Don Connelly, Author at Don Connelly & Associates

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.

Objection Handling – Is It Possible to Forestall Objections?

September 18, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Don Guest Authoring at..., Prospecting / 0 comments

This is a guest post by Don Connelly, originally published on FA Magazine website.

The late Zig Ziglar observed that every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, or no trust. Which of these obstacles is a Financial Advisor likely to experience and can they be forestalled?

We can eliminate three of those obstacles as unlikely.

How Interpersonal Relationships Lead to You Being Trusted

September 15, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

By now you know my belief about gathering assets. If someone likes you, trusts you and thinks you are smart, you get the assets. If another Advisor ranks higher in those categories, he or she gets the assets.

Follow the Golden Rule and you will be likable. Simplify the business so that your listener can understand every word you say and you will be perceived as smart.

Do what you say you are going to do and you will earn the other person’s trust.

Like most things in life, the solution to each of these perceptions is simple. It’s not easy, but it is simple.

What Are The Most Important Networking Skills for Financial Advisors?

September 11, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

Networking is an important prospecting tool, especially for newer Advisors who have a paucity of clients. Probably the two most common ways to network are via social media or face-to-face. Both methods are effective if done correctly.

The concept of networking is not new. In fact, it is two thousand years old. It would not have survived if it didn’t work. Getting ahead in the business world has a lot more to do with who you know than what you know.

While networking is pretty straight forward, there are specific skills involved. It involves a lot more than simply handing out business cards. Like other prospecting methods, networking entails being brilliant at the basics.

What Does ‘Think on Your Feet’ Mean for a Financial Advisor?

September 4, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices, Don Guest Authoring at... / 0 comments

An idiom is a phrase that cannot be taken literally. For anyone learning English, it must be disconcerting to hear that it’s raining cats and dogs outside. You and I know it’ll rain cats and dogs when pigs fly.

Think on your feet is just such an idiom.

Every Financial Advisor knows what it means to think and speak without special preparation. Being forced to think this way is neither fun nor comfortable. And it can lead to an awkward moment. We all wait for the train wreck when a speaker who is dependent on a teleprompter wanders off course. We all wander off course at one time or another.

Are You Good at Dealing with Difficult Clients?

August 25, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 2 comments

Am I oversimplifying things? - AskDON episode

Difficult clients are not unique. Every Advisor has encountered or will encounter obstreperous personalities. There are many reasons why clients become difficult. Let’s make this easy and say we are dealing with a personality clash. A decision has to be made: keep him or fire him. Let’s explore both choices.

Firing a client is difficult if you don’t like confrontation or hurting someone’s feelings.

How to Manage Your Emotions in Difficult Situations

August 21, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

Managing Your Emotions in Difficult Situations

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.

Why Some People Choose Not to Do Business with You

August 18, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Don Guest Authoring at..., Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

Why Choose Not to Do Business with Some Financial Advisors

This is a guest post by Don Connelly for FA Magazine. He shares his insights about the three reasons why some people choose not to do business with certain Financial Advisors. Here’s how the post goes.

I’m sure you rarely, if ever, get the chance to ask someone why he or she chose a competitor over you. If you were able to ask, you probably wouldn’t get a straight answer, anyway. People would rather lie to your face than hurt your feelings.

Every Time You Sit with a Client, Your Leadership Skills Are on Display

August 11, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

I want to remind you that next to the family doctor, you are the most important person a family will meet. You are not a vendor. You are the person who has been chosen to lead this family to their safe retirement heaven. The burden is on them to make the sacrifices necessary to guarantee peace of mind in their later years. The burden of you is to make sure they do it.

Building Your Business with These 12 Tips for Financial Advisors

August 7, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices, Don Guest Authoring at... / 0 comments

This is one of Don Connelly’s guest posts over at FA Magazine, giving you 12 tips how to build a better and more enjoyable business.

1) Get really good at what you do. Do the ordinary things extraordinarily well.

Maximize Your Efficiency

August 4, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

Michael from Bank of America asks how many hours a week he should be working to get to a certain level. The answer lies in the productivity of his work hours.

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Articles by: Don Connelly