Traditionally, dealing with college funding has been a matter handled between the student and his or her family and the college financial aid office. Many private financial planning agencies and insurance agencies have no interest in purchasing college planning leads.
If your agency has taken this attitude, you may be making a costly mistake. It’s not necessarily that you would make a fortune from the leads themselves, but families who come to you for college planning often stay for other, more profitable services.
Here are just a few ideas for benefitting from college planning leads.
Get in on the Ground Floor
Chances are good that there are few – if any – financial services or insurance agencies in your area that offer college planning advice. If you add it as one of your services, your community will come to regard your agency as the expert, the go-to place when college planning questions arrive.
Offer a Workshop
Once you’ve purchased a list of local college leads, send out email or direct mail invitations to a free work shop about college planning. Give people who attend the workshop an opportunity to schedule a one-on-one consultation with one of your experts who can help them assess all of their financial decisions.
Advising versus Selling
When people come to you for help planning their children’s education, they are more likely to view you as an advisor offering options instead of as a salesperson using hard-sell tactics to get a commission. This change in perception may make them more willing to purchase goods and services from your agency.
Immediate Need versus Eventual Need
Most people realize that they will eventually need to start a retirement fund or purchase life insurance, but it is very easy to postpone these decisions for years. College planning, though, is a decision that cannot be postponed. Needing to make concrete plans for their children will get them into your office now rather than later. While they are in your office, you can educate them about financial aid options and about how to redistribute their assets to help their child qualify for a better package. Thus, you can turn eventual needs into needs that your clients want to address right now.
Become Privy to Financial Information
When families come to you for advice about college planning, they will disclose financial information to you. Once you have a clear picture of where they stand financially, you will be in a position to advise them about more effective ways to handle their finances.
Many agencies think college planning leads are a waste of time. It’s true that you won’t get rich doing nothing but college planning, but you can use college planning as a gateway to gain your clients’ trust and to advise them about other financial and insurance needs to strengthen their portfolios.
The post How to Use College Planning Leads to Attract More Business appeared first on Next Wave Marketing Strategies.