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.

Learn to Laugh at Yourself when It Is Called for

Laugh at Yourself - Find the Humor

It is hard to overstate the importance of being able to laugh at yourself. People who can do this are generally more optimistic than those who cannot.

Optimistic personalities go far in the Financial Services industry.

I have seen a lot of Advisors fail over the years, but I have never seen an optimistic Advisor fail. Being more cheerful and less serious is a great survival technique.

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There Is a Shortage of Accountability – Be Responsible

Don Connelly audio blog post

Your clients will love you if you insist on being accountable for your own actions. Your clients look to you as a leader. They depend upon you to lead them to their goals safely and on time.

One of the key components of leadership is accountability.

If you hold yourself accountable for everything you say and do, people will respond favorably. It is so refreshing to hear someone take responsibility for his or her own actions.

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Common Sense Is Quite Uncommon

Common Sense Is Quite Uncommon - Financial Advisors Blog

Our A students become professors. Our B students go to law school. Our C students rule the world.
So wrote Dean of Harvard College, Henry Rosovsky.

The inference to be drawn from Rosovky’s observation is that common sense will take one very far in life. Street smarts trump book smarts.

Everybody seems to know that common sense is always the answer.

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Optimism Is a Choice

Optimism Attitude and Financial Advisors

I read an interesting article that stated each of us has nearly 60,000 thoughts per waking day, one each second. We mostly think about things we have thoughts about before and many of those thoughts are negative.

Mood and memory are linked.

For whatever reason, bad thoughts seem more powerful than good thoughts. We hash over the bad thoughts and we get in a bad mood. People in bad moods think negative thoughts. We should call it a negativity loop.

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Play The Cards The Market Deals You

Investing Wisdom - Stock Market Trends

There are things we know and there are things we don’t know. A first thing we know is that every single time the stock market has gone down, it has come back.

A second thing we know is that every single time the market has gone down and come back, it has gone on to set new highs.

And, a third thing we know is that a perplexingly large number of investors lose money in the stock market, despite knowing the first two things.

What we don’t know is what the market will do tomorrow.

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Every Advisor Needs to Bring Back the Story

Don Connelly audio podcast

The ability to tell good stories is vital if you want people to like and trust you. Your clients like you and trust you. They didn’t buy a financial plan or a managed account. They bought you.

People can’t ‘buy’ you until they know you and the best way to get to know you is to hear your story. And they can’t hear your story until you tell it to them. The better you do that, the sooner you open the account. As Peter Guber says, you tell to win.

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Client Goals Are Not Reduced by Falling Markets

Client Goals and Falling Markets - Investing Wisdom

The biggest challenge every investor (and, actually, every Advisor) faces is staying fully invested in the face of bad news. It’s only normal to want to escape danger. Unfortunately, fleeing danger means timing the market. The stock market is too fragmented to successfully time over an extended period. In too many ways, tactical asset allocation is churning without the commissions.

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Get Your Work Done in Sixty Percent of the Time

Get Your Work Done

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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