Quick Start

Quick Start

This Quick Start will focus on the most valuable, useful and effective features of the VSA.  A more comprehensive introduction can be found by taking the Guided Tour.

Organization of the Virtual Sales Assistant

The VSA Main Menu is the main navigation page for the VSA. It allows you to search for support material by Tools or by Needs and view audio visual sales training material under the Ideas section. Below we have broken the VSA down by various aspects of a financial advisor's practice and identified exactly what tools and material can be of aid to the advisor in each of the areas.

Before we begin, be aware that the VSA's 
Video Training Center is a terrific resource, not just to learn more about the VSA today, but as an ongoing resource to maximize the benefit of the VSA to you and your professional practice.

Prospecting and Approach

Very few sales support tools provide any help to the producer in these areas, but the VSA is an exception:

1.    Referred Lead Generator (RLG) – The RLG is a “prospecting engine” that provides names of a current client’s neighbors. These names can then be used to begin the referred lead process.

2.    Target Market Lead Generator (TMLG) – The TMLG is another “prospecting engine” that allows you to target all the doctors, lawyers, florists, etc. in a small city or zip code.

3.    Prospect/Client Approaches – The Priority Planning Concept is the simplest, least intrusive and most effective method of approaching personal and business prospects. The section contains field-tested Priority Planning Reviews (PPRs) that can be personalized and used to reveal a prospect's most important needs. The new Plans and Priorities is a new e-mail based update tool that captures a client’s future needs with the click of a mouse! 

4.    Personal Website – The VSA offers “crisp, clean and professional” advisor sites for all subscribers. The site is turn-key, requires no maintenance and contains a logo or picture of the advisor. It is a great prospecting and self-promotion tool.

5.    Option to E-Mail Reports – The Internet has become a wonderful tool for providing prospects with information. The VSA's option to e-mail all the reports discussed below has become a vital part of prospecting and approaching targeted prospects and/or clients for many producers.

6.    Newsletters and Wave Marketing – The section provides turn-key newsletters that can be either mailed or e-mailed to clients and/or prospects. Not only can they help create new sales, they can also serve to cement an advisors’ relationship with clients.

7.    High Touch Client Videos - LIFE has collected stories of real people who benefited from insurance during a time of great personal and financial need, and turned them into brief essays and videos. These stories are wonderful third-party endorsements for the real value of insurance. LIFE videos can be sent to your clients/prospects via e-mail for an approach, pre-appointment confirmation or just to show you care.

Sales Interview

1.    Fact Finders – The VSA provides fact finders for virtually all markets…about 25 of them in total for business, estate, personal and disability planning, as well as questionnaires designed for annual planning reviews.  

2.    Client Presentations – The VSA contains over 75 complete presentations and reports for point-of-sale delivery to customers. All have been reviewed for compliance by FINRA, print out in letter quality (color if you have a color printer) and are personalized for you and your prospects.

3.    Concept Pages – This is one of the most impressive features of the VSA. The section contains over 750 concept pages covering practically every subject in the financial arena. It also includes all current and archived tax tables and mortality tables. Further, the concept pages can be used to create custom and personalized presentations for clients and prospects.

4.    Calculators – Included in the VSA are a wide array (nearly 100) of calculators designed to help you determine your client’s needs in a given area. It includes calculators for survivors, retirement, long term care, businesses, estate liquidity, charitable giving, financial planning, as well as many specialty calculators, such as Roth versus traditional IRA, Required Minimum Distributions, 72 (t), etc.

5.    Powerpoint Slide Presentations – There are 25 Powerpoint presentations that can be saved to your computer. Seminars can be conducted and interviews can be held without being tied to the Internet. Handouts for all the presentations are also provided.

6.    Financial Snapshots - Financial Snapshots are unique and simple need analysis calculators that help identify your clients' financial needs and priorities. Like photographic snapshots, our Financial Snapshots produce a picture of an instant in time...a financial picture, if you will. However, the financial picture can be saved and updated to reflect your clients' changing needs and objectives. These Financial Snapshots are available:

Cash Needs at Death
Income Needs at Death
Cash and Income Needs at Death
College Savings
Disability Income Needs
Retirement Income Needs
Long-Term Care Expense
Complete Financial Snapshot   

Business Organization

1.    Book on Building a Practice – "Building Your Financial Services Practice" is a complete system with the tools needed to build a practice. The book identifies the 6 systems a producer needs to succeed and tells how to establish them. Many agents have found this book a great way to critique their own business, while others have found it invaluable in “bringing in a junior” associate for succession planning.
 
2.    Annual Planning Calendar - The Business Manager (TBM) is an annual planning calendar and business control system. You simply print the contents and then 3-hole punch or spiral bind them to create a week-at-a-glance planner pad. It has been designed specifically for financial advisors to help control their business and time. It is not the only such system available in the industry, but we believe it is the simplest and therefore the most effective.

Client Building

1.    Annual Reviews – Forms specifically designed to provide producers with a structured approach in the vital client building and repeat selling activity.

2.    Financial Workbook - Worksheets or a complete book that can be used by prospects and clients to put their "financial house" in order, as well as to help ease the burden of uncertainty that most families experience after the death of a loved one. You can print them and use them with your prospects and clients, either as a way to "keep in touch" or as part of the interview process.

3.    Client Newsletters –The VSA Client Newsletters are personalized with your name, contact information and a brief description about your firm.  If you choose, a personal picture can also appear on the newsletter. They are available in two formats: PDF, designed to be printed and mailed, or HTML, designed to be e-mailed.

4.    Specimen Documents – Nearly 100 specimen documents designed to help the client and his/her attorney get started on drafting supporting documents from complex trusts to business agreements.

5.    Life Guides are a form of checklist or questionnaire, designed to provide clients and prospective clients with information and guidance on a variety of life events, all with financial implications.  In addition to providing them to individuals, they can be provided to affinity groups.  For example, you could provide a copy of the Teaching Kids About Money Life Guide to members of a local PTO/PTA.

Advanced Markets/Reference Material

1.    PresentationsConcept Pages and Calculators – The VSA contains dozens of clear, concise and compliant point-of-sale material for personal and business insurance planning, estate planning and charitable planning. Calculators are available for all these markets with one of the most extensive group of business calculators in the industry.

2.    Reference Books – The VSA contains the entire texts of all nine of the most comprehensive books on insurance and financial planning…Stephen Liemberg's Tools and Techniques series covering Life Insurance Planning, Estate Planning, Employee Benefit and Retirement Planning, Financial Planning, Charitable Planning, Income Tax Planning, Investment Planning, Life Settlement Planning and Retirement Income Planning.

3.    Tax FAQs – This section contains printable answers to common tax questions about life and health insurance and annuities with links to and a "road map" of the entire US Tax Code.

4.    Business and Consumer Resource - This area is designed to help consumers and businesses resolve legal issues. There are thousands of state specific government documents and forms, as well as a wide variety of legal FAQs, many of which are available in RealAudio and Windows Media formats.

5.    
Virtual Underwriter – Provides you with access to client screening questionnaires, background information on medical conditions, explanations of  common medical tests, and advice on how to successfully handle "declined" applicants.

6.    CE Courses - A library of “e-learning CE courses” from The National Underwriter. These courses are free for your learning purposes.  To use them for CE credits, the grading and filing fee is just $25.

Motivational and Other Support

1.    Inspiration and Motivation – "Mental Vitamins" to raise your spirits, give a presentation or just browse with articles and quotes by "masters" such as Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, Tom Hopkins and many others.

2.    Sales Ideas – These are sales ideas that originally appeared in the VSA's twice monthly newsletter, the Virtual Advisor. They provide great ways to use the VSA to make sales immediately.
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