Hanoi isn’t the first city that comes to mind when you think about British expats.
Its shabby looking house fronts and soundtrack of honking cars and trucks give it an edge you might not expect from the capital of one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.
But Hanoi is where I chose to build my career as a financial planner.
Vietnam is one of those places still on the 'frontier' of the global markets.
Expats who live here can find great success and make a truly meaningful contribution to a developing economy, whether in professional services, education, manufacturing, hospitality or elsewhere.
That said, the offshore financial planning profession has a mixed reputation. A lot of long-term expats here have been bombarded over the years with LinkedIn messages and cold calls by offshore financial advisers trying to hook them in for a meeting.
And many just get fed up.
A while ago I told someone what I do at a networking event only to have them raise both their hands in front of them and say “I don’t need any advice!".
It’s no surprise.
Generic, copy-pasted outreach is unauthentic and irritating. I can’t help but think “p**s off” every time someone leaves an auto-message with a LinkedIn connection request. That invasive little box pinging up in the corner of my screen.
Many advisers are still convinced that the best way to sell their services is to play the numbers game.
I’m not going to sit here and argue that reaching out to 100 people a day isn’t going to land a meeting — but is there not a more efficient (and less soul-destroying) way of doing things?
I’ve personally had more success with individually tailored messages offering to bring McVities digestives to meetings with British expats.
Perhaps its the sentiment, or perhaps they just figured I wasn’t willing to put 100 packs of biscuits a day on the line to grow my business.
Taking advantage of a bout of the dreaded 'man flu' was another successful business generation tactic, with my barely audible, croaky LinkedIn voice memos presumably less intimidating than an all-smiles salesman sounding like he just downed half of Ethiopia’s annual coffee exports.
And of course, nothing beats a firm handshake and leaving my business cards at home.
Having given out thousands of business cards in my life, I don’t think I’ve ever received an inquiry from handing one out — even with the subtle off-white colouring, the tasteful thickness of them.
My God, they even have a watermark.
We do so many little things, simply because we've always done them…but maybe they don’t work?
