Episode summary
Closing Clients with an "Approach Talk" Method - Erin Botsford | Financial Advisor Success Ep483
Financial Advisor Success (Kitces)
· · Hosts: Michael Kitces, Adam Van Deusen · Guests: Erin Botsford
Summary
Erin Botsford argues that advisors can close affluent prospects in the first meeting by leading with risk, not investments. Her “approach talk” method is built around making couples see estate, insurance, liability, and family-distribution exposures they have not fully considered, then creating a natural urgency to act. She says the process can work with million-dollar prospects or much larger households because the leverage comes from psychology, not product knowledge.
A big part of her system is managing the meeting itself. Botsford says both members of a couple need to attend, the more risk-averse spouse should be seated in a position of honor, and the advisor should use a short founders video so the prospect learns the advisor’s story without the advisor rambling. She says that after greeting, seating, and storytelling, the advisor should move into a structured “visions and values” discussion that surfaces vulnerabilities and makes the prospect want them fixed.
Botsford also argues that high-net-worth clients need to hear a planning fee that matches the seriousness of the work. She says advisors should charge an upfront planning fee, an AUM fee, and expect introductions, while avoiding the mistake of underpricing themselves. In her view, quoting a meaningful fee helps the advisor look more like an attorney-level professional and less like a commodity.
Key takeaways
- Botsford says the close happens faster when the advisor starts with risk management instead of investments.
- She says both spouses must be in the room because the more risk-averse partner often has the final say.
- Botsford recommends a short founders video so the advisor stays on script and avoids oversharing.
- She says high-net-worth prospects will take a financial planning fee more seriously if it is positioned alongside attorneys and other high-status professionals.
- Botsford says advisors should expect to uncover estate, insurance, and liability issues that can create urgency to proceed.
Notable quotes
“it is a formula and when you use the formula it's kind of like baking a cake”
“let's learn how to close a prospect of any size, okay, in the first meeting”
“she has a superpower that she can use at will. I call it absolute veto power”
“I wanted to be Uber. I wanted to know those disturbing tracks. I wanted to be uber prepared”
“We want to be able to identify any potential risk, any vulnerabilities that might be out there sort of lurking in the shadows”
How the episode opens
Welcome to the Financial Advisor Success Podcast, where you go behind the scenes with financial planner, speaker, and consultant Michael Kitsus to hear stories of how leading financial adviserss navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success and get insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next level in your advisory business. And now, here's your host, Michael Kitsus.
Welcome everyone. Welcome to the 483rd episode of the Financial Advisor Success Podcast. My guest on today's podcast is Aaron Botszford.
Aaron is the founder of the Advisor Authority, a coaching platform that trains advisers on attracting more and wealthier clients while also scaling their businesses by building a successful team around them. What's unique about Aaron though is how over the course of her career as an advisory firm owner herself, she developed what she calls the approach talk method to closing affluent clients in the first meeting by focusing on riskmanagement exposures that create urgency to act. In this episode, we talk in depth about how Aaron's approach talk method centers largely on making prospects aware of up to 26 riskmanagement exposures, including potential estate planning and insurance items they face that can create a strong incentive to act.
though it often only takes reviewing two or three of them to get prospects to want to become clients. Why Aaron thinks it's important to meet with both members of a prospect couple and to recognize that different factors that might spur each of them to want to take action and how Aaron before entering the room for a prospect meeting showed them a founders video that introduced her and her story to the prospects efficiently, removing the temptation for her to talk extensively about herself during the meeting itself. We also talk about how Aaron used a fee structure that includes both a flat planning fee to orchestrate implementation of the riskmanagement plan and an AUM fee on the client's assets to compensate for the adviser's work managing their portfolio and the risk exposures they take in doing so.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- closing high-net-worth clients
- first meeting approach talk
- estate planning risk exposure
- insurance and urgency
- fee structures
Companies and tickers mentioned
- The Advisor Authority
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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Financial Advisor Success (Kitces), this episode and its artwork belong to Michael Kitces. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
