The LinkedIn “how to” carrot

Helping competitors in this way may sound counterintuitive, but it’s working: National Bank is managing to get its mutual fund wholesalers in front of its competitors’ advisors far more often by providing what many of the bank’s competitors lack – readily available social media training, especially detailed training on the use of LinkedIn for sales purposes.

National Bank even has caught the attention of LinkedIn. “National Bank is unique within its industry,” says Brian Church, country manager, Canada, and head of sales solutions, North America, in Toronto with Mountain View, Calif.-based LinkedIn Corp., “in that it’s starting to embrace social media to help accelerate its business and adapt to the changes that are happening in the world today. For the financial services sector, this is an area that has been a bit slow on the uptake.”

National Bank went into its training initiative with a firm eye on the ultimate benefits for sales of its own mutual funds. The goal, says Martin Gagnon, senior vice president of intermediary business solutions, is to increase the bank’s mutual fund wholesalers’ face-to-face access to a broad range of financial advisors, both within and outside National Bank, that had been proving difficult to reach.

“Usually, you need an exciting portfolio manager or something really extraordinary to book branch meetings,” says Gagnon. “When we started to offer social media expertise through this curriculum, our wholesalers were able to develop close relationships with some of the best advisors in the industry.”

The response has been strong, adds Gagnon: “I quickly realized there was a huge amount of interest coming from advisors across the country and no one else was providing this type of training.”

Educating the competition on how to increase an advisor’s book of business, Gagnon says, is a small price to pay for the result: greater sales of National Bank’s mutual funds.

After landing face time with advisors who take the social media training carrot, National Bank wholesalers set up followup meetings, including a conversation about their in-house fund products. The result has been impressive: a 400% return on investment (based on what the bank spends on the social media training initiative) within the first 10 months of offering the training to a wide range of advisors.

The idea came to Gagnon after he attended a social media seminar that another National Bank executive had set up. The experience helped Gagnon realize that there was a broad, unmet need within the financial advisory community for social media training – in particular, the use of LinkedIn for a specific sales purpose.

Instead of simply providing advisors with some training in the use of LinkedIn, Gagnon decided that he would outfit National Bank’s mutual fund wholesalers with the tools to become highly knowledgable experts in the use of LinkedIn for sales purposes. In turn, those wholesalers would train the advisors to whom they are pitching National Bank funds.

The process involves partnering with an independent social media consultant, Toronto-based Servo Annex Inc., as well as LinkedIn itself. Over a six-month period, 17 National Bank wholesalers received training that included both the basic and premium platforms available on LinkedIn. The wholesalers also attended a classroom session and were given online modules and specific guidance on getting in front of advisors, including those of major competitors.

Already, National Bank has trained about 60% of its in-house advisors and has connected with advisors from the Big Five Canadian banks and a handful of independent firms.

Following this intensive training, National Bank wholesalers have held more than 250 meetings with 500 advisors over a three-month period. Sessions last for one to two hours and provide information on how you can use LinkedIn to increase your client base. The curriculum is in modules on topics such as “Why be on social media,” “Optimizing your profile,” “Prospecting clients” and how to use Sales Navigator, a LinkedIn premium account service.

The cost to upgrade to a premium account on LinkedIn can range from $20 to $100 a month. Upgrading your LinkedIn account provides you with greater search capabilities, advanced filters when looking for prospects and the ability to have prospective client “lead lists” emailed to you on a weekly basis.

One of the biggest draws of the training is the fact that more than five million affluent North American investors are on the LinkedIn platform, says Church. According to Massachusetts-based Forrester Research Inc., two-thirds of American online adults with an investment account now have social network profiles.

“Already, nine out of 10 advisors who use social networks for business turn to LinkedIn,” Church says. “LinkedIn is now the professional platform for the world, and one the best platforms for advisors to find the right people to be connecting with.”

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