StarteR Guide Proven 4-Step Guide that can benefit your clients & your practice Take These Steps Step 1: Making the List Step 2: Setting First Appointment Step 3: Getting Feedback Step4: Asking for Referrals
After you sign up for Social Security Timing, we urge you to complete the following 4 step Warm Up process to familiarize yourself with how the software can benefit your clients and your practice. Sometimes when a concept is new, it can be difficult imagine how it will fit and add value to what you re already doing. When e mail first went mainstream almost 20 years ago, many businesses thought it was a fad with little value to offer. Now it s an indispensable tool for nearly every company on earth. The concept of Social Security Timing probably feels pretty foreign to you right now. But by following the marketing programs we ve created, including this 4 step starter program, it can become an indispensable part of your business as well. This warm up is designed to help you understand the power of Social Security Timing not by telling you about it, but showing you how to experience it for yourself. For many agents it is not until they actually sit down with a client, run a report and see the client s reaction that they experience the so called aha! moment and realize the value of Social Security Timing and how they can use it to grow their business. We want you to experience this aha! moment and have a clear understanding of how Social Security Timing is going to work for your business before you spend the time and resources necessary to make the marketing programs in this binder successful. 4 Steps to Getting Started with Social Security Timing So here s the Warm up process. It shouldn t take a lot of time or effort on your part, but it is a critical step in making Social Security Timing part of your business. Step 1: Make a list of all the married couples age 60 66 that you know. Step 2: Set appointments with 5 to 10 couples Step 3: Get Feedback Step 4: Ask for referrals
Step 1: List Use this worksheet to list people you know who fit the following criteria: Married Age 60 66 One or both have yet to elect Social Security These criteria are important because many of the election strategies that Social Security Timing recommends are only available to people who are married and age 66 or younger. This is also a good litmus test to determine how strong your natural market is for Social Security Timing. If you have trouble filling in the spaces below, you may struggle finding success with SST.
Step 2: Appointments Set up appointments with 5 10 couples. When you call to set up your appointment, tell them you are considering offering a new service as part of your financial practice and you would like to run a free personalized report for them that will help them determine the best time for them to elect Social Security benefits. This process is important for several reasons: It allows you to start with people you know, people you re comfortable with. Take it to your friends and family. Since you re not yet comfortable with the subject matter, this gives you an opportunity to work out any awkwardness in front of an audience you trust before you sit down with a prospect you ve been trying to get a meeting with for six months. You ll see what s involved in preparing a report and how the process itself works. You can start thinking about how it could fit into your existing sales process. How might your conversations and questions change? Does this type of presentation fit your style? It s important to ask these questions early on. You ll get to see first hand the client s reaction when you share a report that has just uncovered an addition $30,000 or $40,000 in retirement benefits they didn t even know they had. You ll also start to see other opportunities emerge. Hopefully, as these conversations unfold, you ll start to get a sense for how the Social Security planning process can easily transition to discussions of additional planning needs. Finally, now you have some stories to share during seminars or later client meetings that illustrate the power of this process.
Step 3: Feedback After your first appointment where you explain the tool and gather their information, you ll go back to your office and run the numbers and generate a report. At the second appointment you ll deliver the report and explain the recommended strategy to your clients. One thing you can be fairly certain of is the clients have never been through a process like this. So ask them what they thought of it. Their feedback is going to be critical in determining whether you move forward with integrating Social Security Timing into your planning process. Suggested Questions: How likely are you to implement the strategies recommended in this report? Are there areas you think need more clarity? Where? Do you think I should charge for this service? If so, how much? Would you expect any of your other advisors to provide this service? If so who and why? Do you work with any other financial advisors? Are they doing anything similar? Do you think any of your friends or colleagues have heard of these strategies? Would you recommend a service like this to your friends or family?
Social Security Timing Warm up Step 4: Referrals Once you ve gotten their feedback, assuming it s positive, it s time to ask for referrals. We re not worried about getting referrals to potential clients at this point. Rather, you re looking to connect with any other professionals your client works with like their accountant or estate planning attorney or any other professionals who might have an interest in educating people about Social Security like library or university administration. Put simply, you re looking to build Center of Influence (COI) referral network based on Social Security planning as a valueadded service. Ask Do you know any of these professionals? CPAs/Accountants Divorce or Estate Attorneys Librarians/Library Administrators Community Center Administrators University or Community College Administration Talking Points: You ll find that most people are much more comfortable making COI referrals than they are referring friends and family. Reassure them that professionals like accountants and attorneys are accustomed to these types of calls and won t be offended that they gave out their number. In fact, it s an opportunity for the other professional to offer more value to their own clients. Ask them to write down names, numbers and titles of any professionals they know who might be interested in Social Security Timing. Ask them to please call their professional and tell them to expect your call. Feel free to use the worksheet on the following page.
Please provide names and contact information for any of the following professionals you might know.
Step 4: Referrals Hopefully this process has yielded some viable COI leads for you to follow up on. Start by calling and sharing the Social Security Timing story, how it benefits people, specifically their client who made the referral. Ask if they d like to meet and discuss how this service might be of value to their other clients. When you meet bring some sample reports as tangible evidence of what the software does. Also bring examples of media coverage Social Security Timing has received to show them it is legitimate (see www.socialsecuritytiming.com/resources). Show them your SST micro site and the What s at Stake? Calculator. At this point you might ask Can you think of any clients you work with who might benefit from this information? If COIs have been part of your practice before, you know how difficult it can be to get their attention. They are constantly approached by advisors wanting referrals, and after a while they all start to sound the same. How much more successful do you think you ll be when you can show them something they ve never seen before something that truly adds value for their clients? These relationships can result in seminars, workshops, referrals, advertising, etc. Once you complete this 4 step process, you should have a much better understanding of Social Security Timing and how it might fit with your practice, the value it adds for your clients and the potential it holds for distinguishing you as an advisor. Don t have Social Security Timing yet? Sign up for a Free Trial at www.socialsecuritytiming.com