Javelin Marketing History

Javelin Marketing started its business in 2006 and by purchasing the intellectual property, marketing systems and lead generation operations of a company that had ceased operations. There were four original founders and shareholders (today, there are 3 shareholders and the company is privately held). The original vision was to help financial professionals rapidly build their business. The fastest was to do this is to supply insurance leads and investment leads to financial advisers (stockbrokers, financial planners, investment advisers, life agents) at a very reasonable cost making the service very affordable and making it inexcusable that anyone in financial sales should have a lack of prospects. The idea is that if we find a prospect that has expressed interest in product or service (e.g. mutual funds, long term care, annuities, etc.), this prospect is already close to taking some action. By introducing this prospect to a local financial professional, Javelin Marketing can quickly deliver new clients to advisers.

Skeptical Advisers Also Illogical?

Of course, the largest hurdle in sales, the fact that the prospect (in the case of Javelin Markting, the prospect is the financial advisor) is either too skeptical that something will work or just the pure inertia to do nothing, is always a challenge. In fact, many financial advisors have attemtped various systems to build their business and failed making them all the more skeptical that anything works. For many, this skepticism often leads to illogical decisions. For example, the average initial investment an advisor has with Javelin Marketing is $300. If the investment pays off, then the advisor has a system that works indefinitely and keeps his appointment calendar full. The value of this payoff would be tens of thousands of dollars or even a million dollars over a career. If the system fails, the advisor has lost $300. From an investment standpoint, Javelin Marketing offers the financial advisor a ridiculously handsome reward to risk ratio–better than anything financial ad visors offer their clients. Yet, many advisers are illogical and focus more on the $300 at risk than the payoff. This is what is meant by “penny wise and pound foolish.” Unfortunately, this is “poor man’s” thinking and sadly, is why too many financial advisers are not affluent. They don’t think like rich people or professional investors.

The founders at Javelin Marketing realized this overarching skepticism and attempted to create an irresistible product and offer so that advisers would feel comfortable proceeding to use the lead generation service:

• leads for $18 each
• comprehensive training to follow up each lead (weekly coaching calls)
• documented sales guide and recorded follow up calls
• drip letters for prospects who are not responsive
• continuous coaching and hand holding

In other words, the idea held by Javelin Marketing was not merely to generate leads and sell them, but to increase the financial professional’s probability of success and income from the leads. This goal is not only great for the financial advisers but also for the company. The more successful the advisor, the longer he stays a client, the more leads he buys, the more advisers he refers, etc.

How the Javelin Marketing Lead System Works

Javelin Marketing Operations

Javelin Marketing designs and runs Internet ads offering mature consumers financial booklets on various financial topics which appeal to the 45+ crowd (the baby boomers and their parents):

• Annuity Owner Mistakes
• Six Ways to Cut Your Taxes in Retirement
• How to Avoid Mistakes When Buying Long Term Care
• How to Avoid Mistakes in Selecting Mutual Funds
• How to Cut Taxes on Your IRA Distributions
• CD Shoppers Guide—How to Get More Interest
• Retirement Planning — Will Your Money Last?
• Six Best and Worst IRA Rollover Decisions
• The Best Ways to Buy, Sell, or Replace Your Life Insurance

The consumer finds these ads either by doing an Internet search or visiting a page where they see a text link or co-registration offer.

Here’s a video of how we generate leads.

In order to get the booklet offered in the ad, the consumer enters their contact information: name, physical address, email address and phone. This data is electronically passed along to a financial advisor in the consumer’s immediate area to send the booklet. Javelin Marketing supplies these retirement booklets to the advisor at no additional cost. The financial advisor uses the Javelin Marketing software to personalize the booklet with the adviser’s name, photo, credential on the front cover and background information inside and then mails to the consumer.

The booklet is a critical part of the process as it establishes the advisor as a professional and not just another sales person. Consequently, the consumer is far more likely to engage in a conversation when the advisor calls and far more willing to set an appointment with the advisor. This result is typical (audio file):

It’s surprising that so many lead generation systems miss this step. That if the seller simply calls the prospect, the seller has no credibility and has established himself as a sales person. If something is mailed that establishes credibility and the seller’s unique selling proposition, the seller has separate himself from the competition.

Javelin Marketing Training

Knowing that the advisers who use Javelin Marketing’s lead generation service are of different abilities, the company provides several modes of training. The training is necessary to “equalize” the value of the lead in the ands of the advisor. For example, an advisor that is smooth on the phone, know how to develop rapport and has a good “rap” will get a lot of appointments. Other advisers fail miserably because they are not strong communicators. This is why one advisor will say this is the easiest way they have ever added new clients and another will say the service is lousy. The following training is provided.

Coaching calls take place every Tuesday and Thursday at 9 am Pacific. These web-based calls comprise a 30 minute presentation by a consultant and then a 30 minute questions and answer session. There may be 20-50 financial advisers on each call and each gets an opportunity to ask an individual question. Some advisers on the call have recently joined the service and get their important initial “dos and donts for success” and others realize the value of returning to these calls to ask questions and hear good ideas from other advisers. We strive to have the question and answer sessions led by an advisor using the service so that new advisers using the system can hear the success of their peers and don’t need to rely on the Javelin Marketing’s suggestions as to “what works.”

Javelin Marketing provides to advisers the twenty-five page guide “How to Follow Up On Leads.” This is useful guide developed on the research in the book Spin Selling by Neil Rackham. The guide teaches the advisor to ask questions when he makes initial contact with the prospect rather than talking at the prospect and also teaches that the initial call is a “sale” of the appointment with the advisor. In fact, if the first 30 seconds of the call is blown, the advisor has likely missed out on a new client.

Sample calls to the prospect have been audio recorded and are provided to the financial advisor as a training tool. We recommend that the advisor listens to these calls several times. Unfortunately, most don’t and rush to call their leads with inadequate study or preparation.

Currently in the works is a mentor program whereby the more successful advisers will hold a one hour weekly teleclass for other less successful advisers. The design is to have five to ten advisers attend each teleclass where they can come with their problems and get coached by an advisor using the exact same lead system who is successful. Javelin Marketing believes this “peer coaching” is critical in the financial sales industry as so many are curious and also desirous to learn what works for their successful peers. Information gathered from peers is also more readily followed even when it’s the same information disseminated by Javelin Marketing.

Javelin Marketing Results

Results vary from advisor to advisor. We have some advisers that call sixty leads and won’t get an appointment. Another advisor calls sixty leads and gets eighteen appointments. For the failing advisor, there is definitely something “wrong” with the lead system and the principals at Javelin Marketing are always seeking new methods to equalize results for all advisers. The difficulty is that no matter how many guides, audio and video recordings, coaching calls are offered, some advisors don’t follow the instructions, think they know better or simply have difficulty following step by step instructions.

When quantifying results, we are reminded of the weight loss commercials showing a slim person “results may not be typical.” The difficult aspect of measuring the effectiveness of any lead service is that more than 50% of the success depends on the user of the leads. Some advisers are better communicators, better sales people, are more experienced and have a better “rap” or value proposition, are more credible and simply smarter and more capable. These advisers may get three or four appointments right off the bat for every 10 prospects we send them. Other advisers can go through sixty leads without an appointment. Many “swear” they are following the Javelin Marketing tutorials and then when we role play their approach on a consulting call, we find they are following their system and not our system. “Human error” is a huge factor in the success of our leads or any lead service. If you have insights into better ways to training or have users follow the instructions, we would definitely welcome your comments on this blog.

The other factor determining our clients’ (i.e. the financial advisor) satisfaction is the advisers expectation. We have some clients at Javelin Marketing who are quite happy to make one sale for every 10 prospects. Their economics are as follows: they earn say five thousand dollars from one new client after investing $180 with us for ten leads. Therefore, their ROI is 2600% within a few weeks. Moreover, the advisor has not had to prospect, typically the most abhorred part of the financial services profession. Such an advisor loves Javelin Marketing as his expectation is fulfilled.

Other advisers have unrealistic expectations thinking that eight of every ten prospects will be jumping through the phone to buy something when the advisor calls. Such an advisor may feel that if they paid us a “whopping” $18 for the lead, this lead should be hot and ready to buy now. While this perception is far from reality, it is the principal determinant of the adviser’s happiness with the service at Javelin Marketing. In fact,. we advise all advisers to have a drip marketing system (e.g. an financial newsletter) so that prospects who don’t meet today can still be courted converted to clients later.

We have had many advisers willing to allow us to audio-record their comments and we have documented these at http://prospectmatch.com/audio-comments.html. We have an equal number of comments stating that the lead service did not work for the advisor. Here is a typical emailed comment from an advisor who diligently follows our instructions:

“Javelin Marketing has not only provided me with an exceptional amount of annuity leads in a short time, the leads are of a high quality. I have been working the program as my Javelin Marketing consultant has suggested, and have closed sales within two weeks of receiving my first batch of annuity leads.”
Thomas G., Charter Financial Planning, Brandon, MS

Javelin Marketing Reputation

We often feel like the quote from the Shakespeare play “Julius Caesar” applies:

“The evil that men do lives after them;The good is oft interred with their bones.”

Those advisers who do not have success with our system tell ten people while those that are successful largely keep it to themselves (why tell another advisor when it could mean fewer good leads for you?)

In order that every client understand the service, the promises and guarantees made by Javelin Marketing, every client must sign and return the written agreement of services. This is a rather rare occurrence with anything purchased online in that the service is delivered online and most every online purchase does not require a signed agreement. Having the client read and sign what is being provided also precludes clients later saying “but you told me that……” Since 100% of our dealings with clients are on the phone, misinterpretation of what is heard is always a possibility. (To insure that sales presentations are accurate and complete, sales conversations are routinely recorded and reviewed by management).

There is an unbiased source where you can learn the truth about the company rather than reply on hearsay. Since Javelin Marketing was founded nearly three years ago, the Better Business Bureau reports ten complaints, nine of them resolved satisfactorily and one that was resolved by javelin Marketing but the client remained unsatisfied. Management feels this is a good record in dealing with over 9,000 financial advisers and over 700,000 assigned prospects. The BBB has provided Javelin Marketing an A- rating (an A rating is only given to companies with at least a 4 year operating history).

In the Internet age, it is very easy for an individual to post Internet comments true or not, about another person or company because speech is free. There is no one guarding truth on the Internet. You read there at your own risk so do your own due diligence.

For example, you will find plenty of sites of consumers and businesses explaining how they have been scammed by IBM, Bank of America, American Express, the Federal Government, etc. As oyu may well guess, these companies do not make it a systematic habit to scam people. In fact, webet you have saome dissatisfied clients that have said things about you that are not accurate. There is no pleasing everyone and all are free to complain publicly and say anything they desire. Readers of Internet information are cautioned to take any such comments into account as they may be baseless, do not need to provide evidence and better sources of the truth would be independent sources like the Better Business Bureau or a non-customer that has independent data.

Another indicator of a company’s reputation is the company it keeps. Over thirty significant insurance field marketing organizations and/or broker dealers refer their producers to Javelin Marketing. Every one of those companies has producers that have been unsuccessful with our service (as explained earlier in the article) and other producers who have been enormously successful.

For additional information about the company, please use email to reach inquiry at www.javelinmarketing.com. For additional information about the lead generation service for financial advisers, please visit ProspectMatch or phone 866-952-4065. Most importantly, if you own a small service company, please comment below and add your wisdom on how a service company can maximize the success of its clients when a large part of the success depends on clients talent, skill and motivation. If there is anything else you would like to know about Javelin Marketing, leave your inquiry and we will monitor the comments to this blog and respond.

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