Why a client chooses you and not another IB
Before you read on, answer me one question. A client has ten IBs in front of them and all of them offer exactly the same: the same conditions, the same materials. Why should they choose you? If the first thing that came to mind was “I give good service” or “I'm always available”, that's the answer everyone gives. Look at this head on before thinking about how to differentiate yourself as an IB: your client is almost never comparing you to another IB.
Your competition isn't another IB. It's that person doing nothing
Think about your last ten leads. How many told you they were also talking to another IB? Almost none. The ones who didn't move forward didn't leave for someone better: they closed the chat and never came back.
That changes the job. If you were competing with another IB, you'd have to be better. Since you're competing with inertia, you have to be the one who makes deciding feel safe. Those are two different jobs, and almost all of us do the first one.
What sets you apart isn't what you do. It's what you're willing to lose
Anything you could put in an ad, your competition can put there too. Conditions get copied, material gets forwarded, a good line gets imitated in an afternoon. If it costs you nothing, it doesn't set you apart.
What can't be copied are the things that have a price for you. The IBs who retain the most do three, and all three cost them something today:
- They ask what the person tried before and what didn't work, instead of sending the link. It costs them a faster close.
- If the person isn't ready, they say not yet, even if they want to open an account today. It costs them accounts this month.
- They explain the risk themselves, before the person discovers it alone. It costs them enthusiasm in the first conversation.
None is a technique and none is free. That's why almost nobody does them, and exactly why they work: the client notices you said something it didn't suit you to say.
The one who says no when saying yes would have paid
That's the one you remember three months later. Nobody chooses you for being the best: you're chosen by whoever felt you understood their problem. The one you lose that way isn't fully lost: they come back when it is their moment, and they come back knowing why.
Do it today: the uncomfortable list
Write down three things you do for a client that cost you something real: time, an account, a quick sale. What anyone could put on their profile doesn't count. If you can't finish the list, you're not different yet: you're interchangeable.
Then ask your last three clients “what drew you to my community?”. The word that repeats is your real difference, not the one you assume.
On the part of this that no tool can do for you —and where it pays to stop automating— I wrote here: Your client knows when it wasn't you who wrote.
The diagnosis: Stage 1 of the academy
In IB ACADEMY, Stage 1 teaches what to ask and in what order before offering anything, and how to recognise the client you shouldn't move forward with yet. We practise it live, with your own cases.
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I work with the IBs in our network so their community grows with a system, not with improvisation: attract, support, retain and organise a portfolio. Here I write about that work, with no income promises.