Confirmation of the file note details creates the opportunity for a follow-up meeting where the adviser can address the problems uncovered in the initial meeting. This session discusses how to prepare a Strategy Paper for this meeting where the adviser can present those problems in a manner which at the same time invites the other party into the decision-making process, in order to obtain an agreement in principle that the problems exist.

Once that agreement is reached, the adviser is then in the position of being able to prepare recommendations and figures for inclusion in the SOA. Since the latter contains recommendations based on their decision-making, there

should be no reason why they wouldn’t proceed to form a relationship with you.

Many advisers fail to understand that the SOA document is a statement of the Adviser’s “advice”. Its initial purpose was not to be that of a “presentation vehicle”. The latter is actually done in the previous Strategy Paper meeting, which highlights the importance of having that meeting prior to the delivery of the SOA. This session addresses the importance of presenting the SOA so that the meeting will flow smoothly and thus conclude with agreement to proceed. It touches on the importance of rehearsal, location, seating arrangements. The SOA document should make the meaningful more so, the complex less so and the dry mind-numbing detail come alive.

Once the recommendations within the SOA are accepted, the adviser then undertakes the most important role in this delivery process – that of getting the recommendations approved by the underwriters. This session focuses on developing a process that deals with submission of the application form and separate questionnaires; why it is crucial to maintain regular contact with the life insured throughout the whole process; debating loadings/exclusions with the underwriter and then ensuring the latter are accepted by the life insured. Then the relationship is on the way.

One of the major reasons’ advisers have difficulty in growing their businesses profitably is an inability to have a continual flow of new people to meet. Prospecting is the key to activity, activity is the key to productivity, and productivity is the key to profitability. This session addresses the need to prospect continually, preferably through referrals, and referrals are more easily gained through the use of specific profiles. Gaining referrals is a presentation all in itself which is discussed in detail in the session.

The Personal Market: Successful financial advisers are more educators than they are advisers and the education process starts with them. In other words, the adviser has to be able to present the complex with such simplicity that it can be understood by all categories of communities. This session focuses on how to create long-term client relationships with the single person; two-income families– no children; two-income families with children; sole income family, and divorced situations.

Without question, this is the most neglected market in the risk insurance area. This session is an introduction to the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) business owner market. It focuses on why the market is so neglected by advisers and why they should consider accessing it. The session outlines how to enter the market and to gradually develop it by becoming specialised in the various insurance areas that business owners need to address i.e. Keyperson Insurance, Guarantor Protection Insurance and Buy-out Insurance.

In the SME market, the business owners are usually always “key” to the organisation – its continuity, productivity and profitability. This session focuses on developing questions that give rise to the need for this type of insurance for the Sole Trader, Husband and Wife-type businesses and Arm’s-length owner businesses. It also looks at developing specific presentations for each of these areas and how to present with success.

When seeking lines of credit from lending institutions, business owners are normally required to provide personal guarantees AND collateral security to cover the debt. In meeting these requirements business owners are in fact placing their families as “hostages to fate” because if a business owner dies and the debts cannot be repaid then the lending institution becomes “first heir” to that business owners’ estate. This session addresses how the use of guarantor protection insurance ensures that that can never happen in the case of a sole trader, family businesses and arm’s-length businesses.

Partnerships make up a large part of the SME market and buy-out insurance is very specific in that its purpose is to protect a business partner’s “lifetime of effort” – not the business itself. In other words, the surviving partners can continue the business but what does the deceased’s family receive in relation to a “lifetime of effort” (his or her equity in the business)? This session covers the questions required to introduce this topic to partnerships, why they should own it and how to present successfully so that all partners’ “lifetime of effort” is protected, resulting in the surviving owners then owning 100% of the equity between themselves.