Make Yourself Irreplaceable by Making Yourself Different
If you do what every other advisor is doing, you’ll be just like all other advisors. To become successful, you need to offer something different – something that makes you worthy of being talked about.
Don’t be intimidated by self-perceived ‘smarter’, ‘more experienced’ or ‘more confident’ advisors. Don’t try to ‘better’ them. Think instead about what you can do differently.
Make it your aim to do what other advisors don’t do, and you’ll attract and retain clients for the long term. Here are a few things you can do to make yourself different.
#1. Be authentic
Very few people are truly authentic. For this reason, prospects will quickly warm to you if they can see that you are a genuinely caring, honest individual. The fact you have the fundamental knowledge to do your job is a given. The unknown element is whether they can trust you.
Help prospects get to know you by telling them your personal story. Show them just what kind of a person you really are. You don’t need to embark on a lengthy life story. Just three minutes or less will suffice to relay why you are special and why they should do business with you.
What’s been your journey to becoming a Financial Advisor? Did you set out on a mission to help people in financial difficulties? They need to know you’re not in this business just for the money.
Speak with conviction in order to establish an emotional connection. Show your passion and enthusiasm and transfer this to potential clients.
It’s also OK to be vulnerable because people respond well to people who are open and honest. Be empathetic – communicate that you can anticipate your clients’ needs and understand their anxieties. If you can relay this information to potential clients, you’ve created the basis of an enduring relationship.
It’s then your job to live up to their expectations by being the most caring advisor possible.
#2. Listen to your clients
Remaining silent and truly listening to what someone is saying is harder than it sounds and it’s something too few advisors manage to master.
By learning how to ‘listen’ rather than ‘hear’, you will become fully immersed in your clients’ goals. It will also indicate your empathy and engagement – and thus demonstrate that you are absorbed in what they are saying and that you genuinely care.
#3. Offer a truly personalized service
If you can consistently exceed your clients’ expectations, you will be doing something few other advisors do. If you become a 100 % positive, trustworthy force in their lives, you’ll become someone they will not want to replace. Take the time to get to know your clients by networking with them and find ways to become involved in their personal and professional lives.
Provide a personalized service by communicating frequently with clients. Call out of the blue for a catch up. Remember birthdays and special occasions. Be on hand to help with all – not just financial – aspects of your clients’ lives and they will come to see you as a friend, not just an advisor. And as we all know people don’t tend to fire their friends.
#4. Keep clients invested
Clients will see their financial exposure to risk as enormous, so it’s important that you manage their expectations and behaviors over the long term. Especially during the inevitable bouts of market volatility. Steer clients away from constantly checking and re-checking their investments because this can lead to increased risk aversion. Get them to see the bigger picture. Clients are generally not there to get super-wealthy, they’re more often afraid of having an under-funded retirement. Persuade them that despite market fluctuations they are still on track to achieve the comfortable retirement they dream of.
It’s your job to eliminate your clients’ stress and take away their financial pain. So offset their anxieties by communicating assertively. Reassure them of your confidence in the choices they’ve made. The tougher the times, the stronger you must be for your clients.
Too many advisors run to the sidelines when markets are turbulent. Don’t be like them. Call your clients before they call you and assure them that bad markets are temporary and that good markets will return.
Elite advisors do what average advisors don’t. They give their clients good reasons to stick with them for the long term. Make sure you never get fired by being not ‘better’ than the competition, but ‘different’.
Being distinctly different is covered in one of the video lessons and exercises in Don Connelly’s training program, Become Brilliant at the Basics: What They Don’t Teach You in Training.
If you’ve been a Financial Advisor for 5 years or less, or you’re a seasoned Advisor who feels stuck at their level, watch this 4-minute video to learn how our 24-step training program will hep you kick-start your practice, stay in business and achieve great success.
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