Brilliant one sentence elevator speech

Sign Up For Daily Newsletter: Receive one actionable marketing tip each DAY!

December 21, 2019

Subscribe: Email | RSS

Here’s a one sentence financial advisor elevator pitch that will stop you in your tracks. Thanks to my guest John Malzone for his brilliance.

For those of you who are new to my blog/podcast, my name is Sara. I am a CFA® charterholder and I used to be a financial advisor. I have a weekly newsletter in which I talk about financial advisor lead generation topics which is best described as “fun and irreverent.” So please subscribe!

Why financial advisor elevator pitches stink

Financial advisors are typically awful in their marketing, and specifically their elevator pitches. The reason is that y’all get so caught up with trying to look like the smartest and most credible person and then you expect them to want to have a meeting with you. The person has heard it all before and half the time you’re just barfing cliches on them that they are bored by and/or do not understand.

Let’s put a stop to this.

Just be genuine.

The point of an elevator pitch isn’t to get the meeting or to get the business. It’s to get a response.

So the shorter you can make it, the better. Just say something cool and shut up. Let the person come back to you with their questions or their thoughts.

And that’s how you start the dialogue.

He told them he wanted to rescue them from their brokers

Here is a great elevator pitch that is a proven success from a financial advisor. Listen to the full podcast below for the story; it’s a great listen and it’s only about 9 minutes long.

John Malzone, CFP® had been experiencing some frustration in finding the right elevator pitch. He had hired a coach and had put together a slightly boring financial advisor elevator pitch to use when talking to prospects. But he wasn’t really happy.

Until this happened…

As recounted fully in the podcast below:

For years I had struggled with that. I had hired coaches, I belong to a group called TAB and you know, you get together with other business owners and come up with your elevator pitch was one of our projects. And I struggled with it, and so did everybody else. How do you succinctly tell somebody what you do and at the same time get some interest? I really didn’t come up with a good one, but it was rattling around in my head, thinking about it, thinking about it.

And I found myself at a charity fundraiser. It was a cocktail hour. I was hungry, I was on an empty stomach. I had two martinis which is never a good combination for me…

Prior to that, as I was getting more and more ossified, people kept introducing themselves to me ,“what do you do, what do you do?” And I just, you know, would say “I’m a financial advisor.” And then they would say, “Well, what firm are you with”, and I would say, “Well, it’s my own firm.” Who do you work for, those kind of questions. I work for my clients, I don’t work for any investment firm. And people didn’t really get it. They thought it was just a wisecrack answer or that I was avoiding the question.

And so after those two martinis really kicked in, this woman came up to me and she looked like she had a sense of humor and she said, “So what do you do?”

And I just looked at her real wrily and said, “I rescue investors from their [explicit] brokers!”

She just lit up like a tree and said, “Oh! Here’s my card. I know somebody who could use you. She’s not happy with her broker at all.”

And it just hit me. I was like, “Oh that’s my elevator pitch right there.” And just to test it out, I started using it on my emails and got a lot of nice feedback from clients, friends, business owners.

It worked out so well for John that he wound up trademarking it.

Financial advisor elevator pitch tips

So, if you’re trying to create your own financial advisor elevator pitch, here are some tips.

Just don’t use anything that another FA has used before
Keep it brief – one or two sentences at the most
Don’t include any of the cliches that people typically use such as “comprehensive financial planning” etc.
Pretend you are talking to your best friend or someone you know really well.
Don’t try to include too many ideas at the same time.
Humor always works best.
Remember you want to get them to respond. The delivery counts most. Say it and then shut up – the goal is to get them into a dialogue not to barf info on them and stun them into silence.

Here’s a two liner for insurance agents

“I sell insurance policies to people who want to protect their families from having to eat cat food if something bad happens.”

“And for those who dislike giving away their life savings to the IRS, these policies can help save up money in a tax-advantaged way.”

Just keep it nice and short.

Sara’s upshot

I take a quality not quantity approach to marketing. People find it refreshing. Here is my exclusive content for financial advisors who want to get new clients using social media:

You could also consider my financial advisor social media membership which teaches financial advisors how to get new clients and leads from LinkedIn.
Learn what to say to prospects on social media messenger apps without sounding like a washing machine salesperson. This e-book contains 47 financial advisor LinkedIn messages, sequences, and scripts, and they are all two sentences or less.