Using Analogies in These 3 Situations Can Help Turn Prospects into Clients
It’s your job to get prospects off the fence. You need to persuade them that hiring you to manage their investments is the right thing to do. Before they make that decision, however, they need to understand what it is they are buying, and why they need to buy it. Because “people don’t buy what they don’t understand.”
This is where analogies can help push the balance in your favor. They make the unfamiliar familiar.
An analogy is “a comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purposes of explanation or clarification”.
Analogies can help you put forward an argument so that prospects see things in a new light – and conclude, of their own accord – that it makes sense to do business with you.
Here are three situations that warrant the use of analogies.
#1. When prospects are not convinced it’s time to act
When you meet with a middle-aged couple, retirement, to them, seems a long way in the future. Investing is something they think they’ll do ‘somewhere down the line’.
To convince them to start their investment plan right away, tell them that putting off the decision to start an investment plan is like delaying an important car journey. If they have to travel to another town that’s 60 miles away and be there within the hour, they’ll have to drive at 60 miles per hour. That’s quite a fast speed but do-able.
However, if they delay that journey by 20 minutes, they’ll have to drive at the suicidal speed of 90 miles per hour.
Similarly, by starting an investment plan now, they’ll have enough time to accrue enough funds – in a measured way – to finance a comfortable retirement.
If they leave off investing until the last minute, however, they’re putting their entire investment journey in jeopardy.
#2. When instant gratification trumps investment
Analogies can help you get across to clients why it’s more important to save for a child’s education or retirement than to buy a new car or kitchen.
Get prospects to see the necessity of investing by communicating the impact of inflation; that, while prices may triple during their retirement years, their income won’t. Tell prospects that inflation is like high blood pressure. While you cannot see or feel it, some day it will cause irreparable damage – unless you take the right precautions. The takeaway being that the only way to remain immune to inflation is to invest.
Another analogy you could use is that money is like a bar of soap – the more you handle it, the smaller it gets. If they don’t want their money to get smaller, it’s essential to keep it safely invested – to keep up with rising prices.
If you’re talking with pre-retirees, use this analogy to help them understand the implications of being retired: Today they work Monday to Friday and have the weekends free for leisure. When they’re retired, however, every day will be like a weekend.
How will they spend their leisure time – eating out, traveling? Or without enough funds to do anything enjoyable?
#3. When prospects are not sure why they need you
If you feel that prospects are not clear about why they need a financial advisor, tell them that not having a financial advisor is like hiking in a strange area without a guide.
When darkness descends and they’re in the middle of nowhere, would they rather have a map and a compass – or a guide?
Another way to put it into perspective – if they go to the airport tomorrow and there are two planes flying to Los Angeles, one with a pilot, one without, what would their choice be? You are like an airline pilot. You are there to see that they take off on time (start their investment plan) and get where they need to go on time and safely (achieve their financial goals).
Analogies are invaluable tools for explaining concepts in simple terms. Once prospects understand why they should start an investment plan, and why they should work with you, they will be inspired to act.
A couple of the video lessons and exercises in Don Connelly’s training program, Become Brilliant at the Basics: What They Don’t Teach You in Training, are about using analogies.
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