/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
If you are to be chosen as someone’s Financial Advisor, you must pass three tests. The person must like you and think you are smart, but, most importantly, the person must trust you. There is no substitute for trust.
When mom and dad leave you after that first meeting, they do not talk about convexity or tactical asset allocation.
They ask themselves one question: “Do you trust him? Do you trust her?” If the answer is ‘no’ or ‘not really’, you stand no chance of getting those folks as clients. There are too many other Advisors they can turn to.
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Self-awareness Helps You Understand How People Perceive You
/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
As a Financial Advisor, your image is all-important. You’ve got to get it right. The burden is on you to decide how you want people to perceive you. As you are crafting your image, be reminded that every word you say and every move you make are advertisements. In too many cases, there is a big difference between what the Advisor thinks he is sending as an image and what the world perceives.
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Acquiring Negotiating Skills Will Help You Open More Accounts
/ by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments
When a prospective client is trying to decide between you and the Advisor across the street, you need to make the case that you are the obvious choice and the prospective client has to agree with your conclusion.
The time will surely arise in your career when a client wants to move his or her account to another Advisor.
The time will surely arise in your career when a client feels she deserves a lower fee. The time will surely arise in your career when a client balks at a suggested course of action. The time may very well arise when a client decides to manage his account himself. All these issues must be resolved tactfully.
Any dialogue intended to reach an understanding is a negotiation and negotiating involves specific skills.
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Why Storytelling Is Important for Financial Advisors
/ by Don Connelly / Don Guest Authoring at..., Storytelling, analogies and power phrases / 0 comments
Today we’ll share the latest post Don Connelly wrote for Financial Advisor Magazine – it’s about storytelling and more specifically, why storytelling is important for Financial Advisors.
You are not judged by what you say. You are judged by what the other person hears. That’s one reason of many why you should become a great storyteller. Stories help you get your point across better than any other form of communication. Stories stir emotions.
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Empathize, Don’t Sympathize
/ by Don Connelly / Investing Wisdom / 0 comments
There is never a convenient time to invest. The market is too high, the market is too low, we need a new kitchen first and a million other reasons are readily available. The toughest investment decision every prospective investor faces is the decision to do it. This is where you must play bad cop.
A big part of your job is getting people to do what they don’t always want to do.
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Good Manners Will Endear You to More People than You Realize
/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 1 comment
The euphemism ‘Silent Majority’ most likely dates to the 1830’s in America. It originally signified dead people, there being more dead people throughout history than living people at any moment in time. It slipped into our political vocabulary in the 20th century. Today the phrase denotes an unspecified large majority of people in a country or group who do not express their opinions publicly. There are so many things about which people simply do not speak up. One such thing is rudeness.
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Sociability Is the Skill of Interacting Well with Others
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 2 comments
The definition of sociability sounds mild: the quality or state of being sociable. The significance of sociability is anything but.
Sociability spawns likeability and likeability cannot be overstated in a business based on strong relationships.
People do business with people they like. An Advisor who does not have good social skills is probably not going to be likeable; and Advisors who are not likeable don’t last too long. They just don’t interact well.
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Your Clients Look to You for Leadership
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
The more uncertain the times, the more certainty clients want from you. They want you and they expect you to guide them to their goals. Like it or not, you are depended upon for your leadership skills. This may be unfair to you.
You weren’t taught leadership in training.
Nonetheless, the role has been thrust upon you.
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Tell Simple Stories
/ by Don Connelly / Storytelling, analogies and power phrases / 0 comments
Clients, as we’ve discussed in the past, love word pictures. What we find very, very simple, people find very, very difficult to comprehend. This is much the same as you and I having difficult time understanding two lawyers when they talk. It’s because of lingo.
Because our lingo in the financial services industry is just as confusing to people you need to use stories when communicating to current and prospective clients. So tell them stories.
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Effective Communication Is an Acquired Skill
/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments
Effective communication occurs when the listener understands everything you just said. You made the complex simple. That’s not an easy thing to do.
It takes a long time and a lot of practice to become simple.
The effort is worth it. There is nothing more important to a Financial Advisor than being understood. After all, if everyone understood everything you said, you would be one of the highest paid and most influential people in the world.
Fortunately, effective communication is an acquired skill, not an innate skill.
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Without Integrity, There Is No Credibility
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
If you are to be chosen as someone’s Financial Advisor, you must pass three tests. The person must like you and think you are smart, but, most importantly, the person must trust you. There is no substitute for trust.
When mom and dad leave you after that first meeting, they do not talk about convexity or tactical asset allocation.
They ask themselves one question: “Do you trust him? Do you trust her?” If the answer is ‘no’ or ‘not really’, you stand no chance of getting those folks as clients. There are too many other Advisors they can turn to.
Read more