniors.

Really Understand Senior Psychology and Serve More People

and Close More Sales

Create Senior Advertising that Really Works—Get 2% to 4%

Responses to Direct Mail and Ample Response to Ads

Implement Marketing Strategies Tailor-Made for Seniors and

Get Responses from Qualified Investors

Sell in a Way That Inspires Senior Prospects’ Confidence to

Do Business With YOU!

Learn the Most Suitable and Appealing Products and Services

for This Market and How to Present Them

Learn to Position Yourself as a Local Senior Financial Expert

and Have the Newspapers Calling You for Interviews on

Senior Financial Issues

Position Yourself Above Every Other Advisor in Town Attempting to Capture Senior

Business

You can order on Amazon

When You Do Seminars Outside of Your Area

Seminar attendees will probably not drive more than 20 minutes to come see you in your

office (they will drive further in rural areas). So if you do a seminar distant from your office:

1) Either offer to come to their homes, or

2) Rent temporary office space in their community for these meetings.

I have used headquarters Companies (see your yellow pages) by the half day for very low

rates. Or call an attorney or CPA who you know or call a fellow planner about using a desk in

their office suite in the distant neighborhood. But before you prospect outside of your area,

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consider the following.

In the 1980s, thousands of California residents invested in Texas real estate and

thousands lost everything and owed taxes when the properties were foreclosed upon. How

would they have done if they had invested in California real estate right in their own city? Pretty

darn well, history shows.

We all inherit a scarcity mentality from the culture we live in. We think there are not

enough prospects. In fact, most producers do not need to go outside of their area to do business.

I personally prospect an area with 115,000 people—three zip codes, and I will never run out of

business.

Before prospecting in another area, ask yourself if there is insufficient business in your

own town or if you have not been effectively marketing there (e.g. monthly seminars, consistent

use of the same marketing program to build awareness via repetition, getting published in the

newspaper, etc). If you want to target your area more effectively, check

www.javelinmarketing.com/catalog, as you may find an opportunity there to do more business in

your town.

Remedies for Poor Seminar Attendance Someone has said, “Don’t sweat the details.” As far as I can tell, however, the details are

what matter, especially when it comes to seminar attendance. In the last 60 days, I have received

communications from people that had poor or problematical seminar attendance. Here’s what I

found:

1) I got a busy signal when I called to reserve a seat. This will not happen if

people follow the instructions in the binder. Call your local phone company

and get a voicemail line. My local phone company tells me that dozens of

people can call at the same time and there will be no busy signal.

2) I got a message that their voice mailbox was full and I was unable to reserve a

seat. Anyone can avoid this by checking their messages every day and then

deleting them. Every voicemail box has a limited capacity. Keep it empty in

order to continue receiving messages.

3) The wrong phone number was printed on the invitation.

4) The biography was pushing people away. The instructions on writing the

biography were not followed.

We really want producers to be successful. We are not just in this business to sell

systems. We want to make sure the systems work! Please follow the instructions, as we want

you to make a lot of money. Test your voicemail line yourself and have your invitation

proofread by at least two other people.

Greatest Estate Planning Resource Tools and Techniques of Estate Planning is the best resource I have ever seen for estate

planning. We purchased a number of these 650-page guides for our system owners so we could

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offer these at a discount to you. If you would like a copy, get it at www.nuco.com.

Some Tips on Marketing to The Affluent (excerpted from Tom Stanley’s Marketing to the Affluent)

“Early in their careers, many of the best extraordinary sales professionals (ESP) learned that you

often frighten prospects when you chase them. Attracting prospects is often much more

productive than chasing them because attracted prospects self-designate themselves as ready,

willing and able to be caught.” Page 82

(That’s why seminars and direct marketing are so powerful—the prospect is attracted.)

“The young ESP learned that for many affluent prospects talkers are

hawkers, writers are experts.” Page 18

(We have books and booklets customized with your bio and

photo and a kit to get you interviewed in the newspaper. Get

into print because it’s the way to become respected by the

affluent.)

“Never attempt to shove an investment down a prospect’s throat

when he resists. The affluent market is situation-driven, and the

Gestapo tactics are unproductive in the long run. If the prospect is

not in the right situation, if his personal timing is not right, he will

not buy. Thus, you must stay in contact.” Page 5

(If you’re not sending a newsletter to prospects, you’re losing

business.)

“ESPs should not attempt to master too many markets at one time.

They should not be distracted by other market segments until the

one at hand has been penetrated.” Page 37

(Focus, focus, focus!)

“Enlightened marketers more often than not attribute their success

to the use of extraordinary marketing methods and to their

proprietary methods of identifying prospects. How else can one

explain why some sales professionals consistently outperform their

peers by 200 percent, 300 percent and even 500 percent or higher?

Yes, they do market differently.” Page 92

(You’re not in the financial planning business; you’re in the

marketing business. The great marketer earns a lot more than the great financial planner.)

Our marketing systems incorporate all of these variables to attract affluent prospects.

Find a complete list of our seminar systems and direct marketing programs at

www.javelinmarketing.com/overview.htm.

Thomas J. Stanley,

Ph.D. Dr. Thomas J. Stanley is an author, lecturer, and researcher who has studied the affluent since 1973. Dr. Stanley is also the author of the best-selling books The Millionaire Next Door and Marketing to the Affluent, which was selected one of ten outstanding business books by the editors of Best of Business Quarterly. His work is frequently cited in the national media.

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Maintaining Business Volume During Holiday Season

There is no reason to have a slow down in your business during the holidays—unless you

expect to. If you think you will, you start working less and prospecting less, and your results are

less. Yes, you will have some people that say, “call me after the holidays.” These are people

who are permanent procrastinators anyway. This same person would have told you in June,

“maybe in the fall.” The way to keep your volume up is by maintaining the same marketing

activity as in the other months. Prospects will do business during the holiday season. Here are

three examples why they are motivated to do so:

December presents a huge opportunity for tax planning (selling losers and

capturing the tax benefit).

Those pondering life insurance might want to do so before they take a 5000-

mile plane ride over the holiday.

The stock traders may want to position themselves to capture the January

effect. See http://client.lycos.com/analysis/stocks/stockscreen.asp.

Richard Heckman recruited me into the stock brokerage business years ago. On the last

trading day of the previous December, his clients’ transactions accounted for 4% of the volume

on the New York Stock Exchange. While you may not have clients quite this large, this

indicates that there is plenty of business to do during the holiday season.

Some Tips From Russ Alan Prince Russ has written 17 books, which draw on his research with

successful financial advisors. Here are the best tips and observations from

his book High Net Worth Psychology that can help you.

“Three-quarters of all affluent people made their money by

owning a private business (64%) or professional practice (13%).” Page

9

Are you focusing your marketing on these groups or the retired

members of these groups?

“We recommend that all investment advisors conduct some sort

of public relations program. A great advantage of public relations is that it is underutilized

in the industry.” Page 110

(We offer a Public Relations Kit and monthly press release articles which reduces your

time investment to 15 minutes per month. Order at www.javelinmarketing.com/pr)

“Investment performance, even stunning investment performance, is not enough

these days to attract new affluent clients. The investment advisor targeting private wealth

will focus less on investment performance and more on marketing.” Page 93

In other words, market yourself and keep your clients happy (emotionally and

psychologically). The performance of their investments is NOT the most important aspect of

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client attraction and retention. Make your #1 focus marketing so that you have a “machine”

producing several appointments daily.

“Seminars can be extremely useful in screening and especially in motivating certain

prospective wealthy investors.” Page 108

See the information below about estate planning seminars.

Seminar System Owners I encourage you to make a video of your next seminar. You can benefit in two ways:

1) You will see yourself as others see you. As explained in your system, it’s not

the content you deliver, it’s how you are perceived that causes people to make

an appointment with you.

2) You can offer the video on your invitation. At the bottom of the invite, we

typed: “If you cannot attend, videos are available for $10 by calling XXX-

XXX-XXXX.”

We had six people call and order the video and we did business with one. I think we

could have done business with more, but a relatively weak planner in my office followed up on

these prospects. But the $16,000 annuity commission from this one person made the video idea

well worth the $300 investment.

I highly recommend not having your cousin Vinny take the video. For $300, you can get

a professional to take it and they can add some music and some graphics to the beginning and

end (with your contact information) so it makes you look professional when recipients view it.

Prospecting Different Markets One of the most frequent questions I get is for assistance prospecting in different markets

(e.g. business owners). As you know, our packages (the seminar program, the annuity package,

the newsletter, the Retirement Investing book) are all focused toward people age 60 and over.

The reason these packages work is because I know the mentality of these people inside and out.

I know what they think before they think it. It then becomes easy for me to put together sales

materials and presentations that the market will respond to.

When someone asks me if I can do the same with business owners, the answer is no.

More importantly, I find by asking a few questions, the inquirer doesn’t really know this market

either. I strongly advise don’t prospect in markets you don’t know. It’s a sure way to spend

money on mailers and seminars that don’t work. It’s essential that you understand the significant

emotional concerns about your market. And these concerns are not obvious. For example, you

might think that business owners want to maximize profit. This is probably untrue for most

business owners. If you talk to a few and really get to know them, I’ll bet they’re concerned

with issues like:

more time with their family

finding really competent employees

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fishing

Only once you know these “hot buttons” can you prospect powerfully in a selected

market.

I advise that you only develop one market. Become an expert in it and dominate it. The

tendency in our business is to get as much business as possible by becoming a generalist. The

most business is gained by the specialist who draws people like a magnet because the specialist

has a unique selling proposition (e.g., I’m an expert in the financial affairs of seniors).

Get More Seminar Appointments Think for a moment about your prospect in the seminar audience. They have an account

somewhere—it’s probably with a wire house and they have a traditional stock brokerage

account. You have 90 minutes to show the prospect why they should make an appointment to

come see you. You’ve got 90 minutes to show them why you are more, better and different—

and why you are the guy in the white hat.

In order to be more, better and different, make a list (right now on that paper on your

desk) of at least three reasons why the prospect is better off dealing with you. If you don’t have

three reasons, you’d better develop some, because there are no fresh prospects out there. Ten

years ago, you could go after people with money in the bank (a fresh prospect). Those people

now have all of their money in mutual funds and stocks so you are in direct competition with

every other broker and planner. You need to show the prospect how you are their best friend.

Now that you’ve got your three reasons, you need to select at least one and show the

audience why that reason makes you convincingly superior. For example, in my seminar, I ask

if any one has an account with a stockbroker (about 90% of the hands go up). Here’s how I

proceed:

NOTE—THE FOLLOWING VERBIAGE IS HOW I SEPARATE MYSELF

FROM MY COMPETITION. I DO NOT THINK THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG

WITH COMMISSIONS OR STOCKBROKERS. I USED TO BE A STOCKBROKER

AND I THINK IT’S A FINE PROFESSION. BUT GIVEN THAT I AM IN

COMPETITION WITH STOCKBROKERS IN MY AREA, WATCH HOW I USE THIS

TO MY ADVANTAGE IN THE SEMINAR.

“As I mentioned, I am a registered investment advisor, and let me just explain briefly how

that’s different from your stockbroker. How does your broker get paid? (Audience answers,

“with commissions.”) And when does your broker earn a commission? (Audience answers,

“when I buy and sell.”) So what does your broker always want you to do? (Audience answers

“buy and sell.”) Have you ever noticed around Christmas time that your broker calls more with

investment ideas when they need a little more for presents?

“We do not charge commissions. We charge a fee for managing our clients’ money. For

example, we charge 1.5% on the first $100,000 and then 1% on the remainder. So what do you

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think we want to happen to your account? (Audience answers “you want the account to grow.”)

Exactly, we want your account to grow because that’s the only way we get a raise. Now you

know the difference between an investment advisor and a stock broker.”

Throughout the seminar, I keep making little digs at commission-based large securities

firms. I keep positioning myself as the guy in the white hat.

You can pick anyone as the “enemy” and show them why you are more, better or

different. For example, pick the press. In the “Props” section of your seminar binder you have

copies of some newspaper headlines:

The first one, on March 14, 1997, reads, “Dow Plunges 2.3%.”

The next headline, just six weeks later reads, “Dow Soars 143 to Record High.”

Enlarge these or make overheads and give this quick seminar opening:

“Folks, I have to tell you why I’m different than other financial advisors and why my

clients deal with me. When we start a relationship, I tell them to stop reading the newspaper.

You may be shocked because most people think that reading the newspaper keeps them well

informed. Well, I’m sorry to tell you that Wall Street and the press are out to make you poor.

Just look at this headline of March 14, 1997:

“‘Dow Plunges 2.3%’ When you read this, what’s it make you want to do? (Sell.) Now,

just six weeks later, here’s the headline from the business section: “Dow Soars 143 to Record

High.” What’s that headline make you want to do? (Buy.)

“So, if you want to see the market turn around, according to the newspaper, just wait six

weeks. Folks, these people in the press have college degrees in what subject? That’s right—

journalism. Which means they never took a finance course. They know nothing about the

financial markets, they repeat what others tell them, and they scare the hell out of the public. Is

this where you want to get your financial advice? From Money Magazine? From the newspaper

reporter? I know people have great respect for what they see in the paper and magazines. But

think about it. These people are journalists, not financial advisors. Today I will show you a

better way (you’re the man in the white hat) to make decisions.”

Other “enemies” you can pick on are the banks (low yields, few investment options

through their securities rep), the government (taxes), mutual fund companies (high fees), etc.

In summary, select one compelling issue that you can use to position yourself as the guy

in the white hat. Talk about this issue briefly in the first five minutes of the seminar. Make the

prospect think, when it’s time to schedule an appointment, “Yes, I think I should go see this

advisor because he has a better approach.”

Get Cash Are you getting cash from wholesalers to support your seminars? You should be. When

I was at a wire house, I got money every month from Franklin and Putnam for sending them fund

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business. The wholesaler understood that he could never speak at my seminar. He also

understood that the more people I met at my seminars, the more appointments I had and the more

business he would get. So if you are currently doing some meaningful numbers in specific

products, tell the wholesaler to provide some cash to support your marketing efforts.

Don’t let the wholesaler waste your money on stupid marketing. For example, some fund

families want to pay for placing inserts in the newspaper. This is largely a waste. A broker

friend of mine inserted 30,000 Franklin/Templeton pieces into the newspaper (completely paid

for by the fund). He got nine responses.

When I insert invitations into the newspaper, I get 18 buying units to attend the seminar

per 10,000 inserts. I’d rather have 36 live buying units (the amount of attendees that come from

20,000 inserts) in front of me than nine reply cards in the mail from people who “just wanted to

get some information.” So spend your wholesaler’s money wisely.

30% of These People Attend My Seminar You may be aware of the inexpensive system I use to sell annuities. Each time I send an

annuity booklet, I enclose a seminar invitation. And I invite them each month. A whopping

30% of these people attend a seminar. The people that respond to the annuity program have

turned out to be a profitable and responsive group. This is an easy way to boost attendance at no

additional cost.

If you would like to sell more annuities and target this very responsive group of people,

you can get additional information about the annuity program from our web site at

www.javelinmarketing.com or by phoning us at 866-4-JAVELIN.

Users have been making five times the cost of the system on their first annuity sale. You

will find complete details in the back pocket of this binder. Additionally, 30% of the people who

respond to this system come to the seminars.

A Good Suggestion Thanks to Keith Kolinsky for another great recommendation. If you’re not an author

(and you don’t use our customized book, Retirement Investing), what should you give away at

the seminar for your lottery drawing?

Keith asked the owners of the restaurants where he holds his seminars to give a free gift

certificate to the restaurant. So now, the “lottery” winners at Keith’s seminars get a free meal!

Is Golf Like Business? “Follow through” is a common instruction from the golf coach. It’s what delivers power

to the ball. Similarly, doing seminars without follow-through robs the power from your contact.

I’ve talked before about sending monthly newsletters to prospects, but another idea is to send a

monthly letter.

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There are a couple advantages to a letter over a newsletter:

1) You can select a single topic that highlights a particular product or important

area of your business.

2) It’s a lot simpler to get a letter approved by your compliance department than

a newsletter. For some reason, compliance people get all excited about why

you can’t send your own newsletter, but they are much more amenable to a

letter.

Many of our newsletter subscribers use this tactic. They receive our monthly newsletter

and select one article that they like best. They cut and paste it onto letterhead and instantly have

a well-written prospect letter. (At the bottom of the letter, or on a separate sheet, always include

a response coupon just like we include with our newsletter.)

Count on a 2% response. If you send 500, expect to get 10 inquiries. That will result in

10 conversations you probably would not have had and certainly some business.

More importantly, when you do call prospects again by phone, they know who you are

because they have been getting your letter each month. This familiarity substantially increases

your chance of doing business. Now that’s follow-through!

You can get a great letter each month for $49 (when you select the one-year newsletter

subscription). Actually, you will have up to four letters to choose from each month and a

selection of previous letters/articles; if you have a topic you would like to see an article about,

please submit it.

Using Another Seminar Speaker I often get asked about doing a seminar together with a partner or another speaker.

My best advice—speak alone.

The purpose of the seminar is to build your credibility. Just the fact that you are in front

of the room is a credibility builder (in our culture, the person in the front of the room is the

expert). When you have another speaker, they get to build their credibility (and take time away

from you). Is that what you want?

For example, when you have an attorney speak, you only lose business. First, many

attorneys are unintelligible and do not know how to speak to an audience. Second, if they are at

all successful at public speaking, the attendees all want to see the attorney about getting a living

trust. Where does that leave you?

If you are thinking that having an attorney speak and listing the attorney on the invitation

helps build attendance, think again. What builds attendance is a strong invitation. Unless the

other speaker is a known personality, they will not help your attendance.

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What about partnerships? The best partnerships are two people with offsetting strengths.

For example, I’m a great marketer, but I find meeting with clients boring. My best partner would

be someone not too great at marketing, but great at one-on-one presentations and someone who

loves to develop client relationships.

Since I am the marketer and good public speaker and joke teller, I am the one to give the

seminar. My partner needs to be there and get introduced and maybe get five minutes of

limelight. For example, he should greet people as they come in. He should introduce himself

and our firm and then introduce me as the speaker. It’s even a good idea to have him answer a

few of the audience questions so they can see he’s pretty smart also.

During my talk, I mention a few times in passing that I am the firm’s speaker and

administrative head. I say things like, “When Joe meets with our clients….” This prepares the

attendee to meet with Joe.

When the attendees come for their appointment, he does the appointment because he’s so

much better one-on-one. The partnership I’ve just described makes sense.

The other alternative is to have each partner speak half the time. But that leaves some

questions I have been unable to resolve. How do you divide the appointments? What if Mrs.

Jones gets assigned to you, but she really liked your partner’s personality better?

Big Production Through Streamlining The average producer wastes tremendous amounts of time because they lack an

investment discipline.

When I managed stockbrokers, most would spend time hunting around for a good

investment idea. To me, this exhibits the height of investment immaturity. It’s just like the

client who calls and asks, “what’s a good investment now?” I guarantee that the client and the

broker always on the lookout for a “good” investment generates inconsistent performance and is

never at rest knowing that they are doing the right thing.

What’s the solution to this dilemma? You must have a structured investment system.

Here are some examples:

1) Only buy stocks in the S&P average with yields exceeding 3% that have

increased their dividends by 100% over the past 10 years.

2) Only buy mutual funds that have ranked in the top 50% of their category for

the last 15 years, as ranked by Morningstar, have a turnover less than 40% and

earn a four- or five-star rating.

3) Only buy stocks that pay a dividend, have earnings growth exceeding 20%

annually over the past three years, and whose earnings growth is accelerating.

Any of the above represents a structured investment system. I have tested none of these,

but I am confident that any of these three systems will outperform brokers or investors looking

for “what’s good now.” You will not need to watch dozens of different stocks or funds and your

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accounts can easily be monitored.

Once you have a system, you will find that you have a lot more time to prospect; and you

must have discipline about your system. When a new client starts to dictate that they want to do

this and that with their portfolio, you say, “Mrs. Jones, my job is making people money. This is

how I make people money. If you want to gamble, I am sorry, I cannot help you.” And you say

goodbye.

As you know from my seminar, I use the Dow Dividend Strategy. I spend no time

watching the market or searching for investments. And my client portfolios continue to beat

90% of mutual funds and professional money managers.

If you’d like to clean up your business and make it more manageable, get structured. If

you want to use the Dow Dividend System, I can show you every technique I use to sell it

including the illustrations that I use, my explanations, the most common objections, and how to

handle them. Additionally, I can show you how we use the Value Line system to manage more

growth-oriented accounts. And last, I’ll explain how I select fixed income instruments. I use the

same process for every client and have a totally streamlined business and never look at a Quotron

or need to worry about how certain stocks are performing or what the market did today.

If you would like to have a lean practice and get out of the office before 6PM, you’ll love

the program, “Using Mechanical Systems to Streamline Your Money Management Practice

(How to Use the Dow Dividend Strategy, Value Line and Select Fixed Income Securities in

Minutes Per Month).”

I promise you, if you want to grow your investment business, pick a simple strategy, stick

to it and do not get sidetracked with other ideas. You will do a lot more business and have a lot

more time. The system comes with personal conference calls for six months. See the back

pocket of this binder for details.

Advice From Successful Seminar System Users Scott Barnas thinks that one line helped him clinch more appointments at the seminar.

Here’s my interpretation and elaboration of his comment: Just before going to the evaluation

form, you say,

“Folks, I’ve covered the six most frequent mistakes made by retirees. But there is a

seventh mistake of inaction. Some people think that if they do nothing, they can’t make a

mistake. That’s not true. You can sit with lousy investments and get a poor return year after

year. Or you can have a stockbroker that is taking advantage of you. Or you can have low

interest investments that keep depleting your income. Tolerating these mistakes and doing

nothing can be the biggest mistake you make. This inaction can cost you plenty in your later

years.

“Has anyone heard the saying that "knowledge is power?" It’s not true. Applied

knowledge is power. You can learn all the right things in the world and they are worthless

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unless you use them.

“Now I need a small favor from you. In your packets is an evaluation form that is also

your lottery ticket…”

Howard Kaplan gets an attorney to pay for his seminar expenses. Howard funnels all of

the estate planning work to the attorney, and best of all, the attorney confirms Howard’s

recommendations for insurance and sends the prospect back to Howard to get insurance.

How do you find an estate planning attorney like this? My recommendation: each week,

call a different estate planning attorney from the phone book. Tell them you want to buy them

lunch next week to meet them because you have clients in need of estate planning assistance. At

lunch, explain how you do seminars to meet tons of new people. They will probably want to

speak at the seminar, at which point you tell them no, but if they want to finance the costs, you’d

be happy to send them 100% of the estate planning business.

Reminder 1. Please have 24-hour voice mail to receive your seminar reservations. Don’t

go to the expense of doing everything right and then lose reservations to your

seminar.

2. Call the local phone company and get a LOCAL voice mail number (with the

same prefix as your invitees).

3. Print that number on your invitations.

4. Record the message, which appears on page 22 of the main text in your “Six

Ways” seminar binder.

5. Pick up the messages daily, so if a caller leaves a question, you can call them

back.

6. Confirm everyone the day before the seminar.

Dripping Pays This month I opened a small account for $150,000. This couple had been to a seminar

over one year ago. But they stayed on my newsletter list and we kept sending them seminar

invitations. Money became available, they came to another seminar and they made an

appointment to open an account. We also have an appointment scheduled for LTC policies.

Another prospect just lost her husband in January. She had been to my seminar about 18

months ago, came for an appointment at that time and did nothing. Now that she has the

stepped-up basis in her investments, she’s ready to make some changes. She attended my last

seminar, came in for an appointment and is transferring all of her assets to me to sort out

between her marital trust and survivors trust—over $3 million—thank you Merrill Lynch!

If they come to your seminar and don’t set up an appointment, call to qualify them. Find

out if this is the type of person you want as a client. Then keep them in your database.

Additionally, some people will come to an appointment, yet will not do business. Keep the

qualified prospects in your database. Then, drip on them until they become clients! Does it

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work? You bet!

Stay in front of them with a newsletter and keep inviting them to seminars. Eventually,

these qualified people will have some money, or their broker will die or they will want to make

some changes and you’ll be the one they think of. IF you keep dripping.

Get a good database program (we use Goldmine) and put it to work for you. Get our

newsletter or any other decent newsletter (I haven’t seen another one, have you?) and send it

monthly. In time, you’ll be opening easy accounts. Keep your pipeline full and some of the

prospects in the pipeline will turn into clients every month.

If your reaction to this advice is that you know it, but haven’t been doing it, this

paragraph will be worth gold. I have made the simple observation that the guy making $1

million a year or the person with rock-hard abs or the great pianist does nothing more than

consistently do the small stuff. The ab person does their crunches every day, the pianist

practices the same piece over and over and the big producer does the seminar every month and

sends out the newsletter every month. It’s all about persistence, not brilliance (although it

helps), not talent (although it helps), and not luck (although it helps). Bottom line—the essential

element to success is the consistent practice of the small stuff.

If you want a big pipeline with prospects becoming clients every month, consistently

drip. Details on a monthly newsletter are in a tab in this binder labeled “Newsletter.”

Running Your Appointments For Maximum Results

I use a two-appointment system with success.

The first appointment is used to gather data (how much income do they have, what

sources, review tax return, review investment statements) both factual and emotional. I never

give specific advice or solutions at this appointment. The goal of the first appointment is to

qualify the prospect and to set a second appointment. I spend the first appointment fact-

finding—both the financial and emotional facts.

The second appointment is the closing appointment where I present my analysis and

show the prospect why they need to do business with me. To insure that I do not waste my time,

at the end of the first appointment I tell the prospect there is a charge for my analysis—typically

two to three hours at $150 an hour. I am not looking to make money; I am looking to screen out

tire-kickers. If I do not screen them out at this point, I might waste my time (my most precious

resource) preparing an analysis and presenting it in a second meeting only to hear, “We’ll think

about it.” Here’s what I say:

“Mrs. Jones, we have identified a few issues today that need attention. Your mutual

funds appear to be lagging and we should look at some independent reports to see the exact

performance and hidden fees. Also, you mentioned a concern about long-term care and wanting

to know more about your options. Last, you said that more income would be helpful.

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“I can definitely provide solutions that will help you get the funds invested better to

provide more income and also protect you better for your future. The work will take me three

hours. My rate is $150 an hour. So if you think that’s fair, then let’s meet again next

Wednesday at 1 pm.”

If you cannot charge fees, then you must screen them out as follows at the end of the first

meeting:

“Mrs. Jones, I would be happy to analyze your investments and show you which ones are

serving you and which are not. In addition, I will gather quotations from three different LTC

companies and recommend which one would be best. Last, I will review with you two

alternatives for handling your estate tax situation. It will take me three hours of my time to do

that and I’d like to set a time next week to review all of that with you (schedule the

appointment—a firm date and time, preferably exactly one week later). If you agree with my

recommendations, is there any reason we will not be able to move forward when we meet next

time?”

If you follow this two-appointment process and screen the prospect well at the end of the

first appointment, you’ll waste less time and have more second appointments with serious

people.

You can see the full details of exactly what I do. We’ve videotaped 4 meetings with

prospects and you’ll see exactly how I close sales. If this would help your closing, details about

ordering these videos and seeing my entire closing process are in the back pocket of this binder.

Here’s How to Get Another Two Appointments Per Seminar and Improve the Quality of Appointments

Please start sending the attached “post-seminar” letter and return envelope to seminar

attendees after the seminar. Send it to everyone, not just those who made an appointment.

You’ll find that it gets you additional appointments and you’ll find that when people come to see

you, the letter has broadened the topics that they want to discuss (of course, modify the letter to

include only the topics you want to discuss).

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Post-Seminar Letter

February 28, 2014

Steven Wright

123 Main Street

Anytown, CA 99999

Dear Howard,

Thank you for attending the seminar, “Six Mistakes Retirees Make With Their Finances,” at

Massimo Ristorante in Anytown. We spoke about many critical issues for retirees. Please check

the issues which are of concern to you:

Improve investment results and safety

The proper long term care protection

Upgrading annuities for higher return

Obtaining 8% from income investments

Estate Planning and ways to avoid paying estate taxes (with or without a living trust)

Turning old life insurance policies into long-term care policies

Planning to financially protect your spouse upon your death

Transferring funds out of retirement plans free of tax

Replacing bond funds with individual bonds

Avoiding capital gains tax (there are four ways)

How to overcome the low income return from owning residential income property

How to get the most from tax sheltered annuities (403b plans)

If there is any financial area that concerns you and you did not schedule the free one-hour

meeting, you can still do so by calling by 3/31/06. When you come for the free appointment, we

will provide you personalized information about alternatives and solutions to your concerns and

assist you in making better choices to protect your assets.

Sincerely,

Joe Advisor

P.S. If you have not taken care of the risk of long-term care, please do not procrastinate on this

matter. We can assist you in getting the most affordable protection or show you how to qualify for

Medicaid if your assets are low. I have seen too much unnecessary financial devastation to people

who were unprotected.

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Do you have friends or neighbors that would have found value in our seminar, “Six Ways Retirees Ruin

Their Finances”? Please provide their names and address and we will invite them to our next presentation.

We specialize in assisting people age 60+.

Name ______________________________________________________________________

Address ____________________________________________________________________

Name ______________________________________________________________________

Address ____________________________________________________________________

Name ______________________________________________________________________

Address ____________________________________________________________________

Do you belong to any groups interested in speakers on Senior Financial Issues? We’ll be happy to give a

talk. Who should we contact?

Name ______________________________________________________________________

Address ____________________________________________________________________

Telephone ___________________________________________________________________

Or, if you would like to get a group of friends together (12 minimum) for a talk on one of the topics on the

previous page, give us a call at XXX-XXXX.

From:

(merge the prospect’s name and address here)

Please mail in the enclosed envelope to:

Senior Solutions

Street Address

City, State, Zip

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How to Get ALL the Money When You Meet Prospects

Since the majority of time and effort in our business goes to prospecting, you want to

make the most profit from each contact. Which means you want to have a broad array of

services and products that will interest your target market and know how to determine when

there is a fit.

To assist in doing that, I always have prospects bring their tax return. Here’s what I look

for to uncover opportunities and help me ask the right questions for a retiree’s tax return

(the following may be more valuable if you put a tax return in front of you to follow):

Form 1040, page 1 & 2

Line 8a – Is taxable interest high? This could be an opportunity to provide

tax-free income or annuities.

Line 8b – Do they have tax-exempt income? Should they? I need to look at

line 39 on page two, “taxable income,” to determine if they are in a high

bracket and should be investing for tax-free income.

Line 9 – Are there a lot of dividends? (That must mean a lot of stocks or

mutual funds.)

Line 12 – Do they have a business with a pension plan to invest?

Line 13 – Unusually large capital gains last year? Did they sell something and

have money sitting around now? Should they have a Charitable Trust to

shelter capital gains or do they have mutual funds which generate 1099 capital

gains (schedule D will show that)?

Line 15a – Are they taking large IRA distributions? Then they must have a

large IRA that I should be investing for them!

Line 17,18 – Any real estate holdings and any plans to sell soon (and free up

some cash)?

Line 33 – Total income—can they afford LTC or life premiums out of their

cash flow?

Schedule B

This displays all the interest and dividends, which shows you what investments they own.

I look for mutual funds, which can be converted into stock and bond portfolios (to reduce their

taxable income and total fees paid). You can also see at what brokerages they have money as

you will see entries such as “Smith Barney.”

Schedule D

This displays anything sold in the prior year, and possibly that money is still sitting

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around. It also shows how much capital gains they had to pay tax on from their mutual funds

(which I can save some of if we switch to individual stocks which do not automatically generate

a 1099).

After looking at the tax return, which takes less than five minutes once you have a little

practice, the only thing I ask is if they own any annuities or savings bonds or life policies (since

these tax-deferred items will not show on the tax return).

By reviewing the tax return, even if your prospect forgets to mention some investment

they own, you will probably find out about it.

If you want to learn to uncover all of the opportunities, get the CD tutorial at

www.bigproducer.com

How to Get Prospect Calls Months Later

Every week I receive a call from someone who attended my seminar six, 12, or even 18

months ago. You cannot expect to get an appointment with everyone who comes to a seminar

right away. Getting an appointment requires trust and the right timing. Even if the prospect

trusts you, the timing may not be right. You can use a newsletter to stay in front of the prospect

until their timing is right. My newsletter is my silent salesman.

Each month, it arrives in their mailbox and does the following:

1. The newsletter reminds the prospect who I am and shows them my picture.

2. The newsletter reminds them that I am available to help them.

3. The newsletter enforces that I know a lot about the financial issues in their life

and I am a worthwhile professional to consult.

4. The newsletter offers them four new ideas and offers to send them detailed

information if they’re interested.

It’s like sending an assistant to their door every thirty days who asks, “Are you ready to

do business yet?”

As a result, I get these weekly calls from people who want to meet with me and move

forward because their timing is right. If you do not stay in touch repeatedly, on a monthly basis,

you will lose these opportunities.

Along with your yearly subscription, we include a free public relations kit, which shows

you how to have reporters from your local newspaper call to interview you about specific topics.

Using this system, I was interviewed one summer about what seniors would do as the stock

market was declining by 19%. In December, I was interviewed about Roth IRA conversions for

seniors. We also supply you with the answers to the reporter’s questions so you are ready when

they call.

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Use the newsletter that is part of this system. It arrives in your email by 5PM PST on the

25th

of each month.