Welcome back to the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast. Today we have a great episode as I talk with Bill Bloom.
Bill is a financial advisor who also happens to be a yachter. He’s written a book called The Yachter's Guide to Early Retirement. It’s very exciting because he's figured out now a way to get people to raise their hand. He has the perfect Profit Activator 2 asset to make invisible prospects, visible. Something that gets people to raise their hands.
We picked up the conversation talking about the next stage. Now he's done that, what does he need to do for Profit Activator 3. How can we maximize the relationship with the people who have raised their hand?
We need to connect with them to find out who are the five star prospects within that group. We need to figure out the best way we can help these people and how to best articulate the offers we'll use in Profit Activator 4 to deliver them to the During unit, creating a dream come true experience.
We spent the whole hour talking about this one conversion process, moving people from raising their hand, to taking action.
It's going to be a nice deep dive for you on converting leads. If that's the situation that you're in, I think you're really going to enjoy it.
Links:
EmailMastery.com
90MinuteBooks.com
Want to be a guest on the show? Simply follow the 'Be a Guest' link on the left & I'll be in touch.
Download a free copy of the Breakthrough DNA book all about the 8 Profit Activators we talk about here on More Cheese, Less Whiskers...
Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 037
Dean: Bill Bloom.
Bill: Good morning.
Dean: How are you?
Bill: I'm great, how are you doing Dean?
Dean: I am fantastic. This has become my favorite of days. I've got a couple of podcasts scheduled for today and I just get to hatch evil schemes and help the next conversationalist. So it's always a good day.
Bill: That's a beautiful thing.
Dean: There we go. So we're recording right now, we've got the whole hour to hatch some evil schemes and I'm really looking forward to it. So tell me what we've got going on.
Bill: Well, thank you for having me. It's been an honor and a pleasure. I know that being a strategic coach a couple days ago and talking about you with some of the people there and Dan was actually there that morning. He's like "Oh my gosh, Dean is the man. He knows so much. He's done so much for the industry, just for marketing in general". So it's been amazing.
Dean: Oh that's awesome. Well thank you. So tell me about your situation. What kind of ... What's the business that you're in and what are we working on here?
Bill: Absolutely. So what we do at Bloom Financial is we help clients with their retirement income streams. Our goal is to make sure people never run out of money. I think that's pretty important.
Dean: That's nice. Yes.
Bill: So from a marketing perspective I've put together two books and one of them was with the 90-Minute Book company which I think you're pretty familiar with. And that has been fantastic 'cause I do a lot of sailing, that's been one of my passions. And the books ... The guide's name is "The Yachter's Guide to Early Retirement" so I've been using that to my prospects and the people who I work with. A lot of them are sailors or boaters or power-boaters. And it's been a huge hit, an absolute huge hit.
Dean: I love it. It's funny, Byron is a guy in my strategic coach group in Toronto who I was just with and we just did a book with him called "The Geo-Scientist's Guide to Early Retirement". I think there's really something to it. I mean, we've had different people do different mentions like that. We have a gentleman do a cosmetic surgeon's, right? "The Cosmetic Surgeon's Guide to Early Retirement". There's something about the horoscope-effect that ... It really locks in when you hear something that is you. You just automatically, you pay more attention. Even if they're seemingly incongruent, or don't seem like it's directly related. Like "The Yachter's Guide to Early Retirement". It doesn't seem like the two would be connected, but they're certainly connected in spirit you know?
So how do you connect those dots and how did you come to that conclusion?
Bill: So I was sitting in an airport. I had probably, maybe 7 or 8 hours before my flight. It was in Nashville. And I had just come back from strategic coach and I had two of ... I had the little guides about the book. So I read them and I just started outlining the process for it. I was like "Who do I wanna work with?" The people I love sailing and boating with. And then "How could I reach them?" So I just outlined the process, took the time. At the airport, of all places, you know, make use of your time. And basically put the concept of the book together. Then I picked up the phone the next week and the rest is basically history and I've been able to use that as a nice little marketing tool.
And I also have that as one of the GoGoClients or GoGoAgents so that people could just go online and download it for free. And that way they're getting that content as well. And I'm trying to figure out new strategies to market that book. And I've also created a second, shorter guide from "The Yachter's Guide to Early Retirement" which is called "Retire as you Desire".
Dean: I like that one, too.
Bill: Yeah, I'm working on getting that trademarked right now as well. And so that's a second, shorter guide. That's about a 8 to 10 pager that outlines the specific process to help you retire as you desire. Which is everyone's goal.
Dean: That's so great. And so you look at that as, that might be a next-step for people, right? So you get that whole, you're plating that seed of "The Yachter's Guide to Early Retirement" and then the next-step, this "Retire as you Desire" seems like the perfect sort of worksheet to help people start the process of building their plan.
Bill: Absolutely. And that's the whole point because being in the industry for over 8 years now, I came into the industry in 2008, right when all the craziness was going on. And it turned out to be a perfect time to help people. And, I mean, Bloom Financial is here to help a lot of different types of clients but at the end of the day, you wanna like who you're working with and they wanna like you as well. So they have to enjoy the message you're sending and it has to be congruent.
Dean: Yes. I love it. So where ... What's happened so far with the book? If we're overlaying now the profit activators, where this fits that you've got a profit activator 2 tool now that can get people to raise their hand and you mentioned you're using GoGoClients and you've got your landing page all set up for the book. I'm assuming that's the one we set up for you with your 90-Minute Book?
Bill: Exactly.
Dean: The simple book landing page? Okay. And have you been connecting the dots yet? Now it's about ... You're there, ready for them to ... That's the tool that we've got. Have you been able to get that out in front of people and have people ask for the book yet?
Bill: Actually yes, I've done some Facebook advertising.
Dean: Okay.
Bill: We have a great system at our back office that helps us with our marketing and our marketing team is fantastic in getting everything approved, everything is done so quickly. And so I just sent out ... I set a small budget just to kind of test the waters.
Dean: Sure, great thing you should always do.
Bill: Yeah. I'm going to do a couple different streams of marketing with this, especially with the newer guide because you're able to reach a broader market rather than just sailors. So with the "Retire as you Desire", I put out a Facebook ad and it's had about twenty-thousand different views, it had, I think it was about two and a half percent conversion ratio for people going to the landing page to actually downloading the book. And actually the past 3 days, I've been getting a lot more people downloading the book. So I think they're seeing it more often, 'cause I kept it as a very tight group right now, I'm not trying to broadcast to all of America. It's too big of a net right now. I narrowed it down. So there's been a lot more hits, I mean a lot more downloads, just in the past 3 days.
Dean: Perfect. And so how many people have downloaded the book so far?
Bill: About thirty-five people, last time I checked.
Dean: Okay perfect. So, now you've got something that most people long for. You've got something that you can operate as a vending machine now, right? You've spent ... How much does it cost you per person who's downloaded the book? Have you done the metrics on that to see what your cost per download is?
Bill: It's like twenty dollars?
Dean: Okay perfect.
Bill: Just simple math because my budget was six-hundred.
Dean: Okay. So there we go. You've spent ... You got twenty dollars and what you have now is the perfect little profit activator 2 vending machine. Okay? Now, regardless, the metrics, the math, we can work on. You know? The fact that you can, you're getting them for twenty-dollars right now? There may be ways to get that down and get that for less. But, the thing that you have is that you got a way to put money in the top and get leads out the bottom which is so ... That's the starting point, that's the launchpad. We can figure out the math afterwards, you know? The money part of it. What's more important is that we get the market of it, right? That you've got an offer that you're matching with the message that you're sending.
So when people download this book right now, or the guide, you've got thirty-five people who have raised their hand and are now in profit activator 3, which is about educating and motivating those people. Now this is where the conversion part of this comes in, right? And we want to talk about it as a conversational type of thing.
So first of all, congratulations. Because you've got something that is really working.
Bill: Thank you.
Dean: You want to enjoy that right now. Now, what happens when somebody leaves their name and their email address? What's the first 24, 48 hours like for that person?
Bill: This is where I need to build out the tools a little bit more. And with the GoGoClients, this is actually on my schedule to do this afternoon. You're able to do that, and you're able to send out the additional emails.
Dean: Yes, you can do that whole thing.
Bill: Yeah, which is amazing because then you have the automated system working for you. But what I have done is sent out a thank-you, obviously, for taking the time to download that and then there's a call-to-action inside of that to call the office if you like what you read, or send us a note. So we're very inviting. And plus, on my website now that I've just added, there's a scheduling tool where my clients, or prospective client, can go straight to the website and book a meeting. So that way it's very intuitive. If someone wants to speak with us, they're able to.
Dean: Okay. So what would be the ... What does that email say? The initial email? So I download the ... I leave my name and email address, and then you set up, with GoGoClients, that immediately I get an email With a download link. Is that how it works?
Bill: Correct. And with your experience, what's some of the best ways to help with that conversion when they go to the landing page? What do you think?
Dean: Well I'm glad you asked. You're in the right place.
Bill: Exactly.
Dean: You are in the right place. So here's how we want to think about it. Before we get into that, let me set the stage here of what we're actually working with right now. How long has it been since that first lead came in? Like how long ago was that? Are we talking about -
Bill: 3 weeks ago.
Dean: 3 weeks ago. So you started running the ads then, and that's been sort of steady over the 3 weeks? Or did you turn it on for a couple of days, then turn it off, and now it's back on? How has it been?
Bill: It's been steady. It's been steady. It's just been continuously running so I set 3 week timeframe to where it's really sending -
Dean: Okay so basically one a day, basically one a day, for the last little while. Okay. And now has anybody in that 3 weeks so far gone on to engage or take another step forward?
Bill: At this point, no.
Dean: Okay. And so that's what we're looking for now, right, is now we wanna go and see we're building this bridge from profit activator 3, which is your ... You've got a visible prospect now. The goal of of profit activator 3 is to educate and motivate them. And then we want to deliver ready-to-go prospects, people who want some help, into your during unit. Okay? Profit activator 5. And the bridge to that is offers that we'll make in profit activator 4.
So this is where it's like, you're looking at the transition now. Somebody could hang out in profit activator 3 for years before they take that next step. And what you're building is an asset here, right? You're building an asset of people who have raised their hand because a message resonated with them, that they want to retire as they desire.
Now we want to continue to educate and motivate and to communicate with those people until they're ready. Patiently and systematically, until it's the right time.
Bill: Exactly.
Dean: Now here's where people often make a mistake about their approach to this lead conversion. First of all, they think that there's something they can do to convert these leads, you know? There's always this language that "I'm gonna convert these leads into clients. I'm gonna wrestle them down somehow" and something that you're doing that's gonna make this happen. And the reality is that what we're really looking to do is take the approach that we're trying to find who are the five-star prospects, right? And so I talk about five-star prospects and I wanna define it for us here that a five-star prospect is somebody who meets these five criteria.
Number 1: They're willing to engage in the dialogue. Number 2: They're friendly and cooperative when we talk with them. And when we email, you know? Dialoguing with them. They're friendly and cooperative. Number 3 is that they know what they want. And number 4 is that they know when they want it. And number 5 is that they'd like us to help them.
So all five of those things have to be true in order for you to be working with an ideal client. Right? So if we start with that as the baseline here, that that's what we're looking for. If you think about any of the clients that you're working with right now, they're all five-star prospects. They're all people who, they were willing to engage, they're friendly and cooperative, they knew what they wanted, they know when they want it, and they'd like you to help them.
Bill: Oh yeah. And they all become like family.
Dean: Exactly. Because your during unit is all about delivering a world-class dream-come-true experience for people, right? You're focused on that. So when you look at this now, the goal is not to turn people into five-star prospects, it's to discover who are the five-star prospects. And so that is a different sort of approach here, you know? If we look at it that it's not so much that you're gonna convince people to do anything, right? They're gonna convince themselves to do something. You're gonna present them with the information that they're going to use to build their case, right? To convince themselves. But nobody's gonna do anything until they're convinced that it's the right thing to do.
And so we look at it now that we patiently take this approach of identifying who are the five-star prospects, you know? So we want to know, rather than starting at the beginning, or starting at the end and starting to make prescriptions for people, you know? Just saying "You should do this, you should do this, you should do this". Rather than starting with the prescription, start with the very first thing which is that, are they willing to engage in the dialogue? We want to kind of disarm people first right? If they've got to get through all of those, they've got to be willing to engage in the dialogue and they've got to be friendly and cooperative.
I mean, they left their name and email address which, you know, that's sort of a starting process of being willing to engage in the dialogue. They left that voluntarily for you. Now, are they friendly and cooperative means that when you email them back, will they email you back? You know? Will they have a conversation with you? That's all that we really wanna focus on initially is just to see, are they willing to engage?
So tell me about this email that you send initially to people.
Bill: Well, I'm glad you asked that because I obviously need to work on that a little bit because -
Dean: Are you on your computer right now?
Bill: Yeah, I pulled it up because I wanted to give you the exact information Dean.
Dean: Why don't you email it to me too so I can look at it while we're talking here.
Bill: Absolutely, no problem. So let me send this over to you. So basically -
Dean: So that way we can kind of look through the whole thing here.
Bill: Yeah. So when someone goes to the page it just says, "Thank you. You will receive your complimentary guide shortly". And it says, "Visit my website at bloomfinancialco.com". And it has all my contact information there. And then I am going to forward you ... I'm going to put my name in there and see everything that pulls up and then I'll be able to just forward you the email.
Dean: Okay perfect. Yeah this is, you know, part of what we're looking for is to really now imagine this scenario, you know?
Bill: Absolutely, and see if from their perspective.
Dean: That's exactly it. So we wanna kind of go through that.
Bill: Absolutely. I'm still getting used to our system here. It's so intuitive. I didn't realize how much stuff was in here to use. It's fantastic.
Dean: Really. Well down at the bottom of the page, or even on the dashboard there, there's a whole library of video tutorials with all the things that you can go with GoGoClients.
Bill: Unbelievable. All right. And then, yes. Here is the email. It says, "Thank you so much for downloading my e-book. I hope that-"
Dean: Did you forward it to me too?
Bill: Yeah I'm doing that right now.
Dean: Okay, yeah forward it to me so I can read it while we read along. Every little element of this ... It's good to kind of imagine it, you know, to take that perspective. Okay. "Retire as you Desire". Here we go. Okay. So this is the way that it goes. So did it put their email address? This is the email address I see there, it's gmail.com.
"Thank you so much for downloading my e-book"? So your personalization is using their email?
Bill: It's their name, I just put my email in there twice.
Dean: Oh okay gotcha. All right so that's good. There we go. "Thank you so much for downloading my e-book. I hope that it finds you well and that you're able to apply the principles of this book to your future retirement. Please give my office a call today to help with your retirement income planning needs. Bill Bloom".
Okay and you've got your phone number in there and your signature. Okay. So let's talk about this. The thing that we want to imagine now is that ... A really great mindset to get into or a great mind exercise for this is to imagine that your opt-in box is a portal to your office, okay? And that you're sitting in your office and then whenever somebody fills in their name and their email address and presses "submit" or "send my book", they magically get transported right into your conference room. Or right into your office, or wherever your are. And they're sitting right there. And it's an interesting thing to imagine that. But what would you say to somebody if they appeared right there in front of you? What would you say in that situation? What would you say to somebody like that?
So you can imagine that they've seen ... They've been attracted to this message of "Retire as you Desire" and then ... How would you engage with those people?
Bill: That's a very good point. I want them to know that it's all about them, it's all about the client. And when they do come to us for help, it's all about them. And that's been something that's always relayed in meetings and the first question that I will always ask a client is, "What's most important to you?" And stop talking because at the end of the day I'm able to create a customized plan for them, for their needs, whether they're a boater or they have a second home, or a sports car that they love. Or some of my clients, they just love knitting. That's what they do with their free time and that's what they spend their money on. It's how it is.
Dean: No but you know there's a thing like ... So you imagine this, there's something that you want to imagine is that first email that you get, this first opportunity here, is your chance to really kind of set the stage for people in a way, right? Like you can give the next steps of what to do next, you know? And just kind of ease people's minds. There's a really interesting example that I talk about a furniture store called "Jennifer Leathers". And they are a furniture store and all they sell is leather sofas. And they've got a sister-store called "Jennifer Convertibles" and all they sell are sofa-beds. But when you walk into a "Jennifer Leathers", they don't take the general retail approach of "Can I help you?" "No thanks, I'm just looking", right? It's not that dance. What they do is they take a different approach.
And my friend Evan Bacon and I went into two stores in the same day just to test this out, see how they do it. And you walk in and they say, "Welcome. Have you been to Jennifer Leathers before?" And just right away that question, no matter what you say ... So you know, you say, "No" and they say "Well, let me tell you how it works. All of the sofas that you see are available in any of the leathers on the back wall. They're all in-stock and available for immediate delivery. And they're all guaranteed for life. My name's Dean, I'll be right over here if you have any questions. Take a look around."
That's the first engagement with somebody who comes into "Jennifer Leathers", right? Because they know that if I just say to you, "Can I help you?" And you say "No thanks, I'm just looking", what you're not saying is "No thanks, I'm just looking for a red leather loveseat". You know? That's really what you're looking for. And you think, "I'm just gonna scan and if I don't see a red leather loveseat, I'm just gonna leave 'cause I don't wanna be convinced to buy something else, or I don't have time for this, I gotta stop by a bunch of stores today. So I'm gonna quickly get in, scan around, if I don't see any leather sofas, red leather sofa loveseats, I'm gonna leave".
But that they've done with that interaction is they've overcome the three biggest reasons that somebody might not buy a sofa today. They might think ... They might not see a red leather loveseat. And if they knew that they could get any of the loveseats in any of the leathers on the back wall, they'd know that all they need to look for is the shape and the style that they like, knowing that they can get it in red, and also knowing that it's not going to be a special delivery, because they're all in stock and available for immediate delivery.
And they can get the finest leather, even if they have kids and dogs, knowing that it's all guaranteed for life. You know? So they've now framed the way that people are looking at the sofas. They can relax and just look and find the sofa that they want, knowing that there's not a sales person who's gonna try and push the blue sofa because they're getting overstocked on the blue, right? "We gotta get rid of these blues". That's not it. They're just saying, you know, "Find what you want".
So that is a very important moment, you know? If you can set the stage for what it is that's gonna happen, and how you can help people. Now, that alone ... So in that situation, I'll kind of let that land a little bit, you know? And then the pairing to that is to really think like a chess-master here. And start to think, "What is the next couple of moves here with this in the evolution of this relationship with this client? Where are we heading with this? What's likely to be true about this person and what would be the thing that they would really like?" And the more that you can anticipate what somebody's need is or what their desire is, the more that you'll be able to package a solution or suggest a solution for them, that's going to put you in a leadership role. Not in a passive role.
Like just saying to people, "Please give my office a call today to help with your retirement income planning needs" is very vague. Not a leadership. It's saying, "You put us into action", you know? It's not making an offer. We're expecting people to take the initiative. And nobody likes to take initiative, right? It's like, you would rather somebody call you up and ask you for some help because we're completely wired to want to help people. That's what we're really hoping for, you know? And so I always use that as an example.
If I were to bring you into my house and sit you in my living room and say "Hey Bill, I'm really glad you're here. If there's anything you want to eat or drink, there's lots of stuff in the fridge. Please feel free. Go ahead and help yourself". Now it would be very difficult for you to do that, wouldn't it? If we've never met, it's your first time in my house, and we would never feel comfortable imposing on people, you know?
Bill: Of course.
Dean: And so if I did that, though, and I sat you in the living room and I went into the kitchen and I came out with a plate of freshly baked cookies. And I came right up to and I said "Hey Bill, would you like a cookie?" It would be very difficult for you not to take the cookie.
Bill: I would always say "Yes" to that.
Dean: Yeah, of course. Even if you don't like cookies, right? I mean, it's still the same thing, even if it wasn't your favorite kind, you would take it because you don't want me to feel bad that I went out of my way for ya. I made these cookies for you, right? And that's really why we go to such great lengths to deflect these situations from us. That's why we're so resistant when we walk into a retail store to just say, "No thanks, I'm just looking" because we don't want to feel indebted to the person, right? Because we know we're helpless against it. Kind of an interesting societal kind of benchmark, you know? That you look at it in those kinds of situations and you see immediately how it applies. But then taking this approach to it, what would be the thing that the person who has been compelled to download your guide, to retire as you desire ... What would be the next step for them? What would be the thing that you could anticipate that they would want, you know?
Bill: Absolutely. I think it comes down to what their needs are. And let them know that their wants and their requirements, as far as income goes, will be listened to. Because the structure of the plan around what their requirements are, whether that's X amount of dollars a month or a year, that would change from, to the next client. So I really think that if we could relay the message saying, "You're going to be listened to. What we do is listen to you, the client, for what your income requirements are". I think that would be very powerful.
Dean: I mean, when you run out of this, when you look at this, "how to never run out of money"? It's such a great set of words, right? "How to never run out of money". Is that ... are those clients' approved words?
Bill: That is part of the guide. So because there's products out there that can help with that, it all depends on the clients and there's no cookie-cutter approach. Everything is customized because we could be working with a client who has 5 million dollars and they may have a high likelihood that they don't run out of money because they don't have a lot of expenses every year. You know what I mean? Or if you have a client who has five hundred thousand dollars, we're having a different conversation. But we're able to help both sets of clients and that's the beautiful thing about my practice is that 5 million dollar or the 5 hundred thousand dollar client is still going to be listened to, and the plan for their income strategies is going to be created around their needs.
Dean: Their income strategy, yeah. That's funny. I had an advisor friend tell me a story about a client that made millions of dollars a year but was spending more than they were making. And they had to have a conversation about it. He was saying, you know, "You're gonna have to ... This is the reality. You're making 8 million dollars a year but you're spending 9 million dollars a year. And something's gotta give here, you know?" And the client at the end of the conversation was sort of saying, "Well is there any other way?" And the advisor said, "Well I mean sure. Make 10 million dollars a year". And the guy just got this bright like beam of satisfaction on his face, you know? Like, "Why didn't I think of that?" And he just went, "Done". And he just left there flying, you know, just floating on air that all he had to do was just make another million dollars. He didn't have to cutback on anything, just make more money. Like really. "Why didn't I think of that?" You know? Yeah.
So when you look at this, that "how to never run out of money", I really like those words. And if we were to take that thing ... We all love calculators and we all love things that you can plug-in and run scenarios ... All of those kind of things. I wonder if it would be an interesting thing to think about how to tell when you'll run out of money, kind of thing, right? Or how long will your money last or how much will you need ... What would be an interesting sort of compliance-friendly way of doing that kind of a calculation for people? What kind of thing do you do for people to start that process?
Bill: Our minds are syncing right now 'cause I was just thinking the same exact thing. I think that would be very inviting for a prospective client. To get the book and a couple days later one of the emails asks them, "Have you had your income stress-tested?" Or "Have you had your retirement income plan stress-tested?" Or "Do you know how long your money will last for?" And I am able to help clients do a retirement income plan review. And then the plan itself shows if they are getting X amount of returns, if they have X amount of assets and how much they're contributing each year. And how much income they want, 'cause that's the main goal. And it will show them if their money will last or not. So that can be done.
Dean: You think that's something that your clients would love to have? If they could see a report that showed how that plays out? Or plays out to different scenarios, kind of thing?
Bill: Absolutely. I think anyone would want to know that because it's very powerful to say, "At age 75, there might be a high probability of you not having money anymore". Or if you are at age 80, you think you're gonna live that long, and what are some of the things you can do to prevent that? Or to use different products to help you with your income planning. So I think that can be very powerful.
Dean: And so I think that's kind of a cool situation then, that that would be one thing. What else do people want to know about? What else would kind of raise their pension here? What other kinds of things, even in your experience in talking with people, what would be another thing that they would want to know? I just want to kind of get to 2 or 3 of these, you know?
Bill: Absolutely. A couple other ones is protection. Protection is a very powerful word because illness, as we get older, obviously our bodies are not working in the same manner. I didn't create this so I can't take credit for it but there was a gentleman who came up with in retirement you have three different phases. You have your go-go years. That's when you're traveling, you're gonna go see the grandkids, you're gonna take that cruise that you've always wanted to do. And then the next part is the slow-go years.
Dean: Slow-go.
Bill: Yeah, isn't that great? I didn't create this so I can't take credit for it but I love expressing this because it's so true. In those slow-go years, you're not spending as much money, you're not traveling as much. Your kids or grandkids are usually coming to see you, because you can't get around as well. And then you have your no-go years where you're really not doing too much. You're at home, you might go into an assisted nursing facility at that time. And I think the second thing that people are looking for is protection for their estate and for their moneys and to make sure that if they do need some form of care, that they're taken care of. And that's, I think, from an advisor standpoint, that's one of the things that people miss the most. They forget to plan for that.
Dean: I did a book with a financial advisor called "How Much is Enough?" And that was the question that, you know, people always have. That's the question that people wanna know. But then we did a postcard that was 3 avoidable mistakes that derail even the most cautious retirement plan. One of those is these not factoring in the risk here, you know? Of not protecting the downside.
Bill: Absolutely.
Dean: So I think that's great, the protection. And then the longevity, the how long it will last. And the people you're working with, what age group are they right now? Are they pre-retirement or are they ramping up to retirement or just starting retirement?
Bill: 90% of my clients are about fifty-seven through seventy.
Dean: Okay.
Bill: That's the biggest part of my book and business. Absolutely.
Dean: And that's when they start kind of thinking about it, is late-fifties?
Bill: Absolutely, because that's when they're starting to think about their social security planning. They're starting to think about, "Okay, things are coming quickly, the next 5 to 8 years will happen in a flash" -
Dean: That was where we came up with that question of how much is enough because that's really ... I have friends that are in that age-range, like guys at my country club or people that are on the cusp, they're about to retire. They could retire at any time, they're just, you know, counting their money and counting it again and doing calculations. And then there's always just like "I just the next level", no matter what it is. If it's 5 million, they need 7 and if it's 7 they need 10. You know what I mean? It's always just out of ... "I just need a little bit more to feel safe with this", you know?
And so your approach is kind of to start with the number and work backwards, I guess, right? Like starting with what's their income need for the thing? Because you think about it, that's really ... It feels like in retirement, if people could take a guaranteed amount of income, even though it would be less than, they would trade their assets and stuff to have a guaranteed income to last as long as they do, right?
Bill: Yes. Well it's interesting. Here's a perfect example. I was just working with a client the other day, and they make about two-hundred thousand dollars a year. Good money. Then they said to me, "I think when we retire, we'll be able to live off of ninety thousand dollars a year, no problem".
Dean: Uh oh.
Bill: And they're used to living on more than double that. So that's a red-flag immediately. I said to them, "Do you realize that you guys are gonna cut your income in half? Is that really what you want? Do you want to plan for having more than that?" And then that really got them to start thinking. They're like, "Oh wait. I think you're right. I think we should plan for at least a hundred and twenty-five or a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year because, I don't know if ninety thousand dollars would be enough". Because once we started going through their expenses and they had three houses and I'm like, "What are your property tax bills for all those houses?"
Dean: Right.
Bill: So just little things like that. You have to have a target to shoot for. And then that way you're able to plan accordingly to get them to that income level.
Dean: So that might be a ... Is there some words that, some stress-tested thing that is the income ... It'd be an interesting thing to have an approach to calculating how much they'll actually spend in retirement. And figuring out how much asset that will require. Like everybody's got some baseline things. They'll have their social security income, they'll have maybe a pension or not, and then they've got whatever assets they have that are gonna make up that difference. But it becomes that then math game, right? Figuring out what the difference and what they'll be able to ... How much it'll actually cost. Or how much assets you'll need to support that income, rather than looking at it backwards from "How can you maximize the income from your assets?" Is that a fundamentally different approach?
Bill: At the end of the day, whether you're doing it from, you need three-hundred thousand dollars of income a year or if you look at it and say "You guys have saved 3 million dollars a year. Here's what I think we can project", there always needs to be some form of comfort level. And for that 3 million dollar client, there's a lot of different ways to help them achieve their income goals. It comes down to how much they've saved, how much people are willing to save, and really what their comfort level is with the market. If they love the market, if they don't love that. We can do a combination of things to protect their money, or else we'll grow their money. So really Dean, it comes down to that person. It's all specifically for that person. I wish there was one way to do everything 'cause it would make life a lot easier but there's just not.
Dean: Yeah. No, exactly. And so I think that having that kind of discovery process for people. You know, one of the things that when you look at it, if you were to imagine your sort of Jennifer Leathers message to these people who, the moment they download the book, the guide to have these next steps, you know? I use something that we call "super signature" that I always have offers that we let people know what to do when they're ready to take the next step. So I always end every email with, "Whenever you're ready, here are 4 ways I can help you hatch some evil schemes for your business". Or whatever it is.
Part of it is being able to be in that leadership kind of role for people, you know? Like just letting them know what to actually do. So my super signature, if I just look at ... I'll just go, 'cause I sent out an email today. And I just said ... so it ends, "Plus, whenever you're ready, here are 4 ways I can help you hatch some evil schemes for your business. Number 1: Be a guest on 'More Cheese, Less Whiskers'. 2: Try the new profit activator scorecard. 3: Join our email mastery academy and be a case study. And 4: work with me one-on-on".
So I've got, and I just have little descriptions of what those things are. And every time that I send an email like that, then somebody picks every one of these things, you know? Some thing is just the right time for people. So I would look to say to your people who download the book, "Here's the copy of the 'Retire as you Desire' worksheet and it's going to show you this, this, this, and this. Click here to download it. And then whenever you're ready, here are 3 ways that I can help you retire as you desire". And one could be ... What would you call that stress-test? You know? "Put your portfolio to the stress-test". Or, "We can run a stress-test on your retirement portfolio and show how long your money will last under different scenarios". That could be one.
And I'm just getting the rough words out there, right? Like this would require a lot of word-smithing to get the right words. That's the essence of it, right? That we're saying, "Whenever you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you retire as you desire. 1: Do a stress-test. Number 2: We can do an income analysis" or whatever. What be the, you know, how might that work out? What did you call the ability to calculate someone's income?
Bill: Actually in the book there's 7 steps in here so it's a process, this is a process-driven strategy. And it's called the "navigation process". I took that from "The Yachter's Guide to Early Retirement". So it's the investment portfolio analysis, that's exactly what we're talking about here, to show them how long their money could last for.
Dean: There you go. That's perfect. So having that as an option. And then, you know, I think your "Retire as you Desire" is such a great title that that could be the kind of thing that you could say, you could do a workshop around that. Right? "Join us for a 'Retire as you Desire' workshop".
Bill: Oh that's good. That's brilliant.
Dean: Right. Where you can walk through those things, you know?
Bill: I love that.
Dean: So now you've got 3 good options there. You could run scenarios on your current one, go through a process to calculate your income goals or requirements or what it really costs to retire. Or join us for a "Retire as you Desire" workshop.
And saying those things, that's similar, what we're doing on the real estate side, we're generating buyer-leads. We offer a guide to Winter Haven real estate prices, house prices, for people moving to Winter Haven. And so we say that same thing. "Hey, welcome aboard. Here's the guide, it's gonna show you all the different house prices and what you get for your money in Winter Haven. And then whenever you're ready, here are 3 ways we can help you. Number 1: you can join us for a daily tour of homes. We do tours here in Winter Haven every day at 10am and 1pm. You can see several homes in one session. Number 2: Join us for a home-buyer workshop. We do home-buyer workshops with the library on the first and third Thursdays of the month. Or the first Thursday or the third Thursday, or whatever you want to do it. And number 3 is get a free home loan report. We monitor hundreds of different loan programs all around the country to find the best zero-down loans, low interest loans, low-payment loans. We put all our findings together in a custom home-loan report".
Those 3 things all look at having the next step for people, you know?
Bill: Absolutely. I'm just taking some notes right now. This is phenomenal. 'Cause, even with the Winter Haven home, if you wanted to move to a place or Miami or Fort Lauderdale or whichever city you're looking at, you could do the same thing or replicate that. And it's just a great idea to show people that "Yes, you can take the next step" or "Yes you can learn more about this" and "Yes, you can be helped". Because at the end of the day you wanna help the person in your industry.
Dean: Right. Yeah, so that's where ... The great news is you're at a situation where you've got a mechanism now that can put you in conversation with people who are attracted to that message. Either as yachters who want to retire or as people who wanna retire as you desire.
Bill: Exactly.
Dean: Now your 100% focus is about bridging this gap between getting those leads and getting those people to be clients, you know? That you're able to help them. 'Cause I know that in your during units, you're 100% capable and ready to help people, right? So it's just now bridging that gap from profit activators 3 into profit activator 5.
Bill: Absolutely.
Dean: And that's gonna be about email, that's really what the next step would be for you.
Bill: Absolutely love that.
Dean: So what's your recap? What have we come across here?
Bill: Well Dean, my recap is this. Building out the back-end of things is I think really the most important part, 'cause once your get that person to engage and give you their information, they've already taken the first step. And then secondly, if we're able to give them a clear and concise message, which is something that I need to work on, but we can do that. And let people know that, "Yes. There are solutions for you and yes, your objectives or if you want to retire as you desire, that can be met. Or if you wanted to keep your yachting lifestyle in your retirement years, those things can happen too. And it's just planning accordingly and I know how to do that for people".
Dean: So this is great. You're right in the situation now where you've done the right things in that you've generated leads, you've got a baseline to draw from there. And you're not gonna prove anything, not gonna make the boat go faster by throwing more money into generating more leads right now, until you really solidify this process of converting those leads. So it's gonna improve it in volume, right? We've got to thread the rest of it here. We've really gotta focus all of your attention on, "How can we engage with those people?" 'Cause they never liked you more than the moment they download your "Retire as you Desire" guide, you know? Or download your book. That's the peak of your relationship so far. And now we don't want to just leave it on, "Please call our office" or "Some help with your retirement planning". You know? That's like saying, "There's lots of stuff in the fridge. Go ahead and help yourself".
Bill: So true.
Dean: Right. We wanna be very very clear and we want to engage with, even though there's group of them, we want to engage with those people as individuals, you know? That's what you want to do, is imagine that ... We spent this entire call sort of talking about that one thing of the initial message. But the next level of that is now engaging with those people on a one-to-one basis. So, you know, asking them a question that's going to engage in a dialogue. So when people immediately put in their name and their email, we're gonna send them that initial message that says all the things we've just discussed, plus makes those "Whenever you're ready" offers for them. And then the next morning, we want to greet those people with a short, personal, expecting-reply email that will engage them in a dialogue.
So, for example, in the real estate side, if somebody downloaded our guide to Winter Haven, then what we would send the next morning is a message that says, "Hey Bill, welcome aborad. Are you an investor or are you looking for a house to live in?" Right? Just engage in a conversation with them, right? And that's where you might send a message to somebody and say, "Are you retired or are you gearing up for retirement?" Or something that would be easy for people to respond, you know? Just an easy way for people to respond.
The great thing about "The Yachter's Guide to Retirement" is that you could literally say to somebody, "Welcome aborad. What kind of yacht do you have?" Right?
Bill: Oh that's so good!
Dean: Right? Because all you wanna do is engage with people as people first, right? We just want to see that they're engaged in the dialogue. And if you have a picture of you on your yacht, then that's kind of a nice thing 'cause you're engaging with people as people first, you know?
Bill: Absolutely. Yeah. You are a very smart man, my friend.
Dean: I've been doing this awhile but that's the kind of thing, right? You're thinking just now, every single person gets that individual attention, that you're now speaking to one person at a time. And you just wanna find out, are they willing to engage in the dialogue? Are they friendly and cooperative? And then you're just gonna spend all of the dialogue, all of the back and forth, is going to be focused initially on, do they know what they want? And they may not know what they want. And so your dialogue is going to be helping them discover what it is that they want and making sure that that's in alignment with what you could actually help them get. And only then deciding whether now is the right time for that, and then making an offer to help them. You know?
So it's all this skillful sort of ... I think if you just take these thirty people and you start to think about, "How can I engage individually with these thirty people and find out who are the five-star prospects?" You know?
Bill: Yeah, absolutely.
Dean: That's really where that thing is. This is great. This is where all the asset is, is in this lead conversion process here, you know? Going from profit activator 3 to profit activator 5.
Bill: Yeah, and taking those steps and really walking the prospects through the different areas that we could really help them with. So yeah.
Dean: That's exactly right. Yeah. So that's exciting. I've enjoyed this. Our time went fast here.
Bill: I know, I can't believe it's been over an hour already. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate everything. I really do.
Dean: I think this was awesome. This would be a really great email mastery case-study. I'm starting a new email mastery case-study group next week so, I'll get you the details on that 'cause I think you'd be a perfect fit for it. You're exactly at the place where we pick up with that.
Bill: That sounds great, Dean.
Dean: Okay. Well I sure enjoyed it and I will look forward to working further with you on this.
Bill: Same here. Thank you so much for your time and again, you're a genius. Thank you.
Dean: Thanks, Bill.
Dean: And there we have it. Another great "More Cheese, Less Whiskers" episode. And you know, you get to see ... I hope that you found yourself in that situation. If you've got leads that you've already been able to generate and you've got a mechanism that is like a vending machine, where you can put money in and leads come out, the only thing that makes sense to do right now is to focus on converting those leads into people that you can actually help. And I want to say, converting those leads with the same caveat that I gave Bill in the conversation, is nothing that you're going to convince people to do. You're going to discover who the five-star prospects are and make it super easy for them to get started. And I think that you're gonna have a really great lifetime learning experience of moving leads from, "Hey I'd like to do something" into working together with you. That's really the skill of any of it.
Generating leads is sort of a science, and there's lots of ways to ... You can pretty much automate the whole process of getting people to raise their hand. But the skillful, the art of converting these leads, of identifying who the five-star prospects are, engaging with them in a way that helps them come to their own conclusion, that you're the only logical person to help them. Not beating them into submission or beating them into thinking that you are the only one that can help them. But to let them come to that conclusion by really communicating with them and offering the most logical next-steps for them, and packaging it in a way that makes it super easy for them to take those next-steps.
So if you enjoyed this episode, and you're in a situation like that where focusing on engagement with your leads, engagement with by email with the people that you already have, you might be a perfect candidate for our email mastery case-study program. If you think you might be, send me an email. Just dead@deanjackson.com and put "Email Mastery" in the subject line. And I'll send you an invitation for our email mastery case-study program. I'm starting about one group every six-weeks or so, and we're having some incredible results with that. So, send me an email, dean@deanjackson.com, "Email Mastery" in the subject line, and I'll get you all the details of how we could work together on your email mastery.