If I could be a fly on the wall of your office and tell you how many times you give a presentation and forget to ask for the order, you’d be embarrassed. Keep in mind that selling is not telling. Teaching is telling. Selling is asking for the order, among other things.

If you look into the toolkit of a successful Financial Advisor, you will find client acquisition skills, selling skills and organizational skills. These are the basic skills of our business and it is up to all of us to master them.

When tuna fish goes on sale, people buy lots of cans of tuna fish. So if store managers want to clear the shelves, all they need do is mark the products down. People snap up the bargains and love it. Except in your business. Walking out of the store with the purchased item in hand is one thing. The bargain hunter feels fulfilled. There’s nothing to carry out when shopping in your store. The client walks out with an abstract hope that the future pans out. When our client is down on the future, he’s not going to buy what you’re selling. Emotion trumps intellect. That’s all a down market is. It’s a demonstration of investors’ temporary lack of confidence in the future. Your client undoubtedly knows that he may be missing a great buying opportunity, but he can’t bring himself to pull the trigger. There really is no better argument for dollar cost averaging. Tell your client you want to help him avoid the extremes by acting slowly and judiciously. Getting in without plunging in is comforting for most people when uncertainty reigns.

The more you let someone talk, the more that person will like you for listening. Chances are that the more he or she likes you, the more that person will begin to trust you. The more people trust you, the more apt they are to open an account. There is no technique we can employ to make people trust us. We can’t talk people into trusting us. We are trusted because of our character. Be humble and listen. Let your character shine through. You have to listen to people in order to get to know them. It’s impossible to learn anything while you are talking.

The whole world loves a storyteller. You really don’t need more than a few sales ideas and stories to succeed in this business. Learn a few really good stories and tell them over and over again. The more success you have with these stories, the more you’ll be tempted to stop telling them. The more successful we become, the further we get away from the basics that made us successful in the first place. Don’t fall into that trap.