Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives
The human brain hasn’t caught up with our pace of life. To get more people to do business with you, communicate in a way that accommodates the attention deficit that prevails.
America’s attention deficit problem
America has an attention deficit, and it is massive, ubiquitous and plays a much bigger role in our everyday lives than we realize. Let’s face it: As people, we aren’t there anymore. We aren’t present as we used to be.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean clinical ADHD which, according to Harvard Medical School, affects only 4% of the U.S. adult population. For most of us, our attention deficit doesn’t warrant a medical diagnosis. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t prone to intermittent problems with our attention span.
Most of us regularly:
- Talk to someone and halfway through the conversation realize that you have no idea what they even said;
- Read an email and a short time later have no recollection of reading it;
- Become completely demotivated to accomplish a task because it required you to take multiple steps;
- Look at a sheet of paper with multiple items listed on it and have no idea where to start or how to respond;
- Are in a state of mind where you are so stimulated that you can’t slow down;
- Realize that during dinner you paid more attention to your text messages than your spouse or kids;
- Send an email unintentionally before you finished typing it;
- Are so focused on what you are going to say next or do next that you have no clue what the person speaking has been talking about for the last 20 seconds; or
- Wake up in the morning and check your iPhone before you say good morning to the person lying next to you.
On-the-go, isolated from our own minds, anti-social and impulsive is the way we exist as members of the human race. How do you, as advisors, get prospects’ attention in a world of nano-second attention spans?
How attention deficit impacts advisors
Finance is a tiring subject for an already distracted society. Unless someone is going through a crisis, their personal finance is low down on their list. They’ll never say that to you, because it’s something they don’t even consciously realize.
Here’s what they’ll do instead:
- Fail to respond to your emails multiple times; (Crickets)
- Sound excited about something in a meeting, and then after the adrenaline rush is over you’re fighting an uphill battle to get them to sign one lousy ACAT form; (Crickets again)
- Commit to doing something and then ignore your phone calls repeatedly for a period of months and months; (Crickets, crickets, and more crickets)
- Not respond to your email newsletters, blogs, or social media posts. You spent tons of time and money on this awesome content – how dare them!
Don’t take it personally or assume they’re not interested. They’re somewhat interested, kind of, sort of…you just haven’t gotten their full attention yet.
How to get someone’s total attention
In order to overcome the attention deficit problem that you’re facing with your prospects, you are going to have to break some of those handy little rules you learned when you were growing up.
Meaning:
- It’s bad manners to interrupt someone.
- Don’t be a nag.
- Something has to yield money right away or it’s not worth it (instant gratification).
- If someone ignores you, they’re rude – ignore them back.
- Successful people like to ignore others because they are arrogant.
- More is always better.
- Spell it out from start to finish right away.
Reduce content overload
Give them one thing at a time to focus on. If you give them too much to focus on, they’ll wind up focusing on nothing.
I am constantly seeing blogs and newsletters with multiple calls to action. Example: You can either visit our website to read our blogs, sign up for our webinar or contact us for a consultation. My head is spinning by the time I get to the end of this sentence.
If you have a lot to communicate, break it up into steps and give them one step at a time.
Case in point: Sometimes when I’m reading my kids a story at night, they get so excited by the pictures on the page that they can’t focus on the plot. If I cover up half the page with my hand, they instantly are able to tell me what’s happening in the story.
Vary the follow-up method
Oh, so you sent the same person five emails and they all got ignored? Wow, surprising that it failed four more times after it wasn’t good enough to get their attention the first time.
Get the courage to dial the phone. Send them a text, telegram, video email message or write a blog about their company and tag them on social media when you post it. Show up in their office at lunch with some Starbucks.
Break free of the email follow-up pattern that gets you ignored.
Don’t quit
The most important people have the most on their plate and that’s why they have such little attention for you. Take a successful executive. She’s used to delegating to other people. She’s not the task master; the people who work for her are.
It is worth the fight because most people will stop following up with an inattentive person. The limiting factor for your competition will be persistence.
Tiring? Yes. Frustrating? Extremely. But highly worth it.
Follow up consistently and they’ll realize that you aren’t going away until you get it done. At that point they’ll pay more attention to you.
Stay positive
There will be times where you have to give them some tough love. But don’t make it personal.
Example: “I feel like this project has gotten off track a bit. But I know that your family will benefit so much once we get this living trust into place. Like a phoenix. can we rise from the ashes with a quick meeting this week?”
Don’t use wording that seems nice but is passive aggressive in reality. Example: ”You seem so busy. This doesn’t seem like a priority to you,” “Somebody’s been busy lately!” or “You didn’t seem my last three emails?” Wrong approach.
Never show even the slightest sign of annoyance when they continually drop the ball. Do it right and your patience will earn big points.
Minimize distractions
Before you send the email, ask yourself this question: What in this email has the potential to distract the person who has three seconds to read it from doing what I want them to do?
Forget about the grand finale
Don’t assume they’ll read to the end because chances are they won’t. Forget about saving the best for last; clearly state the reason you are communicating with them right away in the first sentence of the email. Then tell them what you want them to do in the next line.
Use visual cues
The more visually stimulating, the higher the success. Use bold, italics, emojis or whatever chocolate chip chunks you can throw in there to sweeten things up. Do it.
Just remember to sprinkle those in. Nobody likes to eat a whole plate of sugar, but we sure do like a little dash here and there.
Silently diagnose
Don’t let it slip to your most trusted work colleague. “That Bill, he takes forever to get back to me. He’s the worst.”
People get really offended when they feel they are being accused of being lazy. Keep in mind that everyone feels they are overworked. Know that these little comments you may say in frustration get back to the person – they always do – so keep mum.
Sara’s Upshot
Communicate with the assumption that the other person has an attention-deficit problem. Adopting better strategies will reduce frustration and allow you to break through to the hard-to-reach people who others will fail to reach because they are unwilling to be patient.
By the way, I’m having a webinar on how to meet new clients during the holiday season later this month. You can sign up here.
Sara Grillo, CFA, is a top financial writer with a focus on marketing and branding for investment management, financial planning, and RIA firms. Prior to launching her own firm, she was a financial advisor and worked at Lehman Brothers. Sara graduated from Harvard with a degree in English literature and has an MBA from NYU Stern in quantitative finance.
Read more articles by Sara Grillo
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives
