My first sales job, 33 years ago, was cold calling people from the phone book to sell bags of horse manure, otherwise known as garden fertilizer. The company was called Betta Grower. Still around today.
I remember thinking…
“This wasn’t what I dreamed of for my career.”
But turns out, I wasn’t bad at it, and I learned the single most important truth of sales:
But I don’t think that’s the only answer. It’s just a part of the answer.
So as I am a smart-ass, and run a WealthTech, here are five rad ideas:
“Sell benefits, not features. Whether it’s horse sh*t or WealthTech.”
Here are the things I have sold as I went through my sales career, along with their features and benefits:
Horse manure for your garden
Feature: It has the best mix of ingredients.
Benefit: You need half the effort to grow better plants.
LED display signs for shops
Feature: It has the most bulbs of any display.
Benefit: Your customers buy items they hadn’t planned to buy after seeing the sign.
Financial Advice
Feature: We have the widest range of funds.
Benefit: You will achieve your financial goals sooner.
Magazine adverts
Feature: Our magazine has the best design.
Benefit: Your new brand awareness campaign in our magazine will allow you to raise prices.
Stocks
Feature: We have the lowest commission in the market.
Benefit: You can maximize your returns.
B2B WealthTech
Feature: Our technology has the most integrations.
Benefit: Your customers onboard sooner and stay longer.
And that got me thinking of all the benefits of WealthTech. It is far too easy in software to talk about the amazing features you have. More APIs. More AI. More integrations etc. But at the end of the day, the output needs to be more revenue, fewer costs, or both.
Does the tech improve processes, which reduces cost? Does the tech increase a customer’s desire to buy what you are selling?
I am guilty of selling features sometimes as I am proud of what we have built at Bambu. But in reality, who cares about what I have? It’s about what it does for the customer. The purpose of the software is to improve people’s lives. Irrespective of how many features it has or how cool it is.
The purpose of WealthTech is to allow people to achieve their financial goals. In a B2B context, the purpose of WealthTech is to enable a financial institution to provide this service to its end customer.
If you are thinking about your WealthTech stack purely from your point of view, you are missing the point.
Great tech is always the customer first.
So next time you are looking at your WealthTech stack. Stop. Turn. 180 degrees. Be the customer. What benefits will you provide them? Then you could decide what move to
make (What to fix? What to build? How much to spend?). Don’t think about all the features you can build. Only think about the benefits – what is the benefit to your end customer and how does that benefit you? Start there. Build on top of that.
Here is a list of some of the benefits for both you as the institution and the end customer. If it doesn’t tick one of these boxes, don’t build it.
Benefits of having a modern WealthTech stack for your business and your customer:
Business: It costs less to onboard each customer.
Customer: The customer has a better onboarding experience.
Business: It costs less to service each customer.
Customer: Gets serviced quicker.
Business: Can scale fund sales quicker with digital than in person.
Customer: Easier for the customer to buy your funds.
Business: Automated monthly savings plans create more AUM.
Customer: Customer achieves their goals sooner due to this automation.
Business Going digital with wealth will improve your overall tech stack.
Customer: Seamless digital experience.
Business: Your target market increases as your digital services improve.
Customer: Gets to consolidate their finances on one app.
Benefits are always customer-first. No matter how good your features are.
Let’s get out there and sell benefits and make WealthTech better.
Best,
Ned Phillips
Founder & CEO