For this The Wealth Mosaic Talks To (TWMTT), we interview Michael Walford-Grant, Founder of MDWG Consulting. He says that when selling and bidding for new business, WealthTechs increasingly need to change their mindset from ‘How can I sell to this prospect?’ to ‘How can I help and support the buyer to buy’. By doing so, they will stand out from the crowd, and immeasurably improve their chances of winning business. 

Please introduce yourself
I am an experienced salesperson, based in London, who has worked in the FinTech industry for over 30 years, selling software solutions within both large and small companies. In 2020, I started my own consultancy practice, MDWG Consulting, providing a range of sales and consulting services to small, and early-stage FinTechs.

I am also the joint founder of the Sales Accelerator; jointly set up with TWM to help early-stage and scale-up vendors enter the wealth management sector here in the UK. The vendors are typically based abroad, have enjoyed some success, and want a lower cost, lower risk, and accelerated means to launch into this market. We support them with that.

What do you consider the main issues in the WealthTech market to be?
The UK WealthTech marketplace is renowned for its maturity and the number of players it contains. Competition is fierce and varied. So, from a sales and marketing point of view, just getting seen by wealth management firms and triggering their interest is challenging.

In fact, when or if you get the opportunity to engage, the importance of making an impact is paramount. As the saying goes, ‘you only get one chance to make a first impression’. This requires a range of skills and disciplines, all of which are covered in my book of sales best practices.

Extensive and comprehensive research confirms time and time again, the single most important factor influencing the outcome of a sales process, is the salesperson. Not the product, not the company, the salesperson!

Therefore, for any vendor, the importance of hiring quality salespeople and investing in them is critical to a vendor’s success. Salespeople need to invest in themselves too, on an ongoing basis.

How can vendors react to that and stand out from the crowd?
As a great many vendors are already doing, thought leadership and business insight is critical. Without this, you have very little chance of differentiating yourselves. It has been impressive how this has improved over the years, in direct response to the needs of the market. Aligning the above with innovative digital marketing, can and will help create a brand, and improve overall market profile.

Wealth managers will often welcome guidance on which direction to take, how best to adopt modern, innovative technologies, and what regulations are lurking around the corner, that a particular technology solution can help meet. Aligned with this, is of course, the salesperson. He or she needs to understand these business issues and be able to explain them in the context of their offering.

Identifying ‘unconsidered need’ is the holy grail. This is a need that the prospect had not considered they needed, but then realised they do. This is invaluable to the prospect and requires good market knowledge, and good product knowledge aligned with good questioning and listening skills.

What about the actual sales process?
It is probably worth stating at this stage how different a great deal of buying processes are now, compared to ten or twenty years ago. With the wealth of information available on the internet, and how well-informed some buying organisations are, in many cases, buyers don’t even need to engage with a vendor until they are 70% to 80% through the process.

Therefore, a modern salesperson is increasingly taking on the role of a trusted advisor and orchestrator, co-ordinating the various people and resources within their own organisation to support the buyer, providing items such as case studies, thought leadership pieces, and metrics on how to build a business case. All of which are fulfilling the role of assisting and supporting the buyer to buy.

What does best practice look like?
This topic is what underpins the concept of my book: Sales Unplugged: The Invaluable ‘Go-To Guide’ For Busy B2B Salespeople. There is a vast range of skills, knowledge and disciplines needed to be an effective salesperson. From sales planning to business development, effective emailing, communication, qualifying opportunities, presentations, managing meetings, through to object handling, contracts and negotiations. These are all underpinned by best practices.

Adopting best practices throughout a complex, often nuanced and long sales cycle is crucial. The means, to be able to quickly remind oneself of the best practices that need to be adopted at each stage, will materially improve the sales effectiveness of that salesperson. This is the main purpose of the book.

This benefits the buyer too. They are busy people. When they meet and engage with a vendor, they need to feel their time is well spent.

The book incorporates a great deal of advanced, neurological insight and research. It has been proven that prospects attending a presentation will only retain 10% of the content presented to them within 48 hours. It is, therefore, critically important the selling organisation influences the 10% they want the buyer to remember. This can be achieved with meaningful graphics, consistent messaging, and an underlying theme and value proposition.

Is a considered approach to sales echoed by wealth managers?
I believe so, yes.

Wealth managers come in all shapes and forms. Some are very professional and specific about what they want and need, whilst others are more about the direction of travel, and open to new ideas and influence. In each case, the vendor must show they can tailor the service on offer and fit into the crevices and cracks of a wealth manager’s infrastructure - both in the offering and culturally. The more open the wealth manager is about the issues they face and need to solve, the more likely it is a trusting “partnership” can develop, which will more likely deliver the outcomes they want from any given engagement with a vendor.

Wealth managers increasingly acknowledge and value the contribution a vendor can provide in terms of market insight, because vendors are more widely exposed to the market and the buyer’s peers.

If you would like to take part in our ‘TWM talks to…’ series, please get in touch with us at office@thewealthmosaic.com