Want greater profitability? Tell a better story.

We, at Positive Client Engagement, believe that the advice businesses that are best at converting prospects into clients are those businesses that use social proof techniques effectively.

By demonstrating to prospects that other people have successfully utilised the advice proposition on offer and taken the journey of advice in a defined process, these businesses remove a great deal of the uncertainty associated with accepting advice on financial affairs and in so doing build trust at a faster rate than competitors.

Observations of best practice in regard to the use of social proof have highlighted three main techniques:

1) A process, a way of doing things, is explained to the prospect and it is made clear that this is the method by which all clients of the businesses engage the business.

2) The success results of other like minded clients is on display in varying forms both within the business, on business collateral (including websites) and in the language and stories the business tells about how they have assisted clients in the past.

3) The individuals in the business tell their own story clearly demonstrating that they believe in the benefits of their own advice.

These techniques produce a rate of conversion from a prospective client to one who engages the business for advice of inexcess of 65%. Further these prospective clients move into the engagement process much faster than as for competitor businesses with over 80% moving into a engagement process within 4 weeks.

But these businesses also demonstrate other characteristics. They have greater staff engagement evidenced by the number of staff who have multiple lines of the services being offered, a higher percentage of staff who can clearly articulate the core mission of the business and higher engagement scores in employee survey results.

They also have less staff turnover.

As anthropologist Michael Henderson has observed, businesses that build a culture not merely around "this is the way we do things" BUT "this is why we do things the way we do", not only have greater success in client engagement but also benefit from having motivated self directed staff.