Here for investors is the sales process with you from our perspective. There aren’t any sinister secrets disclosed (there aren’t any at all), but it may help you as an investor to understand your interaction with us from the point of view of the Advisor.

1 – the Fact Find and Building Rapport

The first step in the Financial Advisor sales process is building rapport with you. Rapport is crucial if you wish to hold a consultative sales conversation with your Advisor, and build trust. As for a Caravel Advisor, he or she wants to get to know you, what are your values and beliefs. It’s also important because you will buy our services if you trust us (No. 1) and hopefully like us too (No. 2). By building rapport, an Advisor is then able to ask deep diving questions that can ultimately lead to a buying decision.

We will also seek to “qualify” you as our potential client. A lot of Financial Advisors make the mistake of speaking with people they think are potential clients – but end up not being qualified to either afford their financial products or services, or aren’t the decision maker. Qualifying early saves us time, energy, and money; and means we don’t waste your time or energy.

The qualifying framework we try to use is borrowed from an acronym called BANT. Originally designed by IBM, it’s an easy to remember framework to remember what we need to ask you to qualify you as our potential client. BANT stands for:

Budget                              What financial resource is available, either regularly from salary, or as a

lump-sum in the bank. This is what we have to work with to get you to your

financial planning goals.

Authority                          Are you the decision maker, or it is someone else (wife)? Or together?

Need                                 What are you aiming for? What are you trying to achieve?

Time frame                     By when do you need / want to achieve the target? How long do we have to

work with your money?

2 – Questions: The Key to a Solid Process

 The most important part of the Financial Advisor sales process with you is an art – that of of asking the right questions – and then diving deeper when we actively listen to your responses. We use a consultative sales approach. We are not in a market selling you some fish or oranges – we are consulting you in the same way as a lawyer or accountant would.  

By asking the right questions guide you towards the right solution. There are many questions, but perhaps they can be categorised as follows:

• Finding your pain points
• Learning about your ideal outcome
• How you make buying decisions
• Why you’re speaking with us
• How long you’ve had your issue

3 – Presenting During Your Financial Advisor Sales Process

Once we’ve gone through BANT (see above), and gathered all the pertinent facts about you needed to fill out the situation(s), we are to address, it’s time to summarize with you the key takeaways of the first meeting, and then retire to our hermit’s cell to do any necessary number crunching and write your Client Proposal (sometimes called a Report). You will receive this Proposal in writing by email.

Thereafter, we will follow up to arrange a second meeting at which all your questions are answered; your Advisor will ask you if you’re ready for us to help you to achieve what you intend to. If you’re happy, the on-boarding process commences.  

Final Thoughts

The Caravel sales process is a great framework. You’ll be taken on an efficient, positive sales a consultative experience, rather than being just another victim of a product pusher.

What can you, the potential Caravel client, contribute?

• Be open and honest with your financial information, your objectives, your timescale. Then we can truly do our job for you.
• Give your Advisor feedback – relapsing into silence with no feedback is not acceptable nor courteous. If you need a month or more to raise the money to start, that’s fine. But tell your Advisor what the real situation is. We need feedback and your Advisor deserves to know where he or she stands with you, in return for the work done on your behalf.