Good for you BigRed…trying something new is always exciting.
I went through my book, looked at it closely and realized quite a few husbands and/or wife’s had accounts elsewhere. I sent out invitations, didn’t do a seminar but an appreciation dinner and had a superb response.

Now that the non-client wife and /or husband knows me, it’s easier to get them both in for some planning.

Simple…but effective.

Keep us posted as I will be doing product /concept specific seminars in Feb and would really, just like you, appreciate some guidance.

All The Way

I do 6 - 8 a year. This YTD, I’ve done 4 - all to existing organizatoins. They bring the audience. Easy as pie. Normally I do 1 - 2 focus (women only…401k…CPA CE , Economic outlook, etc) Over the years, doing cold calling - one of my exit questions is to say "From time to time, I run informational seminars - What would you like to learn? They tell me and I add them to my seminar list of prospects, so I always have a pool of prospective semina attendees.

Do NOT bother with Seminars unless you plan to do them on a REGULAR basis. (meaning at LEAST monthly)

A seminar can be a fantastic way to build a pipeline of HNW prospects that will eventually yield a slew of HNW clients.

The challenge that you will run into is that Seminars are very, very expensive to run as an ongoing means of prospecting.

You NEED to be good and comfortable with public speaking. You can do everything right, get a room full of quality prospects and blow it if you suck at the presentation. Know your material COLD.

You can NOT do these at elcrapo places. You should be doing these a WELL KNOW, HIGHLY DESIRABLE restaurants. That means you need to be prepared to fork over 40-70 per person.

I recently saw an invitation for some AmeriTrade advisers who used an AmeriTrade generated invitation (it sucked, poor quality and was boring to boot) then they decided a good plan was to hold this seminar at the freaking Olive Garden… I dont need to go the olive garden to know what their response rate was… IT SUCKED.

Why? A high net-worth Client isn’t about to spend 2-3 hours of their evening with you (whom they DONT KNOW) to eat at a freaking olive garden!!!

Next Tuesday I have 22 people at a one of the best steak houses in Columbus followed by Thursday with 25. We had similar results in January and November.

The majority of that 47 have investable assets in excess of 1 million dollars. The goal is by year end to have a QUALIFIED pipeline of 400 households that we are dripping on, leading to meetings. 30 Million in new net assets is a lot easier to raise through 25 new relationships with 1.500.000 than it is to do so by raising 100k to get there…

The key is consistency on the seminars. I’ve done them for years on a regular basis and they do work.

Seminar where you buy them a meal is what I avoid. I prefer to present seminars to a club/organization, where the organization find the attendees, not me. Mailing invitations to hundreds is expensive, and get a 1/3% response, cost more than the supper.