You want to stay top of mind with clients as they mingle with friends and family over the summer. Here’s an easy way to connect with them when you don’t really have anything to say. (It’s NOT saying, “I’m just touching base.”)

• Dial in the words to open a brief conversation.
• Make a short list of clients you’ll call each week and call a couple every day.
• Let clients know your call will be short and stick to it.

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Transcript

Here’s what to say when you don’t have anything to say.

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Yesterday I spoke with an advisor looking for an idea to connect with clients briefly, while not having much to say. He wants to be top of mind because he knows they have a number of social events coming up throughout the remainder of summertime and would love for them to share with their friends and family about him.

There’s a quick, easy way to do this, and it doesn’t begin with you calling and saying, “I’m just touching base.” Please don’t use that hackneyed expression. Instead use this simple, effective way to do this. You simply call, and it sounds like,

“Hi, Doug, it’s Paul Kingsman from Ash Brokerage. I’ve got ten minutes, and I wanted to connect with you on two things.

“I’ve looked over your accounts. Everything looks great. Everything’s going to plan regarding what we spoke about several months ago. So I wanted to let you know that to begin with.

“And secondly, I was wondering what you and Heather are doing over the summertime.”

And then leave it at that.

You’ve let your client know you’ve checked his accounts and how those look. Then you’ve asked a quick question about their plans for the summer. A couple of things can happen from here. At least, you are going to get a response back regarding summer plans. Perhaps your client may also say something like, “While I’ve got you there, Heather and I were talking. We were wondering about 529 plans (or some other issue). Do you do this?” And that’s a perfect opportunity for more business.

If the response needs to go a little longer, you’ve already told him you have ten minutes, a relatively time short to speak. You can easily say, “I mentioned I only have ten minutes now. Can I come back to you to talk about this further? How is 2:00 today or between 10:00 and 11:00 tomorrow?”

Otherwise, you have kept the time short and the conversation tight. You’ve let your clients know you are thinking of them and gone in and out of a conversation in less than ten minutes. It’s a great way to quickly connect.

So if you want to do this most effectively,

1. Dial in the language. Plan ahead to know exactly what you want to say.


2. Make a list of 10 clients to call each week, calling a couple each day.


3. Stick to what you told them—you have ten minutes. Quickly let them know that you have looked over their accounts and everything’s doing fine. Then ask them what they have planned for the summer. If they want to go longer than ten minutes, arrange a time to call them back when you can talk further.

Do this to show your clients that you have them top of mind, and, at the same time, ensure that you stay top of mind for them so they can refer you to friends and family as they mingle over the remainder of summer.

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