April 29, 2021
is to stop lecturing, educating and presenting. Your goal is not to dominate the conversation by demonstrating your superior expertise. It’s to make an emotional connection.
It’s easy to do when the conversation is bilateral. But how do you make this connection with your website?
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One of the underlying tenets of The Solin Process℠ is the importance of emotions in the decision making process.
Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio is a leading researcher on the importance of emotions. He believes emotions are critical to virtually every decision. In his book, Descartes’ Error, Damasio reports on the result of experiments where he compared those who suffered serious brain trauma with those whose brains were normal. He found brain injuries that impaired the ability to experience emotion significantly impacted the ability to make decisions.
Damasio reported on one patient who, prior to brain surgery to remove a tumor, was a successful, high functioning executive. After surgery, while he could still process information with normal rationality, he lost his ability to experience emotions. For example, when he was shown disturbing images, he had no reaction.
His life promptly spiraled out of control.
He couldn’t hold down a job, got a divorce, and even filed for bankruptcy by getting involved in a shady pyramid scheme.
Psychologists now believe emotions are the dominant driver in most decisions in life.
If you want your website to encourage prospects to call you, it has to make an emotional connection.
The specific emotion that drives our decisions is “likeability.”
While expertise is important, “likability” may be an equally significant, or even greater, contributor to your ability to attract clients.
According to Mitch Anthony, the author of Selling with Emotional Intelligence, “likability is as important as ability.” Dr. Robert Cialdini, an expert on persuasion, agrees. He notes that “people prefer to say ‘yes’ to those they know and like.”
Michael Lovas, an author and founder of a coaching firm, succinctly summarizes the importance of likability as follows: “Bottom line – if you want to become more successful, become more likable.”
Here are some tips for increasing your likeability in a website, where your options for asking questions is constrained.
In the websites we design, we make extensive use of video. We put at least two videos on the home page, so it’s the first impression viewers will have of the advisor.
Our approach to videos is heavily influenced by our research. We reject the notion that viewers want you to demonstrate your technical expertise upon first meeting you. We believe they are far more interested in getting a “feel” for who you are. They want answers to these questions:
We have created an entirely new form of video, produced in a way that’s radically different from the typical video (in front of a green screen, looking nervous, expounding on an aspect of investing).
We take great care in selecting a crew, because we want very high production value. Nothing impairs the credibility of an advisor more than poor lighting and tinny audio.
We use no script. We tell our clients I will ask questions via Zoom. All they have to do is to have a conversation with me. I don’t give them the questions in advance because I want spontaneity.
We shoot for a couple of hours. We then get a transcript of the video. In post-production, we eliminate the questions, pull the best snippets from the video and piece them together seamlessly into a video that doesn’t exceed ninety seconds. We add music, branding, images provided by the advisor and extensive b-roll.
The greatest compliment we get is when our clients tell us viewers report that they “felt they knew them before they met them.”
What this really means is viewers “liked” them based on the videos and felt comfortable scheduling a meeting.
Making this kind of emotional connection is the goal of The Solin Process℠ .
We produce videos either as part of a website redesign or as an independent project. You can find more information about our video services here.
You want your website to convey warmth and relatability. Most advisor’s websites seek to project competence, which can come across as cold and impersonal.
We compose team biographies in the first person, so the viewer feels like you’re speaking directly to them. We encourage the use of photos showing you and your team engaged in hobbies, family outings or traveling.
We want viewers to think of you in personal terms, and not just as someone with vast expertise in finance – although your underlying competence is also important.
You can find more information about our website redesign services here.
It’s difficult for a text dense website to connect. Charts, graphs, infographics and images are far more impactful
The feeling I often get when looking at advisors’ websites is they threw everything in it, hoping something would stick. The result can be an overwhelming and intimidating amount of data.
We live by this mantra: Less is more.
You want to convey enough information to get across your main points. Your goal isn’t to overwhelm the viewer. It’s to give them a reason to initiate a meeting with you.
We judge a website by the answer to this question: Does it convey warmth and relatability?
Sometimes advisors appear to be in a competition to see who has the most elaborate process.
Prospects are rarely interested in your process. The Solin Process℠ encourages you to ditch your process and determine what best fits the needs of a prospect.
Does it make sense to apply the same process to a Ph.D in Finance that might be necessary for an unsophisticated widow?
If you want to turbocharge your website, your goal is to connect emotionally with your client. Following these tips will help you do that.
We use SEO and other marketing strategies to create a steady flow of leads for financial advisors and estate planning attorneys
dansolin@ebadvisormarketing.com