Don Connelly, Author at Don Connelly & Associates

Don A. Connelly is a speaker, motivator and educator for financial advisors. During a career of more than 40 years on Wall Street, he worked for nearly 19 years as company spokesperson, senior vice president and senior marketing officer for Putnam Investments, in addition to holding positions as a stock broker, financial planner, branch manager, wholesaler and national sales manager. As founder and CEO of Don Connelly 24/7, he provides timely and provocative sales ideas to thousands of financial professionals, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

How People Find a Financial Advisor

April 22, 2019 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

People search for financial advisors in various ways and via numerous channels. To ensure your appointment book is full, you need to identify where your potential clients are searching so you can focus your marketing efforts in these areas.

Potential clients often find a financial advisor in one (or more) of the following ways.

5 More Questions Prospects May Ask You before Deciding to Hire You as Their Financial Advisor

April 15, 2019 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

Choosing a financial advisor is a big decision for potential clients, especially if they’re new to the world of investing. Not only will they be looking for someone suitably qualified, they’ll be searching for someone who shares their goals and comes across as caring and authentic.

To try and deduce whether you’re the right fit for them, they’ll undoubtedly have questions. In this follow up to a previous post, let’s look at 5 more questions you may get asked in that first meeting.

A First-Time Opportunity: Join Don Connelly for a Full Day Workshop/Retreat in Sarasota

April 8, 2019 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices, What's New / 0 comments

Acquiring Effective Communication Skills – just 25 places available

I am conducting a one-day workshop for Financial Advisors seeking to improve their soft skills.The soft skills and verbal skills you need to get to the next level are not taught in training. Being book-smart is not enough to succeed as an Advisor. You have to be street-smart as well.

Elite Advisors are not outliers. They are hard workers who relentlessly strive to improve their people skills and their verbal skills. They know that people don’t simply decide to seek financial advice. They also decide who to seek it from. People looking for an Advisor are not looking for more information. They are looking for someone they can trust. EQ plays a far bigger role than IQ when it comes to gathering assets and opening accounts.

At this workshop, you will learn how to tell stories and use analogies; you will learn how to influence, educate and inspire people to take action and you will get an inside look at the shared traits and habits of the most elite Advisors I know.

4 Tasks You Can Delegate to Grow Your Business

April 1, 2019 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

To grow your business, you need to focus on what’s important and this generally means prospecting and meeting with clients. There will be a host of routine tasks that don’t require your continual, personal, input. Hopefully, you work with an assistant.

Identify your non-revenue generating activities – as well as activities that lie outside your core competencies – and delegate them. In this post we’ll look at 4 tasks you can and should be outsourcing – leaving you free to take on key areas of your business.

Why You Need to Find a Niche Market and How to Identify One

March 25, 2019 / by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 2 comments

The saying ‘you can’t please all the people all of the time’ is never truer than in this business. As a financial advisor you’re ill-advised to work with all and sundry – you’re far more likely to succeed if you can identify a profitable niche and become the ‘go to’ advisor in that area. Once you’re established in your target market potential clients will naturally head your way, keeping your sales funnel full.

You could base your selected niche on people you’ve enjoyed working with or those who share a similar background or interests. You could also decide to concentrate on working with people in a sector that is underserved. Here are three such niche markets you could consider.

When Do People Get a Financial Advisor?

March 18, 2019 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

No two clients are exactly alike. People generally get a financial advisor for a number of reasons. Therefore, you need a flexible process in place when it comes to approaching different prospects in accordance with their reasons for seeking financial advice.

Here are some cases when people get a financial advisor, along with their reasons for doing so and some recommendations on moving things forward.

The First Client Meeting: Are You Making Any of These 10 Common Mistakes?

March 11, 2019 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship, Prospecting / 0 comments

The First Client Meeting - 10 Common Mistakes

It’s all too easy to slip up in the first meeting and lose any opportunity to open the account – and this is especially true for new advisors.

In this post we’ll help you identify mistakes you could, without realizing it, be making. Take an honest appraisal – do you recognize yourself doing any of the following? If so, take action to fix these mistakes.

7 Things You Can Do for Clients to Show That You Care

March 4, 2019 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

If you are to be a successful financial advisor, you need to do more than simply manage money. You need to be great at managing relationships – in particular, you need to show your clients that you truly care about them.

If you care more than people expect you to care not only will clients remain loyal to you, but they’ll feel comfortable about referring you to friends, family and colleagues.

Here are 7 ways to show you care.

Sacrificing Instant Gratification

February 25, 2019 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

Don Connelly audio blog post - featured image

I was talking with an advisor in Beverly Hills and she asked me a question. She actually made an observation, but it was in the form of a question. She said to me that she finds it a bit odd that financial success is a function of delayed gratification in a world that insists on instant gratification. Do I have any thoughts about that? And the answer is ‘Yes, I do!”

Listen to this audio episode or read the transcript below to learn what Don Connelly thinks about sacrificing instant gratification.

5 Traits You Need to Have If You’re to Build Strong Relationships with Clients

February 18, 2019 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

Your personal likeability and trustworthiness are more important than your professional knowledge when it comes to winning and building enduring client relationships. Professional credentials, while important, are only a backstop to the forging of strong personal connections. Focus on developing your soft skills.

Here are five traits you need if you want to create long-lasting relationships with clients and become more referable.

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Articles by: Don Connelly