I recently read an article on CNBC that said millennials would need to save a whopping 40% of their income over the next 30 years to be able to live off half their salary in retirement. Reading that, you might be thinking the same thing I was -- 

When do you receive the most cards? I’m going to take a wild guess that it’s in December during Christmas season (or Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, Las Posadas, or Festivus). 

Which is exactly why you can’t just send a Christmas card during the holiday hustle and bustle and expect to get noticed. Talk about throwing a needle into a haystack! Thankfully, there's something else you can do to stand out and build more effective client relationships this holiday season...

Have you been on LinkedIn sharing, commenting, posting content, and yet... still don't see what all the hype is about? If gaining a client or even a solid lead off LinkedIn has eluded you, then you may want to change how you approach prospecting on this platform. 

When you say, ‘I sell annuities’ or ‘I sell life insurance’, your prospects might say, ‘So what?’ Why? Because you haven’t positioned it in a way that matters to them.

If your overall sales or your seminar attendance, for example, has been lackluster — it could be because you’ve forgotten to include an important component in your sales message — your prospect's problem.

Let me tell you a story... 

Good storytelling grabs your attention, draws you in, and compels you to read more. What you might not know is WHY storytelling works so well, and how telling a story in the right way can help you convert more prospects to clients during your sales process.

There's plenty of information regarding retirement planning and financial matters available to consumers today. With convenient access to so many different topics and multiple perspectives, consumers can thoroughly educate themselves.

However, as with any topic, the information and the knowledge might be there — but clients will only stick around if you help them apply this knowledge. 

Before we get into whether an MVA would be “good” or “bad” for a client, let’s talk about what an MVA is — because let’s face it, there A LOT of acronyms in the insurance world and it’s hard to keep them all straight.

For years, business was as good as David thought it could get. But about a year and a half ago, he started questioning whether there was way he could provide more value to his clients and get away from feeling like the stereotypical “product-pusher.”

There is a subtle, but powerful shift happening in marketing and it could affect the way you prospect for clients.

The traditional way of marketing was a “push” method where you pushed your product, your service, your offer to the client by way of an ad in a trade publication, cold-calling, or in-person sales pitches. And there are times this still works, but there's a new marketing method in town and it can attract more clients and build stronger, longer-lasting relationships.

My daughter will soon be graduating high school and is in that stage of life where she’s puzzling over which career path to take. Being in the financial services industry, I asked if she’d considered becoming a financial advisor¹. Her response?