Don Connelly, Soft Skills Trainer for Financial Professionals

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.

Now Is the Time to Take Your Video Marketing to the Next Level

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As a result of the covid19 pandemic, both advisors and their clients have discovered the benefits of virtual communications. For clients, it has resulted in more convenient, expeditious, and personalized communications from their advisors, which they value tremendously.

For advisors, it has resulted in greater efficiency, more visibility, and more opportunities to connect with prospective and current clients, which translates into more growth and profitability. To a great extent, advisors have been able to turn an obstacle into an opportunity by adopting video conferencing and webinars with great success.

However, with the adoption of virtual communications, advisors have only scratched the surface of technology’s potential to transform their business. Imagine what could happen if advisors take full advantage of the technologies available today that have increased visibility, customer satisfaction, and retention, and converted more leads in other industries for several years.

Let’s take, for example, how tech-savvy Financial Advisors are turning to video marketing and live streaming as a way to get their message out.

6 Tech Essentials for Financial Advisors

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Unquestionably, the advisory industry has been experiencing a significant transformation. Through advances in technology and the democratization of investing, financial advice is quickly becoming commoditized, much to the detriment of Financial Advisors who continue to languish in traditional business models. Today, adopting the right technology is becoming table stakes for advisors who want to maintain the trust of their clients and stand out in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

6 Marketing Ideas for Financial Advisors Adapting to a Post-COVID World

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The recent COVID diagnosis of President Trump, the First Lady, and a number of other White House staff should be a wake-up call to all of us. Don’t get cocky, and don’t get lazy. While it’s not as lethal as many of us feared in February and March, it’s still a very contagious virus.

So, it’s going to be a while before we can go pressing flesh in person like so many advisors have done for generations. Gone are the Chamber meet-and-greets and going door-to-door doing face-to-face prospecting with business owners.

But people still have financial needs, and we’ve got to find ways to reach them. Don’t get call shy! Now more than ever, people need to hear from us!

That means most of us need to be upgrading and modernizing our marketing approach in the Era of COVID.

Why It’s Critical for Advisors to Build Online Influence

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The most significant transfer of wealth between generations is underway right now. For Financial Advisors, it could be an extraordinary opportunity, or it could threaten their very survival. Ultimately, it’s a matter of trust.

Do investors have trust issues with Financial Advisors? A study by the CFA Institute revealed that the financial services industry is among the least trusted industry. Only half of those surveyed indicated they trust the financial service professionals to do what’s right. In a separate survey, the CFP Board found that just 40% of investors trust financial advisors to put their interests first.

Of the emerging group of affluent investors, millennial and Gen Z investors – the ultimate beneficiaries of the great $30 trillion wealth transfer occurring over the next 30 years – may be the least trustful.

Create an Elevator Speech that Wins

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Yes, I’m a huge believer in stories, and in taking time to build value in your services, your brand, and in taking a detailed fact-finder, so you can make your engagement truly client-centered and set yourself up for the close.

But as we all know, many times there just isn’t enough time.

Sometimes you don’t have a leisurely lunch appointment. Sometimes it’s just a meeting engagement: A shared Uber ride, a shared elevator. That’s why you need an “elevator speech.”

Before we get into what constitutes a good elevator speech, let’s think about what you want your elevator speech to accomplish for you.

In 30 seconds or less, a good elevator speech should accomplish the following:

Establish your unique value proposition (UVP).
Establish a reason to initiate contact later.
Establish the means to initiate that contact.
Set up the expectation of contact.

Let’s look at each one in turn.

5 Signs a Prospective Client Will Avoid Digital Engagement

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For years, the financial industry has lagged in its adaption of digital tools to market to, communicate with, and manage the relationships of clients. While Financial Advisors have gradually, sometimes begrudgingly, come to embrace new technologies, the covid19 pandemic this year has accelerated their digital transformation.

For growth-focused advisors, the crisis has been a catalyst for creating more digitally-oriented business development strategies. For example, according to Fidelity, the use of video conferencing for client interactions has doubled since the pandemic hit. In a survey by Ernst & Young, 55% of advisors say they plan to use virtual meetings more in the future.

As with most trends shaping the financial services industry, clients are leading the change. With 64% of high-net-worth clients and 75% of mass-affluent clients counting on their advisor relationship to be digital, it’s not just millennial clients who prefer a virtual relationship. For the most part, advisors are adjusting well to the change, finding it more productive and more effective at building their business. It also opens up more opportunities to find and work with clients who live in other parts of the country.

Convincing Clients of the Futility of Market Timing

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We will probably never admit it, but most of us are lousy timers, and, of course, none of us can predict the future. How often have you tried to shift your way through stop and go freeway traffic to end up in the slowest lane again? For investors who try to time the market, the actual costs of underperformance and lost opportunity are invariably greater than the potential benefit.

Helping Clients Understand the Normalcy of Market Corrections

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As a financial advisor, you work closely with your clients to craft investment strategies tailored to their objectives and risk profiles, and then monitor them over time. That very well may be the easy part of your client relationship. The more significant challenge you have as an advisor is to make sure your clients stay the course with their strategy even in the midst of a steep market correction.

One of the primary responsibilities of a financial advisor is to convey to their clients that the only concern they should have about a market downturn is not how deep it falls or how long it lasts, but how they react to it. After all, no one can predict when a market correction will occur, but we know that it will. After the longest bull market in history, clients tend to forget that stock prices can go down as well as up, and that market corrections are quite normal. That confers upon advisors the responsibility of educating their clients on the inevitability of market corrections and how they should react to them.

How to Build Your ‘Why I Am Here’ Story

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Your ‘why I am here’ story is an essential market differentiator. First of all, not every financial advisor even has one – other than to make money. And out of those who really do have a client-centered reason for being in this business, not all of them are able to express it. So if you have a real reason you come to work every day, and you’re able to articulate it in a way that makes sense to the clients and gives them a reason to work with you, you’re already way ahead of the competition.

That’s why you need a “why I am here” story.

But the ability to articulate your story in a way that makes it stick is essential. You don’t want to get lost in the details. You don’t want to get sidetracked. You don’t want to get interrupted while you’re trying to tell it. And you don’t want to bore the listener!

4 Challenges Financial Advisors Face in the New Digital Environment – And Solutions

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There’s no doubt about it: The past six months have changed our business. It’s not just because those of us in the financial advisory business have changed. Our markets and our clients have changed, too. Their habits and behaviors are different.

Case in point: Those of us of a certain age remember closing lots of sales at the kitchen table – often late at night. But with the pandemic, few people are going to invite a salesperson into their home. That way of doing business was disappearing even before the pandemic. Now it may be gone forever.

Here are four communications challenges your peers are facing – and a few words on some possible solutions. We’ll have more in depth content on each of these topics in the future. But here are the basics to get you started.

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Articles by: Don Connelly