Over the years, I've interviewed clients on topics related to investment, insurance and banking issues. I recall one conversation with a successful business owner who railed against his bank, going through a litany of examples of how they made life difficult for him. After listening to five minutes of this, I asked what seemed to me a logical question: "If you're that unhappy, why don't you move?"

His answer: "If I thought it was substantially better anywhere else I would. But given that most banks are fundamentally the same, why bother?"When we hit rough patches in the market, some clients become disenchanted with their advisor and initiate a move. For every prospect who decides to cut the cord with his or her current advisor, there are many more who simply grumble and stay in the never never land of indifference - they're not so happy that they won't entertain alternatives, but not unhappy enough to proactively seek out other solutions or get off the fence and make a move.

There are two big things keeping these clients from moving - one is inertia and the effort to change, the other is uncertainty that they'll be a lot better off elsewhere. When you're talking to prospects, even those who have been referred to you, your challenge is to demonstrate how they would be better off working with you relative to their existing and other advisors - talk is cheap, what you need to do is provide clear proof of the improved experience they'd have with you. In essence, you have to provide a "proof statement" - a capsule summary of the things that differentiate you, the more concrete and specific the better.

If you take a planning approach, walk prospects through a sample of the plan your clients receive. If your point of difference includes responsiveness and client communication, talk about your team and your standards for responding to client calls and demonstrate what kind of communication your clients receive. If your focus is on the investment process, show prospects a sample Investment Policy Statement and talk about your investment process and the resulting outcomes. Some advisors augment this by offering the names and phone numbers of clients who have expressed the willingness to talk to prospective clients about their experience working with you; even when prospects don't make any calls, the confidence that this demonstrates can be reassuring.

Another approach is to utilize case studies. In most industries involving high value sales, case studies have been shown to be among the very best ways to provide prospects with support and evidence of your claims. Ensuring that client names and data are kept confidential, you can paint a before and after picture - first showing what a client's situation looked like when they joined you, next going through the changes which were made and finally demonstrating how that client is better off as a result. Just be sure to stress the emotional as well as the functional benefits, not just better returns or lower risk but less stress and worry on the client's part.

There is no one proof statement that's right for everyone - every advisor is unique and every advisor's "proof statement" will look a little different. What's important is that you have a proof statement that is relevant for you and resonates with prospects. To take maximum advantage of the prospecting opportunity ahead, you need to provide prospects with clear evidence that they will indeed be better off working with you - building case studies and other concrete examples of how investors will benefit from working with you could pay big dividends in the next while.