Why Both You and Your Client Need the Skill of Visualization
Naturally your clients read the papers, watch the news, and use the internet to see what’s happening to their investments, they’re interested. And there will be bumps in the road. Keeping clients fully invested in the face of bad news is hard to do, so how do you get them to grin and bear it?
When someone sees their portfolio go down it’s your job to refocus them on the road ahead.
To keep them focused on the long term create a goal they can see, touch and feel. Create within them an urge so strong it can overcome a falling market. Remind them that if they stick to the plan they will earn the retirement they deserve. Get them to describe how they see themselves in their perfect retirement – is it playing golf, living in a condo?
By getting your clients to visualize the future you can get them to stick to the plan and maintain a positive attitude in a bad market.
A great vision story will shrink everyday problems and refocus clients on the payoff
If you want to keep your clients on track, it’s essential to maintain the integrity of the relationship, hold their hands, and emphasize that you’re there with them for the long run. But you must also ensure they envision for themselves the ultimate reward if they stick to the plan.
Create a happy ending, a vision story, expand in detail what they want to do. Convey it so they don’t forget, make it attainable, real and palpable. Eliminate the doubt. You’re leading them on a journey, but the real focus is the destination – give them sufficient reasons to overcome obstacles on the way, reasons to invest in the long haul.
Success is a result of delayed gratification.
When left to their own devices people generally don’t do what’s best for them. They put off quitting smoking until tomorrow, or make bad decisions about food because it’s hard to change bad habits. That’s why only 1% of people take any notice of health campaigns. And when we’re talking money it’s even harder to get people to do the right things.
When it comes to financial health a financial advisor is as important as a doctor is for physical health. It involves getting them to do the right thing, which takes discipline. So use a vision story combined with a teaching story to explain what long term investing will do for your clients. Teach your clients the importance of long term investing by painting the future in colors, make an emotional connection. Money is after all a very emotive subject.
Try to make them understand that overspending today spells trouble in the long run and that a lack of patience kills a long term investment plan.
Visualization is a valuable tool for you, too
How can you make sure your meetings go the right way? Just like a golf pro, visualize the ‘shot’, where you want the ball to end up and where it’s going to land. Before you sit down with clients or prospects visualize how you want the meeting to end up and make sure you guide it there. Be confident, be professional and dictate the outcome. If you can ‘see’ that the meeting will be a success before it happens there’s a great chance of it really happening.
Only you can wake up and decide what your attitude will be. So ‘decide’ to be positive, go in with a positive attitude and you will end up where you want to end up. Visualize yourself at the top of your profession. Implement visualization techniques into your daily life to gain mental control and overcome adversity. Feel as if you’re in the winning position and help this to make you more task focused.
Once you’ve visualized yourself into pole position it’s time get on with the task and make it happen.
