In 2006 a thought crossed my mind – ‘How can I win business from private clients?’. I am a lawyer and specialist in trusts, tax planning and succession. Imagine how unpopular I would be at the Monaco boat show with an elevator pitch on ‘death and taxes!’
The reason why it fascinated me so much was because I had been a contributor to the weekend Financial Times on tax and trusts for twelve years – submitting on average 10 articles a year – which were all published in full – very often on the third page with a cartoon – but I did not win one piece of business from the publications even though the article was attributed to me with the name of the firm of which I was a partner.
For many getting a mention in the weekend Financial Times is the pinnacle of marketing success – but I had 120 articles published over twelve years – (for which I was paid) and not one piece of new business
I formed the view that people bought the pink paper at the weekends – walked about a bit with it under their arm– and then put it in the bin – without reading it – so it came as a complete shock when Professor David Hayton the trust supremo – who I was introduced to for the first time in Bermuda (where we had both been invited to advice the government on how to develop its trust business) who said on being introduced ‘So you are Caroline Garnham – you write for the Financial Times – the first thing I do when I get the weekend paper is to see whether you have written a piece!’
It is the only time I can remember – wanting the ground to swallow me I must have turned scarlet. My embarrassment was short-lived, and we subsequently became good friends swapping ideas about trusts – both onshore and offshore.
It was around this time that I was invited to join a drinks reception at the Frieze sponsored by a bank. I observed that the bankers only met with their clients briefly but on the whole the bankers and private client professionals kept separate from each other. Neither seemed comfortable socialising with the other – I wondered whether the bank considered the sponsorship a good return on investment!
I was by now very curious as to know how to win business from private clients so decided to read what I could about how to sell and negotiate.
My research revealed that we all have what I call an ‘innate fear of the influence of strangers’ – and on average only 2-3% of people will be willing to buy from a stranger on the first introduction. – It generally takes between 5-12 ‘touches’ before the innate fear subsides and a sale can be closed. This would explain why readers of my FT articles went to their trusted adviser and not to me to implement the advice I had given – they knew and trusted their lawyer they did not know me.
The conundrum was how to increase the number of ‘touches’ and with whom
The traditional way in which business is won from private clients is through – B2B marketing. Every wealthy person needs an accountant, a tax specialist and a banker – B2B marketing – is business to business – which involves cosying up to private client professional, in the hope that he or she will recommend your services to their clients.
Most private client professionals I noticed went to events – if the events were industry events – they would probably learn something useful about their area of expertise – but they would be in a room with other professionals who were doing the same work as them – so no new business opportunities would be forthcoming.
The other type of event would be of a more general nature and appeal to a wider community of professionals which would be great for networking, but the talks or panel sessions were largely a waste of time – and I noticed that the attendees would invariably do their emails during the talks and only stop at the breakout sessions.
This is not to say the breakout sessions were particularly productive. First the professionals would exchange business cards with the other – then they would find something topical to talk about – such as ‘have you had the jab?’ or ‘what do you wear during lockdown?’
This is not surprising because even with B2B marketing the innate fear of the influence of strangers still exists. We have all experienced the ‘event bore’ who pushes product as soon as someone is listening – and we all make a mental note to avoid them in future
This innate resistance pops up as soon as we feel that someone is trying to sell us something or trying to influence us. – There are however four ways to reduce this resistance which I will go through with you in next week’s note
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