October 16, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
There was a time in the not-so-distant past when the only skill you needed to succeed in financial services was how to sell. The business of selling investments was almost entirely transactional, and all a financial advisor needed to do was shake the bushes for prospects and close them on a product sale. It was not easy by any means, and only the most tenacious advisors survived.
Certainly, that required some skill, but most were learned through memorizing scripts and drilling on closing techniques. The rest was all about persistence in dialing the phone.
Fast forward to today, and the game has changed drastically. With compensation coming largely from recurring revenue from assets under management or planning fees, advisors have had to develop an entirely new skill set. Tenaciousness, persistence, dogged determination, and knowing how to sell are still essential, but they take a back seat to more critical skills needed to succeed in the business today. Here are five such acquired skills you need to master.
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Top 5 Critical Acquired Skills Financial Advisors Need for Success
October 16, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
There was a time in the not-so-distant past when the only skill you needed to succeed in financial services was how to sell. The business of selling investments was almost entirely transactional, and all a financial advisor needed to do was shake the bushes for prospects and close them on a product sale. It was not easy by any means, and only the most tenacious advisors survived.
Certainly, that required some skill, but most were learned through memorizing scripts and drilling on closing techniques. The rest was all about persistence in dialing the phone.
Fast forward to today, and the game has changed drastically. With compensation coming largely from recurring revenue from assets under management or planning fees, advisors have had to develop an entirely new skill set. Tenaciousness, persistence, dogged determination, and knowing how to sell are still essential, but they take a back seat to more critical skills needed to succeed in the business today. Here are five such acquired skills you need to master.
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Six Ways Financial Advisors Can Establish Trust in Today’s Virtual World
November 16, 2020 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
You can have all the technical and market skill in the world. But if people don’t trust you, you’re not going to open new accounts.
It’s just a fact of life in sales: If people don’t trust you, their defensive mechanisms are going to be up during the entire sales process. If you’re lucky, they’ll tell you. At least that way, you get to face the trust issue head on. That might give you a fighting chance.
But more often than not, you’ll be met with polite silence, and the dreaded “we’ll give you a call if we decide to do anything.”
If you hear that, chances are you whiffed on the trust issue.
After all, if you had their trust, they’d be looking for ways to talk themselves into doing business with you!
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11 Must-Have First-Year Financial Advisor Goals
March 23, 2020 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
It’s tough making it through your first year in the financial advisor business. It’s going to be even tougher without some specific goals to give you focus. If you set goals though, you’ll have some framework for deciding how to manage your time and money.
Your first=year financial advisor goals should be as specific as possible – so you know when you’ve achieved them. And write them down: People who write down their goals are 33% more successful at attaining them than people who keep their goals in their heads.
Here are some of the most important objectives for your first year as a financial advisor.
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Becoming a Financial Advisor Is Not All About Getting Licensed
May 20, 2019 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
Naturally, you need to be sufficiently educated and qualified if you are to do the job of a financial advisor. But that’s not nearly enough. Financial advisors require a unique skill set that consists of not only technical knowledge and business skills but also excellent interpersonal ‘soft’ skills.
Many advisors enter the industry mistakenly believing the former skills are more important than the latter. That’s why so many advisors leave the trade in their first year – because they weren’t able to cut through the noise and attract enough clients.
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Five Reasons Advisors Needn’t Fear Technology
July 23, 2018 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
People are becoming increasingly adept at – and comfortable with – interacting with computers. This is fueling the debate around the merits of automated versus face-to-face financial advice. In reality, there’s no reason why both forms of communication can’t happily co-exist.
Technology can be a powerful aid to advisors when it comes to prospecting, building and maintaining relationships but it cannot replace the job of a full-service advisor. Here’s why.
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You Need both Hard and Soft Skills to Succeed as a Financial Advisor
February 12, 2018 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
You can’t offer financial advice until you have the necessary training and education under your belt. Learning the technical side is fundamental to your career, so that you can recommend appropriate products as well as adhere to the increasingly strict industry regulations.
But hard skills alone won’t secure you success. Even if you’re highly competent with technical information and product knowledge, unless you also possess the right soft skills, you won’t get your message across. Without excellent communication and interpersonal skills, you won’t get past the first post. That’s because prospects won’t understand what you’re saying or see why they should do business with you.
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Five Skills That Will Make You Stand Apart from The Crowd
August 1, 2016 / by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments
Hard skills can be learned from a book. They’re the skills most of us spent 16 years in school focusing on. In contrast, there’s no clear path to learning soft skills. Soft skills have to be learnt ‘on the job’ via experience and with trial and error.
Soft skills are at the very heart of what it is to be a great financial advisor. They are the skills that will mark you out from the crowd. So make sure you excel at soft skills by putting in a lot of practice. And persevere.
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How to Manage Your Emotions in Difficult Situations
August 21, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
You know by now that I believe the development and use of certain soft skills contributes far more to our success than does the development and use of hard skills. Self-awareness is just such a soft skill. The importance of being aware of and controlling our emotions cannot be overstated.
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Where You End Up in Life Has Less to Do with Your IQ than You Might Think
October 24, 2013 / by Don Connelly / Presentation Skills / 0 comments
To perform the many financial and arithmetical tasks required of an Advisor requires a high IQ. Therefore, most, if not all, successful Financial Advisors have a high IQ.
If we all have high IQ’s, if we are all well trained, if we all work hard, if we all chase the same business, and if a prospect must choose one among us, IQ can’t possibly be the sole, determining factor in a prospect’s mind.
Who, then, among all these smart Advisors, gets the new account?
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