Let's start with my client Gary. I worked with him to build his ultimate value proposition. I started by asking if he had a group of people he works with who really liked him. He said he worked a lot with widows and divorced women who liked him, but he didn't know why. So we surveyed those clients.

Three themes emerged from the results: First, they said that when their husbands' died, they were emotional wrecks and unable to make decisions even though they knew they had to take some action. They really liked that Gary never pushed them. Second, their husbands usually handled the finances and Gary was very good at translating financial speak into plain English. Third, they worried that people would take advantage of them, but they felt that Gary put their best interests first. Two clients said they thought of Gary as their financial security blanket.

Gary trained his bank partners and centers of influence in the three points of his value proposition ending with: "In fact, several of the widows referred to me as their financial security blanket." He advised bankers to join the conversation in clients' minds: "I know you're probably not mentally in a position to make a decision right now, but things are going to be changing dramatically for you and it's important that you meet with somebody who is an expert in helping widows at this time in their lives. In fact, several of my widowed clients refer to him as their financial security blanket." (Gary can't say that to prospects, but his partners can.)

Every banker in the meeting thought of someone who fit the bill. In fact, Gary left each training with at least one referral. Anybody who had been through those trainings thought of Gary whenever a widow walked through the door and they knew how to engage these prospects. So describing his ideal client was a very profitable 10 or 15 minutes.

MARKETING MANEUVER

Soon, Gary had 24 widows, so on average he would have two widows with birthdays every month. I suggested we create a take-a-widow-to-lunch marketing program. He would call up his widowed clients having birthdays the following month and ask them to lunch: "We won't talk business, this is just one way I thank you for the trust and confidence you placed in me and I would like you to invite a few friends along and make it a celebration."

Not everyone brought friends, but when they did, they brought new widows because people tend to befriend people in similar situations. And when the friends asked about Gary's connection, he would say, "I am her financial advisor, but I promised we wouldn't talk about business." The friends said things like, "My advisor never does this; I didn't even get a card for my birthday." Gary would get names and addresses and send the new prospects little gifts and cards, and that became a big part of his prospecting.

He went on to talking to women's groups, and couples' groups. He would tell husbands to make sure that their wives were completely taken care off after they go and he has a little checklist for them. He is quickly becoming the go-to guy for that last little piece of estate planning for clients' wives. This is how to use your ideal client profile to create a value proposition-and a marketing tool.

Here's another example. I was managing a new office in Atlanta and I went to lunch with an advisor named Hardy. He got me on the subject of handling complaints. After I told a particularly horrible story, he said, "Boy that sounds like an account I would really love to work on," which I thought was an unusual reaction. I remembered that I had met somebody that had done business with him and told me his value proposition: He unties people's financial knots. He's very successful with over $200 million in assets. He's been in the business 18 years and got most of the accounts through existing clients and a few centers of influence. He wanted me to be one of those centers of influence.

How did he do it? Hardy found that six of his 10 best clients had tons of money and a great relationship with him. "They trust me and refer people because I solved a problem for them," he says. "I found out a long time ago that if I can solve a problem for somebody I completely separate myself from all of the competition, especially when I get an account that a broker has turned his back on."