Every producer has had the experience of losing a sale. You're left scratching your head knowing that your proposal was right on, and the prospect should now be a client. What went wrong? Although there can be many reasons that the sale did not close, in this month's article, I will talk about one element in particular--your lack of credibility.

Don't be insulted, I'm not addressing you personally. But please realize that in many cases, you simply are not credible in the eyes of the prospect. They have no prior knowledge of you, they were not referred to you by a trusted friend, and given the financial horror stories they read about in the newspaper, they are leery of you.

From the prospect's point of view, are you any different than any other financial advisor in town? Is there any reason they should trust you? Often, we expect people to trust us just because we know we are nice people. If you want to capture more sales, you will need to prove yourself.

Can you overcome this prospect skepticism, even though they just met you?

The most powerful way in our society to overcome skepticism and to establish yourself as a trustworthy expert is to get published or have others write about you. Before you decide that this solution won't work for you, I'll show you that you do not need to write a word.

Think about it. Don't people believe what they read in the newspaper? Don't they automatically trust news reporters, columnists and authors? You can join these trusted ranks.

First, you can get interviewed repeatedly by your local press. In the last six months, I have been interviewed as the "expert" in two local newspapers, two national journals and one website. I really don't know any more about financial planning, insurance and investments than you do. I do however know how to get the press to pay attention to me. There is a simple process of sending press releases that gets the press to pay attention to me. Although describing this process and showing you a sample press release would be too lengthy for this article, I do have this material available. Please visit the website below.

Secondly, you can write your own booklets. I ghost write an 18-page booklet on annuities used by producers all across the country. We print it with their name and biography. It gives them instant credibility and their closing ratio soars. I just got this email from a user this week, "Your annuity marketing system works beautifully!! My annuity sales are skyrocketing." I did not teach this producer one thing about sales or annuities. I merely gave him a tool that positioned him as an expert in his local market. He now has credibility and he closes more sales.

Third, you can write a book. Actually, you do not need to write one word. I have seen estimates that up to 20% of books published are not written by the author whose name is on the book. These books are ghost-written. You can do the same. You can hire a ghost-writer to write what you want. You do not need to start from scratch and the work is already done, as there are some books on the market, already written, that can be printed with your name and picture.

Use these three recommendations to get credibility, establish yourself as an expert, and close more sales.

Larry Klein CPA/PFS, CFP