LinkedIn Prospecting: 36 Tips Insurance & Financial Advisors Use to Generate 5+ Weekly Appointments

36 Tips to Generating More Appointments With LinkedIn Prospecting

1. It can take a long time for relationships to develop. If you’re going to commit to LinkedIn, make sure you’re willing to stick with it.
2. Don’t try to put your timeline on the prospect – be patient.
3. Stop selling and start serving. (This will completely transform your entire business.) Use LinkedIn as the conduit through which you start serving people.
4. Reach out to your existing clients on LinkedIn and do check-ins. (You shouldn’t go into it with any sort of agenda, but you will almost certainly walk away with more business. Think of it like planting a seed that, with enough water and sunshine, eventually yields a crop.)
5. Reach out to people and celebrate and share their wins – people take notice.
6. When you streamline your LinkedIn profile, it attracts the right people. So rather than speaking to a bunch of people who aren’t good fits for you, you’re able to interact with like-minded individuals who are likely to convert.
7. LinkedIn/networking is not a short game, it’s a long game. It’s about building relationships.
8. You must have an attitude of gratitude. Whoever you end up working with to figure out your prospecting, always approach your day, life, and process with gratitude. This is one of the biggest differences between average and great advisors. Start your day by writing down three things you’re grateful for.
9. View your profile through the lens of your prospects. How do they see it? (It’s not about you. It’s about )
10. Get a professional headshot for your profile. (No more wedding photos or casual images from your Facebook page.) Wear professional attire, fix your hair, smile, and look straight on.
11. Update your headshot every 18 months. (If you look like one person in your headshot and someone totally different when people meet with you, you lose some trust with them.)
12. Your banner is your billboard – you have 3 seconds to grab someone’s attention before their eyes move to the rest of the page. Two good options for designing a banner:

• • DIY Option: Use Canva to create banners. (Check out this post for a full tutorial.)
  • DFY Option: Use Fiverr (spend no more than $15)

13. Put an image on your banner that would attract your prospect. People don’t care about your logo or slogan, unless it speaks directly to their needs and pain pints.
14. Use a question or statistic on the banner that speaks to the prospect, it should be a USP – not a branding statement.
15. Use this USP Formula: “I help [TARGET AUDIENCE] to [INSERT DESIRE THEY HAVE] without the [INSERT PAIN THEY WANT TO AVOID].”
16. Your USP should have a branch-off statement so that your headline and banner work together. Think about developing a cohesive profile where everything works in unison.  
17. Always maximize available real estate! Put your entire name in the “first name” field. Put your title in the “last name” field. This moves your title to the top row. Then use your USP where your title would normally be.
18. When you’re able to take an unknown strategy and position yourself as a subject matter expert, it’s compelling and intriguing. Communicate why you are the person who can solve their problem by using a unique angle.
19. Having trouble standing out? Become a local authority in your area. When people see their city connected with your product, it automatically gives you more trust and clout. (Don’t use the title “Financial Advisor.” Instead, say something like, “Financial Advisor Helping Seattle Residents Keep More of Their Hard Earned Money So They Don’t Miss Out on a Carefree Retirement.”)
20. Use consistent posting and high quality content to attract visibility and stay top of mind with your connections. This one-to-many approach can boost your prospecting efforts when it comes time to engage in a one-on-one capacity.
21. Be consistent with creating content! Both quality and quantity  LinkedIn has a vested interest in users creating quality content, so they bump up engagement for those who do.
22. Get “tag happy” when creating content. People get pinged when they’ve been tagged and are likely to engage with your post.
23. When posting, aim for peak times of engagement. The best day to post on LinkedIn is Wednesday. And the peak times occur during the same day 7:45 a.m., 10:45 a.m., 12:45 p.m., and 5:45 p.m. EST. From Tuesday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. is the most consistent period of engagement.
24. Memorize the “Rule of 15.” It states that, within the first two hours of posting on LinkedIn, you want to get 15 comments and 15 likes. If you can do that, the LinkedIn algorithm will notice you and be much more likely to boost your post in the feed.
25. Run a contest on your best LinkedIn posts. Something like “best comment wins” is always effective for drumming up engagement.  
26. Ask questions to figure out what motivates people.

• • 40% Driven by Pain
  • 40% Driven by Gain
  • 20% Driven by Mix

27. Consider using a vanity URL to drive people to your LinkedIn profile.
28. When setting up an appointment with a LinkedIn prospect, use auto-response emails to send them meeting ground rules and Zoom link.
29. Use services like ScheduleOnce, Calendly, or Acuity to streamline your calendar and virtual meetings.
30. Tools to add to your advisor tech stack:

• • Slack
  • LastPass
  • Asana
  • Zapier
  • Canva
  • Evernote/Onenote
  • Follow-up.cc
  • Email tools (Mailshake, MailChimp, Constant Contact)
  • CRM

31. Automate these tasks using the tools in your tech stack:

• • Email Follow-ups
  • Confirmations – email, text, etc.
  • Email Sequences
  • Tasks and reminders for team
  • Meeting Scheduling
  • Dialing & Voicemail
  • New Client Welcome
  • Get Client Feedback
  • Birthday Emails
  • Annual Reviews
  • Assign leads to team
  • Workflows for you and your team
  • CRM Client Updates

32. Hire a VA for pennies on the dollar to handle these tasks:

• • LinkedIn & AdvisorLinq Marketing
  • Agency/Practice Automation
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Graphic Design
  • Content Creation
  • Monthly Newsletter
  • Copywriting
  • Email & Meeting Scheduling

33. People naturally don’t trust people they don’t know. Any reason that you give people not to trust you, they will take it and run. Even the smallest things that don’t align with you can hurt you. Be authentic and consistent.
34. You have to keep winning over your prospects. You don’t close a prospect in one stroke. By getting them to make micro commitments, you build trust and move people through the funnel.
35. If you say you’re doing a 15-minute meeting, keep it to 15 minutes. Breaking small promises can have major consequences. Keeping promises builds trust. If you say you’re going to do something, do it!
36. The number one key for successful LinkedIn prospecting is to follow-up and follow through. If you do these two things – and are patient enough to build up the proper amount of relational capital – good things will happen for you!

Do You Know What to Do With All of These Appointments?!

Prior to the pandemic, somewhere around 2% of insurance and financial advisor meetings were conducted virtually. 

Today, the vast majority – more like 98 percent of meetings – are conducted via platforms like Zoom.

And even as society normalizes some over the next several months and in-person meetings become safe and practical once again, the virtual nature of LinkedIn prospecting means Zoom meetings will continue to be the gold standard.

Are you prepared to handle all of these appointments?

To help you take charge of these meetings, I’d like to give you a free copy of my Virtual meeting Playbook. 

Inside, you’ll find 44 tips to help you master technology, meeting preparation, meeting execution, and follow-ups…all without making the same costly mistakes that have forced countless advisors to leave MILLIONS in AUM on the table.

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