/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
Most people suffer from financial stress at some point—whether it’s dealing with high inflation or a volatile stock market. That’s to be expected, and we’ve provided tips on how financial advisors can help “de-stress” their clients.
However, when clients suffer from financial anxiety, it creates a new set of challenges for financial advisors. While stress can make a person worry about their financial situation, financial anxiety can be paralyzing, making it virtually impossible to move your client in any direction.
It’s easy to understand why a client might be stressed about something. Stress is typically triggered by identifiable external factors, such as a plummeting market or job loss. Because it is often tied to a specific event or issue, it usually subsides when the problem is resolved.
However, anxiety triggers are hidden beneath the surface, often with deep emotional or psychological roots. It may not be tied to a specific financial situation. Instead, it’s an emotional state influenced by fears of what could go wrong financially, even when there’s no immediate threat. If you can’t get to the root of the anxiety, you will be powerless to help your client.
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Best Practices for Using Digital Tools to Improve Lead Generation
/ by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments
It took a while, but the financial advisory industry has finally caught up with the technology transformation that has been underway for more than a decade. That means digital lead generation is no longer optional; it is now indispensable to successful advisory practices.
While the core of financial advising remains rooted in personal relationships, digital tools offer unparalleled opportunities to expand reach, streamline processes, and enhance client engagement. They are no longer a luxury but essential to a robust lead generation strategy.
This post will delve into actionable best practices for financial advisors to leverage digital tools effectively, ensuring you can confidently navigate this digital landscape and achieve tangible results.
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The Evolution of Lead Generation: How Digitalization is Changing the Game for Financial Advisors
/ by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments
Financial advisors understand that a steady stream of qualified leads is the lifeblood of a thriving practice and a cornerstone of success in the financial advisory profession. Traditionally, lead generation has consisted of relation-based strategies, such as referrals, networking, and personal connections. However, as the financial services industry finally enters the digital age, the lead generation landscape has evolved significantly.
Digital tools and online platforms have introduced new ways to attract, engage, and convert potential clients, offering advisors greater efficiency and scalability in their client acquisition efforts. Understanding and embracing this shift is crucial for financial advisors looking to remain competitive in an increasingly digital world.
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Client Values: How Financial Advisors Can Discover and Use Them to Strengthen Trust and Loyalty
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
The first law of financial advice is that clients don’t make financial decisions based on the financial advisor’s reasons; they make them based on their reasons, which are almost invariably based on the client’s core values. While expertise and financial acumen are essential for dispensing advice, advisors must understand that it is their clients’ core values that truly matter to them and are the primary drivers of their decision-making.
Advisors who understand and embrace the importance of aligning their advice with their client’s values can better differentiate themselves and build stronger, more meaningful relationships. This blog post will explore why client values matter, how to identify them, and how integrating them into your practice can foster unshakeable trust, cultivate unwavering loyalty, and ultimately create a more fulfilling and successful advisory experience.
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Long-Term Care: Help Your Clients Prepare While There’s Still Time
/ by Don Connelly / Long-term Care / 0 comments
Over the course of my career coaching and mentoring Financial Advisors, I’ve prided myself on staying product neutral. I’ve always believed that my value lies in helping Advisors build trust, sharpen their communication skills, and become more persuasive and empathetic—not in recommending specific financial products. I’ve never picked sides. Never told you what to sell. That changes today.
For the first time ever, I am recommending a product: the Bridge® annuity by EquiTrust. And I want to explain why I’m doing this—and why it matters so deeply to me.
This isn’t about commissions. It’s not about product placement. It’s not about jumping on a bandwagon.
It’s about preparation—specifically, preparation for one of the biggest risks to retirement that no one wants to talk about: the need for long-term care.
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Turning Global Economic Trends into Stories That Inspire Action and Build Confidence
/ by Don Connelly / Storytelling, analogies and power phrases / 0 comments
Did you know that by 2050, 70% of the global population will live in urban areas? What does this mean for your clients? Successful advisors go beyond reacting to short-term events such as market volatility and its impact on client portfolios. Instead, they proactively address long-term economic trends that shape their financial futures.
As a financial advisor, you are tasked with helping clients navigate complex and ever-changing economic landscapes. While data and charts are helpful tools, they can sometimes overwhelm or confuse your clients rather than provide clarity. As we have emphasized in past posts, the key to effective communication lies in storytelling, turning global economic trends into compelling narratives to engage, educate, and inspire action.
By framing your financial advice in a broader context of economic trends, you help your clients understand their significance. This allows them to make more informed decisions and reinforces confidence in their financial strategies.
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Beyond Demographics: Finding Your Niche Through Psychographics and Client Values
/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments
We’ve posted several times why advisors have a greater opportunity for success when they narrow their focus and concentrate on developing a niche. It has been proven that trying to grow your business by casting a wide net to find prospects is a waste of time, effort, and resources. The crowded advisory landscape demands that advisors differentiate themselves and become more specialized to be recognized as the best-of-breed for a specific type of clientele that can be served effectively and profitably.
The challenge for financial advisors is identifying a niche in which they can thrive. Traditionally, advisors have relied on demographic factors to define their niche. However, while demographics provide a foundational understanding of who your prospective clients are, they don’t reveal their motivations—what truly drives their decisions. Enter psychographics—the study of values, lifestyle choices, and personality traits that shape financial behaviors.
When financial advisors tap into a target market’s psychographics, they can lead to deeper relationships, more targeted and effective marketing, and a more fulfilling practice. This article explores how you can find and serve niche markets by understanding your clients’ values, lifestyles, and motivations.
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Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace: Enhancing Collaboration Among Financial Advisory Teams
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
As we’ve posted before, Emotional Intelligence (EI), the ability to understand and manage one’s emotions while being sensitive to the emotions of others, is a critical factor in a financial advisor’s success. Advisors with strong EI are more adept at navigating sensitive conversations, helping clients overcome anxieties, and recognizing underlying fears or hopes that are explicitly communicated.
With sharper emotional acuity, they are able to build stronger and more enduring trust-based relationships.
For those same reasons, emotional intelligence in the workplace is also a critical factor for success. Studies show that teams with high EI outperform those with low EI by up to 20%. While financial advisors focus on building emotional intelligence for client relationships, their role in fostering effective team collaboration is just as vital.
Strong EI within advisory teams leads to improved communication, trust, and resilience—key elements for navigating high-stakes decisions and complex financial strategies. This post explores how financial advisory teams can harness emotional intelligence to enhance collaboration, improve team dynamics, and drive business success.
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Leveraging Social Proof: How Financial Advisors Can Use Client Testimonials and Case Studies to Engage Millennial Investors
/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments
It’s well established that many millennials almost entirely rely on the internet for their daily consumption of information and social engagement. They would rather seek information for themselves than be told what is true. For these digital natives, if it can’t be found on the Web, it doesn’t exist. Or, if it can’t be validated through a quick internet search, it is not to be trusted.
It’s also true that millennials trust reviews and peer recommendations more than any other generation. According to BrightLocal, 91% of millennials rely on online reviews to make purchasing decisions—a trend that extends to choosing financial advisors. This reliance on social proof underscores the need for financial advisors to adapt their marketing strategies.
Social proof, the concept that people look to others’ actions or opinions to inform their own, is a powerful tool for building credibility and trust. This article explores how financial advisors can leverage client testimonials and case studies to connect with millennial investors and turn prospects into loyal clients.
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Beyond Compliance: Cultivating a Culture of Ethical Decision-Making for Financial Advisors
/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
It’s taken nearly two decades for the financial services industry to overcome the massive trust deficit that sprung from the 2008 Financial Crisis. The good news is financial advisors are once again viewed as the most trusted source of financial advice, with nearly two-thirds of retail investors expressing a high level of trust. The bad news is that it takes just one ethical lapse, intentional or not, to erase that hard-earned goodwill.
However, as highly effective advisors know, clients don’t simply hand over their trust; advisors must earn it. Ethical conduct is one of the most critical factors clients consider in building trust with their advisors. Regulatory compliance may establish a baseline and guardrails to keep you on the straight and narrow path of ethical practices. However, ethical decision-making transcends the checklists and rules, aiming to prioritize client interests above all else.
In this post, we’ll explore actionable strategies for cultivating a culture of ethics in financial advisory practices and demonstrate how this approach strengthens trust, enhances client satisfaction, and builds long-term success.
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