[quote=B24]A niche player.  Simple & effective.  There is a guy in my market (indy guy) that sells only annuities, and only works with retirees.  Doesn’t apologize for it, doesn’t explain it away, and is real clear about what he does and what he believes in. 

  It was interesting, a client of mine went to this guy long before he came to me.  He had about $1.2mm.  The advisor actually turned him away and said to come back when he was retiring (he was only about 53 at the time).  Advisor knew he had the money, but he only focuses on the needs of people retiring.  I found that very interesting.[/quote]   I would love to have the balls to do something like that. That is awesome.

deekay:

Cue Bobby in 3…2…1…

    I hate slow pitches.

voltmoie:

Do you guys stay away from bonds for fixed income? 

  With 30 year terms, yes

voltmoie:

Why? Interest rate movement or price flux?   Or just too damn hard to sell?!?

    Because he's a bank teller.

Alright - let’s tackle these one at a time - just keep in mind I’ll play a little hard so you can see some potential objections and then create your solutions around them:

[quote=snaggletooth]

I would appreciate some constructive criticism and thoughts on what I would like to do.  I made a fatal mistake the other day by allowing a wholesaler speak to a group of clients I brought to an event.  I had 22 guests which had a cumulative net worth of about $75MM or so, about half were clients, half were not.  At the end of the wholesaler’s speech, during the Q&A portion, I made a 2 minute comment that people told me was far better than the entire presentation. 

So I know I can do a better job.   So I've created a rough outline that I can build a workshop around.  I would like your opinions, good and bad:   -Introduction (Who we are and what we are not) - Keep short, 5 minutes or less, but tell some type of story that helps your attendees see you're an approachable, real person - this is why (imo) the previous attendees got more value from you than a wholesaler - they are notoriously over-polished and thus don't seem approachable.
-The Damage: October 7, 2007 to March 7, 2009 - S&P down 57% -How Much to Get Back to Even from the Bottom - 132%! - Okay, this is for both this and the previous: People already know "the damage" - they lived through it and it is painfully in their frontal memory.  So don't overkill it.  Just focus on the problem, not the numbers.  The problem is a lot of people were not prepared for the market conditions.  The reasons are too numerous to touch on; so keep it simple.  You show a chart of the damage and then say something like this: "A lot of investors got taken to the woodshed, for lack of a better way of saying it in the past 1 1/2 years.  Now, unfortunately, a lot of brokers just said to hang in there, not to sell, it would come back.  [ask for show of hands]  Did anyone hear this?  Yeah [as 2/3 the room raises their hands] - this is pretty common.  Here's some good news - there IS a better way - and that is what we'll focus on today."  This let's them know that you understand and will try to show them a better way.
-How We View Retirement Income Planning (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, INC.)  Don't offer the solution this early.  If you do, then your guests will speculate about the products you are going to try to sell them (which it sounds like that is really what you are going to try to do).  Rather, focus on solutions only at meetings offered after the meeting - but make sure they know there are solutions available.  I would probably toss this out all together at the seminar and just mention the benefits of proper planning (in your perspective).  So this could be: "You know, some people came through the past year or so without concern.  How did they do this?  Here's how...[be generic] First....they guaranteed their income for at least 10 years by not being in the stock market beyond what was statistically reasonable.  So whereas a lot of advisors were biased towards the market, smart investors had only what they absolutely did not need for x years at risk.  Second, they were ....; third, they ...."  You have to fill in the blanks with what you do.  Most important part is to be very generic and only focus on the benefit (peace of mind, very little market risk, bank risk, insurance company risk, etc.).  This can be done in 10 minutes or less and requires only one slide.
-Retirement Income Sources    -Social Security    -Pensions    -Personal Savings - I don't see the point in this, unless your primary objective is to illustrate these items are nice, but more is needed due to inflation and the like.  Which it looks like it is, but still don't spend more than 5 minutes on these items.
-Retirement Risks    -Longevity    -Health Care Expenses    -Inflation (loss of purchasing power)    -Asset Allocation (you need equities)    -Excess Withdrawals    -Retiring at the wrong time - This is overkill.  Focus only on solutions.  Frankly, there are dozens of annuity seminars happening every week in every town in America.  This is what they all talk about and no one is getting $3 million clients from them.  I honestly don't know your solution if your primary investment is annuities - but try to not use the same topics as everyone else or your audience will be checked out by this point in the seminar.
-Retirement Income Planning Tools - As long as this is unique and doesn't focus exclusively on annuity setups than this is where you spend the bulk of your time, slides, and energy.
-How Do We Repair the Damage? - Diagnose, then prescribe - you end here and offer a meeting/second opinion of some variety.
-Our Disciplined Approach and How It was Effective in 2008 (Bucket approach with annuities).  Toss this for sure.  If you share your approach at the seminar then there is no reason to do a meeting with you.  Just identify a problem, agitate it gently, then offer a solution (generically).  All specifics are for 1 on 1 meetings.
-Q&A - Never do this.  It's a huge liability, could make you look like an idiot, and again takes away the value of a meeting.
  That's it.  I feel I can make this an hour to an hour and a half.  I also would rather not use a power point or anything like that.  Every piece of information would be at their table.    My goal is to make this a traveling road show.  I would host an event once or twice a month and also take it to as many offices as possible for lunch presentations.  I have several clients and COI's like CPA's and Estate Atty's that want me to come talk to their colleagues/clients and I feel this would be an effective approach.   What do you guys think?[/quote]

Keep in mind that your content is pretty much secondary to these two very valuable seminar objectives:  Create Trust and Create Desire.  Nothing else really matters.  1 1/2 hours is fine - people won't fall asleep or feel cheapened with a 30 minute glorified sales pitch.  Get the people to like you (the most important aspect of creating trust) and create desire for a meeting.  This is done by making an offer for a meeting appear to have extremely high value and no risk (ie, they don't want to know you're just going to pitch some annuities).

Good luck and let us know how it works out.

J