Praying the phone will ring and it will be a prospect is not a good business development strategy. Some people say you need to hunt for high-paying clients. And if you don’t hunt well, then the tribe goes hungry. People who are bad at business development have skinny children.
I prefer fishing and farming strategies instead.
Who knows when humans started to fish? But farming was invented. According to Tim Lambert in “A Brief History of Farming,” humankind progressed when we left hunting behind. “After 9,000 BC a great change came over the world. Previously humans lived by hunting animals and gathering plants. Then about 8,500 BC people began to grow wheat, barley, peas and lentils instead of gathering them wild. By 7,000 BC they domesticated sheep, pigs and goats. By 6,000 BC they also domesticated cattle.”
A great change came to my business when I learned to be proactive by fishing and farming. Wealth manager Pete Benson discovered the same truth.
“My dad and my father-in-law were commercial fishermen,” says Benson. “This was their livelihood. It was from them I learned the value of longline or trotline fishing.”
In a nutshell, the trotline fishing strategy is this: instead of just one line in the water to catch fish, many hooks are strung along the one line. That increases the chance of catching many more fish in one trawl.
Twenty years ago, Benson left a financial company to begin his own company, which later became Beacon Capital Management, LLC. Sixteen years ago, he teamed up with Jon Maxson, who grew up the son of a farmer.
“Farmers need to plant seeds or there is no harvest,” says Benson. “Early on, our strategy was that to catch fish you needed to have bait and a variety of methods to land those fish.”
Or if you prefer the farming metaphor, as you sow so shall you reap. Therefore, they put significant time, research, resources, and emphasis on marketing strategies and a variety of marketing methods. Two decades later, Benson and Maxson attribute their rapid growth to this priority.
Below is a list of the various marketing efforts Benson says they have implemented at Beacon:
- “Mailing out lead cards to our target audience (55- to 75-year-olds) on topics like Social Security, Medicare, Estate planning options, and conservative savings. We would then call and set up appointments to discuss these topics.”
- “Educational workshops held at local restaurants. Fifteen years ago, it was the Golden Corral and Shoney’s. Today we go to upscale restaurants like Ruth’s Chris and Morton’s steakhouse.”
- “Free seminars presented at locations like senior centers and universities.”
- “We wrote books and white papers so we could be published authors, which gave us higher credibility and authority.”
- “Hiring a public relations firm presented opportunities to be a guest on Fox Business, CNBC Closing Bell, CNBC Asia and more.”
- “Beginning our local educational, weekly radio show was a game changer. This gave us a whole new audience, a wide reach, and many new prospects. Additional radio spots have increased our branding and client base significantly.”
- “Three years ago we took our shot at doing a weekly TV show on a local network station (NBC). We hired a firm to help us with this and our show, “Beacon Retirement Strategies,” is a huge funnel for us in growing our business to where it is today.”
- “Along the way we have done events locally like a ‘Retirement Summit’ in which we have clients and prospects come to a three-hour event at a local hotel like the Marriott and bring in guest speakers about the economy, financial and retirement principles, updates from Beacon, money management strategies and more.”
- “From day one we have always put a huge effort on client appreciation events. Valued clients tell their friends about us.”
- “Building the firm into a true comprehensive wealth and retirement planning firm has increased our client base significantly also. Now families can come to us and get education and advice on income planning, Social Security maximization, Medicare options, tax planning, estate planning, long-term care options, and a variety of investments options.”
In 2018, Beacon brought over $150 million of new assets to the firm. They now have been entrusted with nearly $1 billion of total assets since day one.
“Trotline marketing has been a huge reason,” says Benson. “Remember, many hooks with lots of bait gives you a much better chance at a big catch.”
Beats praying the phone will ring. And oh, by the way, my father was a farmer who loved to fish.
