One of the most memorable books I've read is WOMBAT Selling by Michael Hewitt-Gleeson, a 30-year sales and marketing strategist to big companies like IBM, GE, and Coca-Cola.
First published in 2006, WOMBAT is an acronym for Word of Mouth, Buy and Tell. It describes an approach to creating satisfied customers who are excited to talk about you, further popularized by many other books you've probably read more recently.
The book is well worth reading for that approach alone. But it's the idea of "check moves" that stuck with me.
The Problem with Rewarding Only Closes
Michael shares his experience with large sales organizations and describes the problem of sales teams becoming demotivated when they are rewarded only for closing deals. The problem he identifies is that closes are ultimately in clients' hands. It's the clients who choose whether or not to proceed. It's clients who, in the chess analogy he uses, make the final checkmate move.
One step before checkmate is check. Moving people from uncheck to check is 100% in the salesperson's or business owner's control, and it's worth rewarding.
So what is a check move? As business owners, it's a strategic move we can make that allows potential clients to put themselves in checkmate. It's one step we control on the path to closing a deal.
Three Check Moves for Financial Advisors
Send a topic-bridging email. When something happens in the news or the market that connects to your expertise, send a short, personal email to prospects and clients referencing it. You're not selling. You're staying relevant.
Send copies of your book with a personal note to five Center of Influence contacts. A book with a handwritten note is a check move that works while you sleep. Those contacts pass it along, and suddenly you're in a conversation you didn't have to cold-start.
Send a video message to clients. Tools like BombBomb or similar services let you record a quick, personal video. It's unexpected, it's human, and it moves people from uncheck to check faster than another templated email ever will.
