Seminar
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this is a cool thread. But it sounds to me like someones passing wind!
Sorry guys, i couldnt resist. Call me immature
[quote=Moraen]
[/quote]
Do tell. Not sure I follow you on this one.
B24 - I believe he is a Seg 0 -2 or something. Jones (correct me if I’m mistaken) reimburses 75% of the costs of the seminar. That includes marketing costs. The way we did it was that we were already sending out mailings. We included the invite in with a normal mailing. The postage is reimbursable as well. You send out two things, one that says you are doing the seminar the other that has an “investment idea”. Either way, when you make the call, you’ll have somewhere to go if they are not coming to the seminar.
Also, sometimes Jones will reimburse 100% of seminars (once again, correct me if I’m wrong), so you can make a little.
Wholesaler pays for a portion. Also, wholesalers can pay whatever amount they want. I always made sure that I gave them the amount that would cost me the least.
When you hit Seg 3 it’s a little harder, but doable.
I get you now. Yeah, the one drawback from moving past segment 2! One of the processes the implemented (not sure when) is that Jones reimburses us for the wholesaler reimbursement, as to avoid be “over” reimbursed. So there’s not much way around it. But usually with the Jones 50% reimbursement, plus the wholesaler, my seminars don’t cost that much (for a $750 dinner, I would end up with about $75 out of pocket, depending ont he wholesaler). Problem in my area, is that there are only high-end restaurants above the “Applebees”-level place, not much in-betweeen. So I usually have to pay quite a bit for dinner. But we have some nice hotels that I can use outside catering, and just have scaled-down hors d’ouvres or something. I actually find that if people are interested, you don’t need much in the way of food.
My client dinners are usually a bit nicer, with a wholesaler telling a good story and buying a nice dinner.
[quote=anonymous]Wind, if you don’t want it to be all about you like you just posted in another thread, why are you posting, “I’m referring to” , “I do business with”, “i’ve dealth with alot”, “know more than me”, and “I don’t give a”?
Take some time. Read your posts. Most of them are screaming, "Look at me!" If that's what you want, you are succeeding. If you are not trying to make it about you, you are failing miserably and need to make changes. [/quote] You are being unfair with Wind. First, If you look at the post right in front of his Morean starts out his post with "I'll talk about what failed". You didn't jump all over him and tell him he's talking to much about himself. Volt asked for personal experiences. Wind gave a couple of good ideas, that were factually accurate, and talked about them in first person. The fact that he's new has nothing to do with his experiences. Maybe he's done some seminars. If he's smart he has. Maybe he can share some of that experience with a guy, Volt, who obviously hasn't done one. One new guy giving another new guy ideas. That's the way it works in this business."I'm referring to the ones I do business with and i've dealt with alot of em believe it or not....They are like hawks if you put in big tickets with them............do me a favor and spare us the 27 page thread argument over whether or not you know more than me....I don't give a sh*t......Oh....and shut the f*** up..."
This sure sounds like a post screaming for attention and not one trying to be helpful. We all talk about ourselves. It is the best way to share our collective experience. The question is whether someone is sharing to be helpful or is sharing to say "look at me". Wind is getting the negative reaction because he appears to fit the second category. It's either intentional or unintentional. If it's intentional, our feelings about him are correct. If it is unintentional, it will be important for him to gain the skills to learn to get across what he is trying to get across.#1. You can call the Attorney Generals office and have someone come give a speech on Fraud or something similar and it's free.
#2. Someone from the Social Security Administration come talk for free....
I was told that the other day, and the guys a Million Dollar Producer...Says he does both every year. It's free, easy, and people really wanna hear what they have to say...rather than the guy from American Funds.....or whoever... " then - "I will give a few wholesalers the benefit of the doubt. There are a few, who will do more of a round table Q & A and not even mention their funds and will make it more about what the prospects/clients want to talk about, plus you get the dinner paid. Not all, but there are some. You just have to know your wholesalers.
Most of the American funds wholesalers want like 70% American Funds owners already and thats a bit retarded if your trying to get new business.... " NONE of that is him boasting about anything. NONE of it is him screaming for attention. I took it as someone who has some knowledge willing to share it with someone else. It wasn't until Johnny made his post calling Wind retarded that we got to where you start. At that point he does get defensive. This thread wouldn't have turned ugly if the two of you would have kept your traps shut. Wind could certainly help his own cause if he would just ignore you guys and give his opinions knowing that he's going to catch some grief for it. Some of the best ideas I've been given were from guys who were just a few months to a year ahead of me in the biz. Espeically when I was new. He's obviously doing something right. Maybe I should call him and find out what it is.
Now, back to the original poster’s question.
Certainly leverage a wholesaler for the marketing money they have to spend. Most of them will kick in up to half of the cost of the meal. My Hartford guy picked up the whole bill the last time we did one together. I use the wholesalers for market updates and economy discussions. I focus my topic on the general planning, asset allocation, or income generating ideas that I can help with. I want my clients to view me as the expert on those things, not as an economist. I've done 6 seminars in the last 5 months. Average attendance of about 15 with only 200 invitations sent out per seminar. I think right now people are willing to listen to just about anything. They want to hear someone say something intelligent (which makes me wonder why they come to my seminars). So whether it's tax free bond investing or, my best one so far, women and investing they just want to talk with someone. I'm going to disagree with Morean (mostly because he hasn't got any idea what seminars are available at Jones right now) on the Jones canned seminars. They are quality stuff. I like the New Opportunities one. I've done that one a couple of times with great responses from the attendees. It's general in nature and you can give it pretty much anywhere. The Roll It, Take It, Leave It one is a good one also. Let's you target market to your IRA rollover prospects and clients. You can get them in PDF format, slides, or just printouts. There are marketing pieces for all of them, invitations on the system, and guidelines for your BOA to follow. It's really easy for you and her to work through the process. I love working with widows and single/divorced women. They're generally more open to ideas and they know how to take action. They don't spend as much time as their male counterparts over analyzing things. I recently did a women's only event and invited my best clients and their friends. Women are more apt to bring someone with them than men are. It's the whole group bathroom thing. I don't get it, but then I'm a guy. Jones has a good seminar called A Woman's Guide to Money Matters. Not to techinical, but they sit there the whole time nodding their heads and participating. I highly recommend something like that. Also, don't be afraid to partner with another professional in town. I've done them before with a chiropractor, attorney, motorcycle dealership owner, and I'm working on one with a sporting goods/hunting equipment dealer in town. Get creative.Be careful about partnering with another business in town. I did a joint seminar on international investing and had a travel agent speak. I thought we could introduce each other to our clients. The travel agent brought no one and skipped out on her part of the seminar dinner bill.
S’ Spiff:
Average attendance of ~15 with only 200 invitations sent out ?
Can you elaborate ? Most of the feedback I hear regarding seminars is that it takes a lot of invites to get to people that will actually attend.
Thank you !
Spaceman Spiff:
Wow that is a 7.5% response rate. I would love to know how you do that. please give us the details.
Jack BlackWe send the invites out a couple of weeks ahead of time to prospects and clients. My BOA then calls everyone and makes sure they got the invitation, if they will be attending, and if they will be bringing a guest. I've done them before where she didn't call and we had 4 people call to RSVP. I'm not doing one for four people. So, my only conclusion is that it's the phone call by her that makes the difference. She has this knack of getting through to prospects I haven't been able to catch in a year or more. It's kind of annoying. Sometimes even if they can't come they'll tell us to make sure to send them info on the ones we have in the future. We've even scheduled an appt or two from those phone calls.
I found out after one of them that she only sent out 75 invitations. We had 12 at that one. She does call again the day before to make sure people remember that they've signed up to come. It's a bit of a guilt trip, but we make them tell us what dinner they'd like to eat. Often we have people back out the day before, but usually only one or two. If they know what they're going to eat they're more likely to show up. We've also told people before that I'm paying for 20 people whether they show up or not, so they might as well come and get the free food.[quote=Spaceman Spiff]
And I get blamed for spinning things. Holy cow, nothing like leaving out the beginning of the conversation to prove your point. OK, let's look at his post. The original one. "I got a great idea from someone the other day, especially for the newer rep trying to create some sort of "legitimacy" with prospects.#1. You can call the Attorney Generals office and have someone come give a speech on Fraud or something similar and it's free.
#2. Someone from the Social Security Administration come talk for free....
I was told that the other day, and the guys a Million Dollar Producer...Says he does both every year. It's free, easy, and people really wanna hear what they have to say...rather than the guy from American Funds.....or whoever... " then - "I will give a few wholesalers the benefit of the doubt. There are a few, who will do more of a round table Q & A and not even mention their funds and will make it more about what the prospects/clients want to talk about, plus you get the dinner paid. Not all, but there are some. You just have to know your wholesalers.
Most of the American funds wholesalers want like 70% American Funds owners already and thats a bit retarded if your trying to get new business.... " NONE of that is him boasting about anything. NONE of it is him screaming for attention. I took it as someone who has some knowledge willing to share it with someone else. It wasn't until Johnny made his post calling Wind retarded that we got to where you start. At that point he does get defensive. This thread wouldn't have turned ugly if the two of you would have kept your traps shut. Wind could certainly help his own cause if he would just ignore you guys and give his opinions knowing that he's going to catch some grief for it. Some of the best ideas I've been given were from guys who were just a few months to a year ahead of me in the biz. Espeically when I was new. He's obviously doing something right. Maybe I should call him and find out what it is. [/quote] Spiff, there's no problem with his original post, thus there was no comment about it. In fact, it was refreshing to see him try to be helpful and not worrying about himself. The issue is that ultimately Wind makes everything about Wind.
[quote=JackBlack] Spaceman Spiff:
<P =Msonormal style=“MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”>Wow that is a 7.5% response rate. I would love to know how you do that. please give us the details.
Jack Black[/quote]
As far as your invite goes or you using a traditional form letter or something else?
Also are you only inviting clients?
The most amazing thing about this to me is not that a rank rookie like wind wants to pretend after a few months that he knows everything. We’ve all seen that silly act over and over again, and I’m sure we’ll see many more like him in the future.
What surprises me, spiff, is that you would allow this character to draw you into the position of defending or vouching for him. Because let’s face it: even if he has accomplished exactly what he claims in his few short months, it still amounts to squat.
So what if he looks good relative to his peer group? We all know that about 90% of any new new group washes out in the first few years, so while much better than failing, starting reasonably well in the first few months is hardly the noteworthy accomplishment he thinks it to be. I’d hate to try and support myself (much less my family) on that supposedly impressive production absent the salary paid to help rookies survive. But then I don’t live in my parent’s basement either.
I would think the greatest favor you could do this lad, spiff, is to try and help him wake up and see how silly he is being. Worst case scenario he will have plenty of time later to gloat and share his secrets of success - ideally after he has achieved some real success for some period of time measured in something other than weeks or months. He may squirm now, but he would probably thank you profusely in the long run once he finally matures enough to realize how silly he has been.
<span id=“userPro142814” =“showDropDown’userPro142814’, ‘proMenu142814’, 160, 0;” =“msgSidePro” title=“View Drop Down”>anonymous care to share what’s worked for you? Any suggestions?
Sorry, but I'm the wrong guy on this subject. I've only done one. My invites were sent out via e-mail. The subject was very specific. 20 buying units showed up over two evenings. 12 became clients. My total cost was about $100. My profit was probably close to $20,000. The stars and the moons were properly alligned and it made sense for me to do a seminar. There were reasons for this success and it wasn't because of any great speaking or sale's skills. However, in general, the point of a seminar is to get people to agree to a 1 on 1 meeting. Therefore, it often (usually?) makes sense to me to skip the seminar and go directly for the meeting. Sorry that I can't give much help on this one.<SPAN id=userPro142814 title=“View Drop Down” =“showDropDown’userPro142814’, ‘proMenu142814’, 160, 0;”>anonymous care to share what’s worked for you? Any suggestions?
[quote=chief123] [quote=JackBlack] Spaceman Spiff:
Wow that is a 7.5% response rate. I would love to know how you do that. please give us the details.
Jack Black[/quote]
As far as your invite goes or you using a traditional form letter or something else?
Also are you only inviting clients?[/quote] I send them to anyone I think might be interested. That includes clients and prospects. I have some clients who would come to everything I do, but they never bring anyone with them. So, some of them only get invites once a quarter or so. Prospects get an invite to everything. You never know what it going to trip someone's trigger. Especially these days. The invitations are standard Jones issue. We have a relationship with Hallmark that we can get custom printed invitations for $.52 a piece. They're nice Hallmark cards. I think we can get them in either folded or just flat. I'm not really sure because I let her make those decisions. I don't think we do anything special, other than the follow up phone calls. And if we were sending out 2000 invitations I wouldn't expect my BOA to call all of those people. I did hear something interesting the other day that I thought was worth mentioning. I'll let you know I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know how well it works. One of my wholesalers said that there is a Jones guy in the area that only sends invitations to 5 clients. The thing is, he sends 5 extra invitations to that client. Then he follows up and says that he sent some extras so that the client can invite their friends and that they are one of a few people who received those invitations. He said that the guy typically has 20 people at each of his seminars. Not a bad ROI. Kind of a twist on the white glove dinner type of thing.
[quote=anonymous]
Spiff, there's no problem with his original post, thus there was no comment about it. In fact, it was refreshing to see him try to be helpful and not worrying about himself. The issue is that ultimately Wind makes everything about Wind. [/quote] I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that if nobody would have attacked him, he would have just let his comments stand on their own. He made one comment that was very helpful, then got a negative comment by Jaxson. Then he made another comment where I will admit he did use the pronoun "I", but only once and he didn't say anything about money or accounts. And then JRB chimes in with some negative remarks. Only after being made fun of twice does he get defensive. And I would say, rightfully so. So, in this post, I used the pronoun "I" three different times. So, does that mean I'm (that's four) making it all about me? Hardly.What suprises me, Morph, is that someone making money, transferring accounts, etc amounts to squat. Even if he ends up being a flash in the pan, which I'm going to guess he's not, don't you think that he's got something working for him? Wouldn't it be nice to hear what it is? Instead you folks just discount anything he has to say because he's new. I think that's short sighted. I don't need to learn everything from people who are out longer than me. Sometimes I can learn things from the new folks. If he comes out with another post bragging about how much he's grossed or something blatant like that, then absolutely, pile on. But if he's just trying to give some advice (albeit from a new guy), then let the man talk without you guys twisting everything he says to make it sound like he's only talking about himself.
What surprises me, spiff, is that you would allow this character to draw you into the position of defending or vouching for him. Because let’s face it: even if he has accomplished exactly what he claims in his few short months, it still amounts to squat.