15-Mar-2011

Ever wonder how successful advisors attract so many opportunities? Watching someone in action can be fascinating; it’s almost as if some people are gifted with super-sonic vision that allows them to see opportunity everywhere. How do they do it? What do they say? What the heck are they delivering in that elevator pitch?

Maybe some advisors do have a great elevator pitch, the well-tailored kind that brilliantly boils down the essence of their successes into forty-second sound-bites that resonate. But more likely, if you’re watching one of those attraction magnets, he’s doing something altogether different. He’s having fun.

It’s all in the mindset

If you could eavesdrop on the thoughts of those attraction magnets, the string of thoughts (racing fast, uplift of joy at the end) would be quite different than most. “What fun! Look at all these people. This shindig is great!” To such attraction magnets, marketing is not work; it’s a game, a fun one at that. People who are good at networking have a positive mindset about approaching and meeting people—and everything lines up accordingly.

Compare that mindset to an advisor who reluctantly goes out to network. “I’m no good at this stuff. It just leads to rejection. If I ask for referrals, I’ll look desperate. Geez, I hate these events.” Whether or not this second advisor recognizes it, his mindset is sabotaging his every interaction.

If you’re someone cut from that second piece of cloth with little faith in your own networking skills, you’ve probably tried, as they say, to “fake it ‘til you make it.” But people see through the strained happy face and good front, and, more likely than not, the effort only reinforced what your mind already told you. “These things never work.”

Prove yourself wrong

If you really want to make it work, next time try approaching the situation with a completely new mindset—go out to prove yourself wrong. Once you start to question your beliefs, you begin to limit the power they have over you. By thinking about it differently, you can actually learn to engage your brain in a whole different way. Start with this: At the next event, challenge yourself to simply find out. Can it be done? And if so, how?

Approaching an intimidating networking situation as a new challenge, interesting experiment or even an unusual study of human nature, shifts the thought processes in your brain entirely. With a different mindset, you may be surprised to find that if you challenge yourself, and examine it from a more detached view point, you really can find prospects anywhere. And you may just find that you’re good at it.

Todd Fithian is the CEO of The Legacy Company, a sought-after speaker and one of the industry’s foremost authorities on attracting, engaging and retaining clients. He is the co-author of the Right Side of the Table.