Prospecting with Savology Starter Plan

Prospecting Tools & Starter Plan

Growth is a top priority for most advisors, which is why there are many ways you can grow your business using Savology. Our client-led planning platform and supporting prospecting tools are designed to help you enhance your prospecting efforts and win new clients.

Our prospecting tools allow you to provide a limited financial plan experience to prospects, separately group and track prospects from your other clients, generate unique sign-up links, connect to other tools to automate engagements, and more. Read on below to learn more and see a preview of the tools in action.

What can you do with these tools?

Here’s a preview of what is available for advisors to track, engage with, and manage prospective clients and their Savology experience:

Prospecting Groups: Create and use prospecting-specific groups to track potential clients, manage sign-up links used for prospecting efforts, and provide prospects with a different and limited user experience.
Starter Plan: Prospect users receive a limited financial plan and semi-locked Savology experience called a Starter Plan. Then at your discretion, You can “unlock” the rest of their plan and tools.
User Upgrade Request: As part of a Starter Plan, prospects are prompted and nudged to “upgrade” or “unlock” the rest of their plan by submitting a request with contact information to you.
New Prospect Email: Receive email notifications in real-time when a prospect requests to unlock their financial plan.

How to set up the prospecting experience

Important Note: These tools are included in Savology's Advisor Advanced tier. However, if you would like to activate the prospecting features for your account, you may need to schedule a brief call with Savology’s team.

Step 1: Create a prospecting group

To get started, you first need to create a prospecting group. Groups and group settings allow you to control the end-user experience and separate prospects from your other clients.

In your admin account, go to User Admin > Groups, and select the New group button located to the right of the search bar to create a new group.
In the modal that appears for the new group, add the group name and details to the first page.

Step 2: Update the group Advanced Settings for prospecting

On the second page of the modal named Advanced Settings, do the following:

In the Group Type field, select Prospecting in the drop-down menu to designate it as a group for prospects.
In the Available Products field, remove both the Financial Plan and Literacy product options so that only the Starter plan is listed. Now, users in the group only have access to the starter financial plan experience.

Step 3: Use the Group link to invite and add prospects

a unique group sign-up link is generated when the new prospecting group is created. You can copy the group link at any time by clicking the three-dot menu next to the group and selecting copy group link.

Now you can use this link in all of your prospecting efforts. Add it to your website, marketing campaigns and materials, webinars, social media posts, ads, and even your email signature. You can even create a separate group and custom link for each of your different prospecting efforts to help track where new leads are coming from.

Here’s an example of what this could look like in action:

Add a button to your website with a compelling call to action like “Free Financial Plan”, “Plan your future today” or “On track for retirement?”. The button should contain the unique sign-up link for a prospecting group.
An interested website visitor clicks on the button and is taken to your firm’s landing page where they can create an account and receive their starter plan after completing the financial profile survey.
The individual receives some value from their starter plan but is interested in unlocking the rest of their plan and submits a request to upgrade.
You receive an email notification from Savology with the new lead’s request and contact information.
You reach out to set up an initial consultation, unlock their plan, and convert them to a new client!

Preview of the user prospecting experience

Sign up and Starter Plan creation

When clicking on a prospecting group link, prospects go through the same onboarding and sign-up flow as other clients. They’ll visit your firm’s landing page where they can create their account and receive their starter plan after completing the financial profile survey.

Starter Plan user experience

The starter plan is what makes the user experience different for prospects. These individuals gain access to a limited Savology experience and a semi-locked financial plan, report card, and action items.

Here’s what prospects receive:

Report Card: The report card shows the prospect’s overall financial grade and individual grades with some limited details for each category. However, the user cannot access the additional details or pages for any of the individual grade categories.

Action Items: The prospect is shown the total number of prescribed action items, limited details about their top action item, and a locked card with a prompt to request an upgrade to unlock and view their remaining action items.

Financial Plan Summary: The financial plan summary is identical to the first page of the full financial plan. It shows details such as the individual’s status in each planning category (i.e. Risk Management: Needs work), a net worth breakdown by assets and liabilities, and current vs. suggested KPIs, which include savings rate, debt-to-income ratio, and retirement income replacement.

Next Steps: The next steps page details what they are missing and can receive if they request to upgrade and unlock their plan.

A Starter Plan does not include

A full financial plan, report card detail pages with applicable resources, financial literacy courses, planning modules, unlocked action items 2-5, custom providers, custom resources, any applicable user add-ons such as account aggregation, and can only see your contact information once they have submitted the unlock request.

Full plan request and contact submission

On each page of their new Savology account and starter plan, prospects are prompted to submit a request to unlock their full financial plan. When submitting a request to upgrade, they are required to provide their full name, email address, and phone number. They can also indicate if they want to allow the advisor to communicate with them via text message.

New prospect email notification

Once a prospect has submitted the request to unlock their full financial plan, the advisor immediately receives an email notification with the request and the prospect’s contact information. From here, it’s up to the advisor to take action to contact the individual and unlock their full financial plan.

Upgrading a prospect’s plan

When you are ready to upgrade a prospect to a full financial plan, you must move them from the prospecting group to another group with access to the full planning product. Here’s how:

Log in to your admin account and navigate to User Admin > Users where you will see a full list of active users
Search for and find the individual in the active user table and click on their name to enter the user details page for the user

On the Summary tab of the user details page, select Upgrade plan from the Actions section or Upgrade user plan from the Actions drop-down menu

In the modal that appears, you will see a drop-down menu with a list of groups to select from. Only user groups with access to full planning will appear in the drop-down menu.
Select the new group in the drop-down menu

You can also send the client an email notification by selecting the Send Email Notification option, which will let them know that their plan has been upgraded.
When finished, click on Apply change

Additional details & FAQs

What if some prospects sign up but don’t submit a request to upgrade?

You still have details and other ways to engage with prospects who don’t submit a request to upgrade right after signing up. You can track when they sign up and complete their survey in your activity feed and activity email notifications. You can also access their account and plan details from the active user list in your admin account.

For these prospects, you can still identify and capitalize on new client opportunities through additional outreach on your own. For example, you can add these individuals to an email sequence in your CRM or other marketing/email tool 1 to 2 weeks after signing up. These emails should add value and prompt the individual to meet with you or upgrade their plan.

How do I know when a prospect has created an account and plan?

An email is always sent to you when a prospect submits a request to upgrade their plan. However, depending on your settings and notification preferences, you may also receive daily, weekly, or monthly email summaries when other actions are taken by prospects. These include when a prospect creates their account and when they complete their financial profile survey.

These and other user actions are also logged in your Activity Feed, which you can access in your admin account by navigating to the Activity page where you will see a summary of user activities that have happened over the last 30 days.

How do I update my email activity notifications?

To review and update your email notification preferences:

Navigate to Activity > Email Summary and select the edit icon on the Preferences table to make updates to your preferences.
Turn email notifications On and select your desired frequency of email notifications. In this case, we recommend setting it to Daily since emails are only sent if any activities happened the day prior.
Lastly, select which activities you want to include in the email summary and select the save icon to update your changes. Make sure that New sign-ups and Survey completions are both turned on so you know when prospects take action.

Adjusting notification preferences

What happens if I don’t upgrade a prospect’s plan?

The prospect will still have access to their starter plan experience, but won’t be able to access their full plan.

Can I provide prospects with any other Savology products or features?

Yes, you can also provide prospects with access to literacy courses in the advanced settings for the group. In the group advanced settings on Available Products, only remove the Financial Plan option so that both the Starter financial plan and the Literacy products are listed. Users in these groups will have access to both the starter financial plan experience and literacy courses.

How do I see which products users have access to?

You can view the available products and features for a prospect by visiting their user details page. In your admin account, navigate to User Admin > Users. Find the individual in the active user table and click on their name or email address to visit their user details page.

The available products are listed as green tags next to the individual's name in the page header. If Starter Plan is listed, this indicates that the user only has limited access to the starter plan experience. If Financial Plan is listed, this indicates that the user has full access to the financial planning experience.

Can I still see the full financial plan for users with a Starter Plan?

Yes, you may still access and view a user’s full financial plan from the advisor portal even if the individual only has access to the Starter Plan experience. Here's how:

Go to User Admin > Users, locate the client in the Active User list, and click on their name or email address.
As long as the individual has completed the initial survey, you can access the full plan and deliverables in the Finance, Engagement, and Wellness tabs.