Prospect Match's Publications

• What Types of Potential Clients Does ProspectMatch Identify? December, 2010 [Posted by Pedro Ribeiro Simões] In order to gather information about prospective clients, Javelin Marketing’s ProspectMatch offers a variety of different, complimentary education pamphlets, each of which focuses on a different subject. These topics pinpoint each lead’s individual interests and concerns. At present, ProspectMatch classifies potential customers according to the following categories: 1. Pre-retirees: Those who express interest in the booklet Retire SMART: A Simple Guide to a Comfortable Retirement are labeled as pre-retirees, those individuals about to plan their retirement and seeking the information necessary to do so intelligently. These individuals often benefit from fixed income opportunities, investment management, and other options that can provide security in old age. 2. Retirement Financial Analysis: Already retired or about to retire, these individuals worry about their financial stability, their need for money, their retirement income, and their assets. They require information about their options and need advice for securing financial confidence. 3. LTC Insurance: These individuals requested information about long-term care insurance and the pitfalls that they must avoid when obtaining it. They need guidance in the insurance process, including advice about insurance providers and insight into when long-term care insurance becomes beneficial. 4. IRA Rollover: These leads generate when an individual orders a booklet about making proper IRA rollover decisions. Already possessing investments with returns, these clients have become among the most coveted among ProspectMatch advisors. They generally ask about IRA rollover action in regard to retirement or changing jobs. 5. Mutual Fund: These seniors receive a booklet about the mistakes that amateur and professional mutual fund investors often make. Advisors should guide them in the process of depositing money in a mutual fund, ensuring that they fully understand what their investment means. 6. CD Buyers: Those interested in certificates of deposit or other investments with high interest rates are marked in this category. Advisors may also find that they are interested in fixed annuities or fixed income opportunities. 7. Annuities: These individuals asked for the booklet Six Strategies to Help Retirees Reduce Taxes. Advisors should explore these systems with the lead, analyzing the potential benefits. 8. Life Insurance: These potential customers include those who have bought life insurance they feel they no longer need and those who feel they should have it but have not secured it. They may ask about life insurance, settlement life insurance, 1035 exchanges, and annuities.

• Pay-per-click marketing techniques January, 2011 by Javelin Marketing Javelin Marketing connects financial service professionals with potential customers. The company’s service benefits both financial professionals and those seeking investment advice. Many companies that provide this service offer clients a method called pay-per-click advertising, which offers them the potential to increase their online presence and bring more traffic to their websites. Pay-per-click, also known as PPC search engines, offers a method of advertising in which a small ad is placed on the search results page for a specific keyword or keywords. When a visitor clicks on the ad, the advertiser pays the website each time. Advertisers do not pay simply to appear on the page, only when a visitor clicks on the ad. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market. Choosing a PPC market company may prove daunting and key factors to take into account include how much money to spend on this type of advertising, how much involvement you want in the process’ management, and the level of risk you want to take. Getting opinions from others who used this type of marketing remains a good way to determine which company to use, and talking to people versed in search engine optimization can provide valuable knowledge, as well. Google ranks as a major name in PPC search engines with its advertising program AdWords. Other renowned players include Yahoo!, MSN Live, and Ask.com. Metasearch engines also offer PPC advertising and incorporate traffic from numerous other engines and online sources. More than 500 PPC search engines operate today. Below are the 10 most popular PPC search engines, which produce more than 85 percent of all the pay-per-click searches: 1. Google AdWords 2. Yahoo! Search Marketing 3. SearchFeed 4. 7Search 5. MIVA 6. Findology 7. Ask.com 8. Marchex AdHere 9. Bing (Microsoft) 10. Advertise.com Read more about Javelin Marketing

• Javelin Marketing on the Factors that Affect Risk Tolerance, Prospect Match Javelin Marketing February, 2011 On the Javelin Marketing blog, we discuss how the risk tolerance questionnaires distributed by financial advisors to their clients rarely give accurate and useful information. For a variety of reasons, people tend to misunderstand or misrepresent their risk tolerance, and a savvy financial advisor must look beyond the client’s direct statements in order to evaluate his or her true risk tolerance. Age is one of the most reliable predictors of risk tolerance, for several reasons. First, younger people tend to have less financial obligations. A person in his or her early 20s is less likely to have a mortgage, a business, or a family to support than someone in his or her 50s. Secondly, younger people tend to be more complacent about financial ups and downs because retirement is so far in their futures. Net income also largely predicts risk tolerance. Individuals with more disposable income generally prefer more aggressive investment strategies, as losses are unlikely to affect their quality of living on a daily basis. People struggling to make regular contributions to their investment funds, however, want to safeguard against any financial losses. They may also react impulsively against their own best interests as a result of negative, short-term news. More experienced investors tend to present with a higher risk tolerance. Having seen the ups and downs of the market in action, these individuals are less likely react emotionally to investing, and they will prefer higher risk positions chosen and executed responsibly. Finally, an investor’s specific goals often influence risk tolerance. Those with broad goals like “saving for retirement” are more likely to accept higher risk than those with specific plans such as “saving for a down payment.” Using these general principles, a financial advisor can instigate a frank discussion with the client on how to choose a comfortable level of risk. In all cases, a personal understanding of the client built upon face-to-face interaction is critical to making an accurate assessment.

• Prospect Match How to Sell Annuities to Prospects Who Don’t Want an Annuity July, 2011 ProspectMatch How to Sell Annuities to Prospects Who Don’t Want an Annuity How to Sell Annuities to Prospects Who Don’t Want an Annuity Investors seeking to invest money usually don’t look for an annuity. What investors want are the benefits that the annuity delivers. Similarly, people don’t walk around wanting a root canal. What they do want is relief from tooth pain. This most important distinction between the product and it’s benefits means that if you start talking to people about annuities rather than the benefit of annuities, you will forfeit a lot of sales. Our company ProspectMatch matches prospects with financial professionals and we have always found been dismayed that financial professionals only want leads of prospects seeking information on the products and services sold by the financial professional. In other words, the average annuity agent only wants us to match him with prospects that have expressed interest in annuities (annuity leads) , people that can be an annuity sale. Other prospect types have interest in financial planning, mutual fund investments, life insurance, etc. yet most annuity agents are not interested in these other prospects. This is frankly not very smart. Investors frequently don’t want the securities they buy; what they truly desire are the benefits of their choices. No one goes looking for life insurance, annuities, root canal, brain surgery, etc. What these buyers desire are the benefits of these necessary evils. People with money desire to minimize taxes and secure their principal (benefits provided by a fixed annuity), financial protection for their family (benefits provided by life insurance), teeth that don’t hurt (benefits provided by a root canal) and to remain alive (benefits provided by brain surgery). If anyone went to the physician and the physician said “I sell brain sugary–let me tell you about it,” people would run away, fast. But that’s exactly what you and other annuity agents do selling annuities. So don’t be surprised when prospects don’t return your calls. However, successful annuity agents have an interest in these prospect types I mentioned above, those prospects that have interest in their finances (e.g. financial planning, mutual funds, tax reduction) but have not expressed any interest in annuities. The rich agents know that people buy annuities who started off saying they did not want an annuity (because they had no idea what it was). Here’s the logic of the rich annuity agents in cultivating and selling to a wider group of prospects: 1. When people express interest in a financial product or service, it does not mean that they will buy that particular product or service and it does not matter. The rich agent merely wants an appointment to explore the motivations of a prospect who takes initiative and determine if the prospect’s desires fit with the products/service the agent offers. 2. A prospect who takes initiative (e.g. completes a form on the Internet with all of their contact information) means that the prospect is motivated to seek a solution. That’s the important part–talking to a prospect who takes initiative and action. The rich annuity agent wants to speak to any motivated viable prospect and has sufficient confidence that if an annuity will help the prospect achieve his goals, the agent will have a sale. And that agent is also okay finding out out that there may not be a fit with the prospect and ends the meeting in 5 minutes. The end result is: meeting more people with motivation selling more annuities getting more referrals How many clients have you lost because you have failed to cultivate a general interest from a motivated prospect desiring to take financial action? http://www.prospect-match.net

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