May 16, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
Not to diminish the hard work, effort, and time that goes into becoming a financial advisor—few professions are as demanding—but the essential skill advisors must acquire is the ability to sell. Perhaps a more acceptable term would be “the art of persuasion.” Whichever way you want to frame it, if you have difficulty persuading or convincing people to take action, you stand little chance of success.
Of course, that’s true of just about any profession that requires changing or influencing people’s behavior. It just happens to be more challenging when selling financial advice and expecting to get paid for it. Advisors must understand that buying an intangible service requiring people to trust that the advisor can deliver that intangible value is scary for most people. It’s far less threatening to stay with the status quo and do nothing.
The trouble is, if you can’t convince people to follow you or your advice, you aren’t accomplishing anything. To overcome the inherent trust deficit and open prospects’ minds, financial advisors must constantly refine three critical soft skills, or they will have fewer chances to demonstrate their highly trained competencies.
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First Meeting with a New Client—Preparation Checklist
May 23, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
The first meeting with a new client should be a momentous event for both you and the client. For your client, it’s the first opportunity to validate their decision to select you as their advisor. For you, it’s the first opportunity to showcase your professionalism and reinforce your new client’s decision. You both hope this will be the beginning of a long and trusting relationship.
As you prepare for your first client meeting, it’s critical to remember that you are being carefully evaluated. Your new client is essentially taking a leap of faith in choosing you, and you must always strive to make them feel like they have made the right choice. With that in mind, your first meeting sets the tone for the entire relationship. Plan it with care.
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3 Soft Skills Advisors Need to Refine for an Immediate Connection with Prospects
May 16, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
Not to diminish the hard work, effort, and time that goes into becoming a financial advisor—few professions are as demanding—but the essential skill advisors must acquire is the ability to sell. Perhaps a more acceptable term would be “the art of persuasion.” Whichever way you want to frame it, if you have difficulty persuading or convincing people to take action, you stand little chance of success.
Of course, that’s true of just about any profession that requires changing or influencing people’s behavior. It just happens to be more challenging when selling financial advice and expecting to get paid for it. Advisors must understand that buying an intangible service requiring people to trust that the advisor can deliver that intangible value is scary for most people. It’s far less threatening to stay with the status quo and do nothing.
The trouble is, if you can’t convince people to follow you or your advice, you aren’t accomplishing anything. To overcome the inherent trust deficit and open prospects’ minds, financial advisors must constantly refine three critical soft skills, or they will have fewer chances to demonstrate their highly trained competencies.
Read more
Keep Your Clients Focused on What’s Knowable and Important
May 9, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
The media has always run rampant with scary headlines. That’s how they increase readership or website traffic. However, in this period of increased market volatility, economic uncertainty, geopolitical upheaval, mixed COVID signals, and deepening political divisions, the headlines can be incredibly overwhelming or, at the very least, extremely distracting.
Trying to consume all the news coming at us 24/7 is like trying to drink from a firehose. It’s critical to understand that the barrage of bad news and hype around market events can trigger emotional reactions that often lead to making costly decisions around their finances.
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3 Steps to Build Your Self Confidence Regardless of Your Experience Level
April 25, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 2 comments
At some point in their careers, every financial advisor suffers from the affliction of self-doubt. For most of us, it overcomes us at the beginning of our careers. For some, it can linger on for several years. Heck, even experienced advisors have bouts of self-doubt, but they tend to be rare. Whatever the reason for it, self-doubt or lack of self-confidence can be a career killer or, at the very least, a painful way to go through life.
There probably isn’t an advisor among us who early on thought to themselves, “Why would anyone want to work with me?” “I work in a cubicle. I’m just a few years out of college. Many of the people I talk to are old enough to be my parents. The younger ones are successful in their careers. What business do I have telling them how to become financially successful?”
Sound familiar?
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3 Key Steps Remote Advisors Must Take to Make Emotional Connections with Clients
April 18, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
Now that the pandemic is waning, many advisors are choosing to continue working remotely, finding that it increases their efficiency and that their clients enjoy the convenience of virtual communication. Many advisors and clients alike also enjoy the flexibility of a remote relationship. It appears that, on the surface, this new advisory model can be a win-win for advisors and their clients.
While that is sure to change the advisor-client dynamic, one thing that won’t change is the need for advisors to make an emotional, personal connection with their new clients as a prerequisite for an enduring relationship. But just how do advisors accomplish that virtually?
While the same things that can be said in person can be said virtually, there’s still a physical distance that needs to be made up. Virtual eye contact is not the same as physical eye contact. There’s a virtual buffer that diminishes the personal presence people feel. Without being able to see the full range of a person’s body language, how do you know if you are making an emotional connection?
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Not Getting Through to Your Clients? 5 Ways to Step Up Your Engagement
April 11, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
Most financial advisors understand the importance of client communications. Those who don’t find out the hard way that poor or infrequent communications is the number one reason clients leave their financial advisor, according to a Financial Advisor Magazine survey. But what if you feel you have a deliberate client communications strategy, yet your clients seem to be unresponsive or not engaging with you at a level that gives you confidence they are fully on board?
That’s not a good feeling, and it should sound alarms if you hope to maximize client retention.
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Self-Discipline Is Key
April 4, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
An Advisor once sent me this message:
“You mentioned in one of your webinars that talent by itself means nothing. The key is to develop that talent into a skill. In your opinion, what is the most underappreciated skill among great advisors?”
Listen to this audio episode or read the transcript below to learn what I think great Advisors’ most underrated asset or skill is.
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Want Your Clients to Take Their Financial Plan Seriously? Keep It Front and Center in Your Relationship
March 28, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
It wasn’t so long ago that clients perceived financial plans as an extension of the prospecting process to entice them to open an account and hand over their money. Many financial advisors feigned the role as a financial planner to create the perception of objectivity with the recommendations they would make. Clients received a faux leather-bound financial plan that just took up shelf space, never to be revisited by them or their advisor.
Fast forward to today, and we see an increasing number of financial advisors who are committed to a more holistic approach to working with clients, making the financial plan a critical cornerstone of their relationships. That, of course, is in response to what more and more clients are looking for in their advisor relationships—a plan that addresses the entirety of their financial life to guide them in life-critical decisions.
Why is it then that the value of a well-conceived financial plan seems to wane among clients who, further into the advisory relationship, begin to question their advisor’s advice or express disenchantment because their investments are underperforming their neighbor’s or colleagues’ portfolio? What do advisors need to do to get their clients to refocus on what’s really important?
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Mapping Out the Client Acquisition Timeline—How Long It Takes to Get a New Client
March 14, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship, Prospecting / 0 comments
New clients are the lifeblood of a financial advisory practice, without which it could go into cardiac arrest. For newer financial advisors, acquiring new clients can’t happen fast enough. However, if obtaining clients was easy, anyone could be a successful financial advisor. Starting out, it’s an uphill battle that only the most determined can eventually win.
It also helps to have a systematic process for capturing leads, nurturing them through the sales funnel, and converting them into prospects, out of which a certain percentage become clients. That’s all laid out on a timeline that can vary significantly depending on the type of lead, where it came from, and how effective your process is for cultivating the lead. It could take anywhere from one month to a year for a lead to complete the journey through the funnel to becoming a new client.
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Put Success in Perspective, Be Humble and Believe in Yourself
March 7, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices, Connelly Corner / 0 comments
One of the challenges we all face is staying humble in the face of success. We work very hard to attain success. Stay humble when you do, and you’re going to be successful. I have a story I love about being humble, about putting success into perspective. It’s a story about the Vancouver Winter Olympics.
Watch this video or read the transcript below to learn the story about two Alpine skiers who achieved their two, very different goals at the Olympics.
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