Last Monday’s email focused on crafting a 10 second elevator speech to summarize how investors benefit from working with you.

Today’s article moves to the next step.

Suppose a prospect agrees to meet with you. Now you need to explain what you do and how clients benefit from your work in a way that’s engaging, interesting and compelling

In an interview on today’s site, I talk to Dave Paradi, author of two books on effective communication, including one picked by the Globe and Mail as a top ten business book for 2008.

Dave made two critical points in our presentation.

Less is more

First, too many advisors overwhelm prospective clients with way too much information. 

We need to be discerning about providing enough information to give prospects a good sense of how we work and a feeling that we offer substance, without having them feel swamped.

One approach is to provide an overview of your process with a few key points under each step– but without all the detail.

Then you could say to a prospect:

“I have more information on each of these steps.

Which one or two would you like to focus on?” or “Which of these would you like more information on?”

Pictures versus words

The second trap is how you present the information.

The approach that most advisors use is to provide prospects with a piece of paper with a bunch of words on it, organized in lists, paragraphs and bullet points.

Again, this risks overwhelming people. Quite simply, it’s not organized in a way that lets prospects absorb the information, relate to it and remember it.

Instead, Dave Paradi suggests that advisors remember that most people are visually oriented and relate to visual images.

So if you’re talking about a roadmap to success, he suggests using a visual aidof a roadmap with stops along the way to mark the key steps you use in helping clients meet their goals.

A prospect may not remember the individual steps but they will remember the roadmap.

Depicting your process

Another common discussion point when meeting with prospects is how you go about building portfolios and selecting investments.

Some advisors will talk about using screens and filters to identify the funds or stocks that best meet a clients needs.

Again, fine in concept, but hard to relate to and remember for many prospects if you’re just talking about this.

Instead, he again suggests employing a visual aid.

You may show the universe of potential investments in a column on the left, then a depiction of a filter to block out those that aren’t relevant, with a shorter list of investments in the middle.

And then another filter to select the ones that are most appropriate, ending up with the recommended investments in the right hand column.

So you go from a long list to a shorter list to a short list, with a two step filtering process.

Explained that way, a prospect is much more likely to understand your process, to relate to it and to remember it.

For most advisors, getting in front of qualified prospects is hard work. You can’t waste those opportunities - consider taking the time to rethink how you tell your story to prospects, so that you’re getting maximum mileage from every meeting.

To sign up for Dave Paradi’s free communications newsletter and view free resources to make your presentations persuasive, go to www.ThinkOutsideTheSlide.com