Are you using free seminars to find notes and investors? Picture this: you invite prospects and customers to a seminar with a party feel. You present the same information you use in a sales presentation, but to a group of qualified, interested people. After a short talk, they’re fed well, and in that relaxed atmosphere they’re ready to buy.
Sound too good to be true? Maybe that’s because you’ve never tried it.
Why seminar selling works
The financial services industry has mastered seminar selling and turned it into a way to gain credibility, acceptance and clients. Insurance agents started from a correct premise: everyone hates insurance, everyone needs it, most people don’t understand it, and no one wants to spend an evening with an insurance salesman.
Seminar selling is such a soft sell that it’s often used by people who don’t think of themselves as salespeople, yet need to market to build their business. Notes fit that description perfectly.
Here’s the main idea: take information your potential clients would find valuable, such as what FSBO sellers need to know about carrying back financing or how investors can earn a higher return, and present it in a seminar.
Ways to set one up
- You can start a seminar series tomorrow.
- You can sell sponsorships and partner with non-competing professionals: lawyers, accountants, stockbrokers, financial planners, real estate brokers and others.
- You can partner with the people you already work with. For example, you speak about how to take back a mortgage and sell it, and a title company presents the closing process.
The approach works for any product or service. When Dr. Gary Berebitsky was starting his pediatrics practice, he taught his hospital’s free prenatal care seminars for expectant mothers. It was a public service for both the hospital and the doctor, and both gained new patients.
Seven ingredients for successful seminars
- Your seminar must appeal to a specialized market or niche.
- You must identify and invite good prospects from that market.
- Your subject must be something attendees or sponsors want, need and care about.
- You must be recognized as an authority on the subject, or bring one in.
- The room must be first class, to reflect your image.
- You must serve great food.
- You must have good sales skills, and use them, if you want to close after the seminar.
What you get out of it
Seminar selling has real advantages over more aggressive tactics like telemarketing, advertising and direct mail:
- You make new contacts and network with existing customers.
- You give attendees a chance to network. Get people talking to one another.
- The atmosphere is relaxed and open: a buying atmosphere, not a selling one.
- You educate people about your service or point of view without it feeling like a sales pitch.
- You strengthen your company’s image.
- You build credibility as “the expert” in your niche.
- You motivate people to act. The more they learn about your expertise, the more willing they are to consider it.
- You make sales.
Close at the end
When your seminar is finished, the prospect will never be hotter. Ask for the business when they’re most likely to buy. If you ask for the sale, you’ll turn “contacts” into “contracts.”
One last thing: have a walk-away wow. Give each attendee something to take home that they’ll show others, so they tell people about their good experience with you.
Sell your note business by seminar. If you won’t, your competition will.
