Don’t Sell Investments – Focus on The Relationship
I believe in my heart someone should transfer their entire account to you without any investment recommendations. We’re not in the investment business, investments are our products. We’re in the business of getting kids through school, minimizing taxes, and getting people retired. We have to focus on the relationship, not the money. If you sell investments, sooner or later your clients will be angry. All investments have their bad days as well as their good days. So don’t discuss investments, it’s not necessary.
Listen to this audio episode or read the transcript below to learn a story that illustrates how focusing on the relationship without discussing investments will help you open the account.
Now I’ll tell you a great story that was told to me recently. I know the advisor, he’s a billion dollar advisor with a big firm. He’s very substantial, his team is very substantial. He wouldn’t tell me this – he’s a humble person – one of his associates told me this great story.
A builder had come to see this advisor in South Florida. The builder had $10 million to invest, and he was told by his CPA to look at three different firms. And he’d been to two of the firms already and now he came to this advisor at his firm, and said,
“Look, I want to see what you can do with your third, but I’ve got to tell you, these other two firms treated me in way too sophisticated a fashion. I am a high school graduate, and thank God I took math in high school; at least I did that so I can order supplies and price a job, but I’m not a Wall Street investor, I’m a builder with a high school education, you’ve got to make it simple.”
You’ve heard that so many times. With the advisor being so smart, so he said, “You know what, let me make this as simple as possible. Give me the whole $10 million.”
And the builder kind of laughed and said he found that somewhat presumptuous, and asked, “Why are you saying that?”
The Advisor replied, “Well, number one, $10 million is a lot of money. You need the best advice money can buy. And number two, I think I’m the best advisor in South Florida. That’s why.”
The builder laughed, and probably found that presumptuous, and the advisor replied again, “Well, let me ask you a question. Do you consider yourself to be the best builder in South Florida?” You know the answer to that question, the answer is “Yes, of course I do.”
The Advisor then said, “Well, how would you feel if I came to you and said, ‘My wife and I are building our dream house, we’d like to hire you to build our kitchen?’ What would you tell me?”
The builder said, “I never thought about it that way.” He gave him the whole $10 million.
This story shows how you don’t need to discuss investments to get ahead in this business. Discuss and focus on the relationship instead.
This audio episode first appeared on Don Connelly 24/7 – join now to access hundreds more audio and video podcasts that will help you develop superb soft skills for success.
