The Importance of Pre-Positioning

In a previous article I talked about the concept of “setting out your stall”, which was all about creating a favourable first impression in that first five or ten minutes when meeting a potential new client for the first time.

In this article, I’m going to explore how we can create a paradigm shift in the way our clients view their “personal protection package” – which up until now you may have been calling their “insurances”! This is just one example of how important it is that we are consciously avoiding the use of terminology that creates a negative perception in the minds of our clients, thereby giving us the opportunity to turn what has historically been a “grudge purchase” or at best an “expensive necessity” into a “fantastic opportunity” for our clients.

There are three things we need to be pre-positioning with our potential new client early in the engagement process:

1. The role that protection plays in a wealth creator’s financial plan
2. The “wants analysis” as opposed to the “needs analysis”
3. The “percentage concept”

So let’s first have a look at how we position protection within the context of our client’s financial plan:

The role that protection plays in a wealth creator’s financial plan

The first thing we have to understand is WHY protection MUST be the first cab off the rank in a wealth creator’s financial plan. To this end, I would recommend using a ‘terminology tool’ on yourself, which you can then in turn use on your wealth creator clients.

Would you agree that ANY investment strategy designed to accumulate wealth for your client in the future involves, by definition, making plans with your client’s income on an ongoing basis? Clearly the answer to this question is yes.

Therefore, as a professional financial planner, how can you justify making plans with your client’s income on an ongoing basis BEFORE (or even worse WITHOUT) doing everything you can to protect and secure that income as best you can on an ongoing basis and, importantly, how do you think that practice might be viewed in a court of law? Wouldn’t you say it virtually amounts to the very definition of “professional malpractice”?

So the first step I suggest you take in positioning protection within the context of a financial plan for your wealth creator clients is to use this ‘terminology tool’ when outlining the range of services you can offer as per your FSG.

The “wants analysis” as opposed to the “needs analysis”

Now let’s check out the relative benefits of a “wants analysis” versus a “needs analysis” and how to pre-position it.

For a long time in my advice practice I, like most advisers, did a needs analysis on my clients for their personal protection requirements. More often than not this process relied upon the ‘fear factor’ and painted the ‘what if’ scenarios which typically involved the ‘back up the hearse and smell the roses’ methodology, thereby turning the personal protection package into a grudge purchase made with very much a ‘just in case’ attitude on the part of the client.

…nobody derives any real enjoyment from talking and thinking about what they NEED

Then one day I had a ‘light bulb moment’ and realised that nobody derives any real enjoyment from talking and thinking about what they NEED, but conversely they get a lot of enjoyment out of talking about what they WANT, and from that moment on, I never did a needs analysis on a single one of my personal protection clients – I did a wants analysis instead and this revolutionised my business.

We need to recognise that it is our clients who are the experts when it comes to knowing what they WANT – not in terms of levels and types of cover (that is OUR area of expertise), but when it comes to FINANCIAL OUTCOMES in certain specific ‘what if’ situations, and it is our job to help our clients verbalise what financial outcomes they would WANT in those specified ‘what if’ situations, and this is what the questions we ask on the Fact Find at the discovery phase should be designed to do.

Once you have bought into the concept of the ‘wants analysis’, it is essential that the pre-positioning of the ‘wants analysis’ forms part of your “setting out your stall” (see previous article). In order to enable your potential client to relax, it is essential that you establish and get agreement on the purpose of the meeting you are about to have. In my case, this led seamlessly into a simple outline of the rest of my initial advice process and the basis for my recommendations. This pre-positioning of the ‘wants analysis’ went like this:

“My mission today is NOT to get you to tell me what it is that you would need to survive financially in certain ‘what if’ situations – I’m really not interested in that. What I AM on a mission to do is to help you tell me what it is that you would WANT in terms of FINANCIAL OUTCOMES in those same ‘what if’ situations, because once I know what financial outcomes you would want, I will be in a position to use my expertise to put together my recommendations for appropriate types and levels of cover that are specifically designed to achieve those financial outcomes you have told me you want and hopefully within an affordable budget. Does that all sound reasonable?”

The “percentage concept”

Lastly, what would you consider to be the biggest obstacle you have to overcome in getting your clients to buy appropriate types and levels of cover? I would suggest it is always going to be the cost – after all, if your clients could have appropriate types and levels of cover for nothing, then how much resistance would you encounter?! So anything we can do to lower the bar when overcoming the price barrier is hugely beneficial for all parties. So let me share with you something I call the “percentage concept” and how I pre-positioned it with my clients.

I found the best time to introduce the percentage concept was when I got to the superannuation section of the Fact Find. When arriving at this point, I suggest you ask your client the following three questions:

Question 1:

“What percentage of your income is currently being allocated to securing your income for AFTER your working life?” For most employed people, the answer to this question right now is 9.5%

Question 2:

“What percentage of your income is currently being allocated to securing your income for DURING your working life?” This is an accurate description of what your client’s Personal Protection Package is designed to do, that is to secure your income for yourself in the case of illness or accident and for your family in the event of your death. The answer to this question for most people is 0% and for others it is nowhere near 9.5%

Question 3:

“Tell me, which of these income streams – AFTER your working life or DURING your working life – is more important to you right now?”

What I would do at this point is to say: “You may be interested to know that over the last 12 months my new protection clients have typically deemed it appropriate to allocate somewhere between 4% and 5% towards securing their income for during their working life. Do you think that might be an appropriate allocation of funds on your part?” What a powerful question, as it means that most people are allocating around half the amount of money towards the MORE important income stream as they are towards the LESS important income stream – sounds pretty reasonable to me!

From this moment on, whenever the ugly spectre of cost rears its head, you can revert to the percentage concept rather than the dollar figure and given the importance of the perception we are creating in the mind of our clients, rest assured that the percentage figure will ALWAYS be perceived as less than the dollar figure.

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