/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 2 comments
When someone asks you what you do for a living or asks you exactly what it is you do as a Financial Advisor, how simple do you think your answer should be? Bingo. Very simple.
According to the NationalCenter for Biotechnology Information, the attention span of a human being is eight seconds. To put that in perspective, the attention span of a goldfish is nine seconds. If you like that statistic and want to learn others, check out www.statisticbrain.com.
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Get Your Work Done in Sixty Percent of the Time
/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 1 comment
I can tell you without hesitation that the amount of time you spend marketing yourself this year determines how much you will grow next year. If you don’t prospect and market yourself, your business will wither and die.
I can also tell you without hesitation that running your business gets in the way of growing your business. The details eat up your time. There are only so many hours in the day. What to do then? Why do we give tasks more time than they need and what can we do about it?
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People Are Deciding about You, Not the Numbers
/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 2 comments
When you are trying to convince someone to do business with you, you must earn that person’s trust. When you use charts, graphs and numbers to make your point, you are asking the person to trust the numbers. Asking someone to trust the numbers is really saying there is no need to trust you.
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There Is No Ambiguity When It Comes to Being a Good Advisor
/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
Yet, while certain elements of this business are ambiguous, the challenge we face is not.
The correct way to succeed is straight-forward. Either you do things right or you don’t. Either you do the right things or you don’t. Either you see enough people or you don’t. Either you build a good business or you don’t. Embrace the clarity.
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Your Job Is to Find the Pain and Make It Go Away
/ by Don Connelly / Storytelling, analogies and power phrases / 0 comments
Imagine if you were in long-term back pain and you were sorely in need of relief. Your diligence has led you to a doctor who assures you that, if you allow her to perform surgery, the pain would not merely be alleviated; the pain would be gone. She explains that there will certainly be some short-term discomfort, but any inconvenience will be worth it in the long run. You will be overjoyed when you are pain free.
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Successful Investing Takes Time, Skill and Good Luck
/ by Don Connelly / Investing Wisdom / 0 comments
How would your client react if you suggested retaining a money manager with no experience? Better yet, how about one who isn’t licensed to manage money? Better yet than that, what if this money manager has never had a client? Your client would be his first. Out of the question, right?
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People Think You’re So Smart When They Do All the Talking
/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
Did you ever walk away from a conversation thinking you just met a really smart, neat person, only to realize you did all the talking? I think we all have, at one time or another. What’s up? What do these people do to make us think they are so smart? They simply listen, that’s all, and we love them for it.
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The More Words You Use to Get Your Point Across, the Less People Listen
/ by Don Connelly / Presentation Skills / 0 comments
Have you noticed that the more a person talks, the less connected to the listener he or she seems to be? There is no give and take. People like that think the listener finds them as fascinating as they find themselves. They are not fascinating. They are boring.
In your role as a Financial Advisor, talking too much is the kiss of death.
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When Asking for a Commitment, Make Up Your Mind in Advance
/ by Don Connelly / Presentation Skills / 0 comments
Of all the presentations given by Financial Advisors to prospective clients on any given day, how many end up with no commitment being made? We’ll never know. Of all the presentations which end up with no commitment being made, how many end up that way because the Advisor didn’t ask for the commitment? We’ll never know that either. But we can take a pretty good guess and we can also guess why.
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Never Forget That Your Client’s Original Goal Was to Beat the Bank
/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
I’ve been mingling with clients for years and it never fails to shock me just a bit to hear how simple both their goals and their reasons for investing really are. For the most part, clients simply want to beat the bank, especially in low interest rate environments. They want to educate their children and build a retirement fund. That’s it. They aren’t trying to hit home runs. They are trying to hit singles and doubles. You can deliver singles and doubles all day long.
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