High Net Worth Insight (US) > Profiles of Success

As a leading provider of intelligence to the financial services community, High Net Worth Insight is proud to share strategies from the most compelling and successful Financial Advisors we've encountered.

Featuring:

BILL KREBS
Merrill Lynch
Location: Greensboro/Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Education: US Army Infantry School & Wake Forest University
Trailing 12-month Production: $1,000,000
AUM: $200 million (In the last 7 years, Bill and his business partner grew their AUM from $70 million to $200 million).
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Bill is part of a team at Merrill Lynch who mentors new FAs who rank in the top 40% of producers in their first six months. He advises them to "intentionalize excellence" to help see the right people to fuel growth. Specifically, he advises the following:

Commit to a lead generation system regardless of market environment.
It's easy to allow markets to control you and your lead generation activities, however, it's very important to make a commitment to creating and maintaining a lead generation system that performs whether it’s sunny or rainy or whether the markets are up or down in order to remain in growth mode at all times.

Understand that your best clients come from 'change events'.
Capitalize on people when they are feeling good about themselves because of an "event". An event can include a job promotion, a relocation to the States, or anything positive that happened in their life recently. When you do this, people tend to be open to taking a look at their current advisors and asking themselves "do I have the right advisor?", "am I happy with my advisors?", or am I open to the possibility of meeting someone else and hearing their story?

Identify events with High Net Worth Insight.
We use High Net Worth Insight to help research prospects. Before we make any outgoing calls and before we approach anybody, we check to see if there is any information about them in High Net Worth Insight.

In addition, we use the social networking feature of the system to find good pre-emptive referral requests in which we say to an executive "would you mind taking a look at the these 5-10 executives who work at your company and would you be comfortable giving us a favorable introduction to any of these people?" It's an entirely different conversation than if you're asking "who do you know?" Show them a list of people you'd like to email and be sure to cc your referrer. Hands down we prefer warm introductions.

High Net Worth Insight is an easy service to implement on a daily basis. I block out an hour EVERY day and make outgoing calls based on the prospects I find through HNW. If nothing else, this routine helps me keep my skills sharp.

Click here for a free online demo of High Net Worth Insight.

Get to Know Your Prospect.
When I get a prospect on the phone, I try to get to know them a bit before attempting to schedule a face to face meeting. I know executives are busy which is why a phone call is a great first step.

Most busy executives will still make time for a preliminary phone appointment if they can tell right away that you know their company and have dealt with other executives there because, if nothing else, you understand their company benefits and culture.

I then like to share what we are doing and communicate how we enjoy working with busy executives. I make sure to get permission to keep in touch. If a prospect tells us to check back in three months -- I view this as a win. Very few say, "don't call me again".

The Challenge of Voicemail.
Voicemail, of course, is always a challenge. Be prepared to leave a voicemail and make it less than 30 seconds in duration. A sincere congratulations can go a long way. People will call you back because of a message complimenting them on a 'change event'.