Unqualified Leads: How You Can Minimize Your Time and Maximize Support to People Who Currently Don’t Qualify for Your Services – With Financial Wellness Programming
Everyone in financial services has experienced this scenario:
You’re excited to meet a new potential client. You greet them professionally when they arrive. You see that they are excited about this next step in their financial future, and you’re excited to help.
Then you find out they have $50k in debt, only a few hundred dollars in savings, they’re adding to their credit card debt each month, and they’re working on rebuilding their credit.
You Feel for Them, Want to Help – But How Much Time Can You Really Spend?
First, you have to break the news that you’re not able to work with them. Emotions set in on the client, questions come, and the excitement of the meeting quickly turns negative. Why can’t you help me? What do I need to do? What are the problems?
You do your best to give them quick tips and get them out of your office, knowing it would take years for this person to become a client and they need a lot more support than you can provide.
All the time you invested will likely never be returned and the person has little impetus to push them forward and very little reason to call you back years in the future.
What if We Could Support Them, Build a Referral Source, & Position Them to be Clients in the Future?
Once you determine that a prospect is not qualified for the service you offer, you can still nurture the relationship without spending a lot of your valuable time.
The answer: financial education programming.
Give them access to resources and materials that can help them qualify for your services. Not all prospects will take advantage of this opportunity; but for the ones who do, you will have formed the foundation of a solid relationship moving forward.
How to Deliver Financial Wellness to Prospects
To save your time and best support the needs of your potential future clients, there are a few popular options to give them financial education.
1) Provide access to an online financial wellness program.
2) Give them guides and handouts that can support their efforts.
3) Conduct group education events or webinars on a regular basis.
4) Refer them to programs and resources your community offers.
5) Provide education tips through your social media channels.
6) Include financial education lessons in your newsletter.
With each of these options, you are able to stay focused on your core business while supporting their efforts to work toward qualifying for your services.
How Can the NFEC’s State & Local Coalitions Help?
If you’re an Advisory Board member on one of our State and Local Coalitions, we provide you with resources you can disseminate to your clients, prospective clients, and people who need to improve their finances so you can serve them.
By supporting those people who don’t yet qualify now, you improve your ability to earn their future business; plus it helps them in a time of need. The resources we provide shortens the time you need to spend with them to nurture them toward greater financial strength.
Helping unqualified community members will leave them with a great impression of you and can lead to referrals and other positive engagement.
