Acquiring Negotiating Skills Will Help You Open More Accounts
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.
Listen to this audio episode or read the transcript below to learn how acquiring negotiating skills will help you do that and open more accounts.
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.
The more you refine and apply these skills, the more accounts you steer away from the competition; and the more potentially contentious issues you resolve without an argument or feelings of dissatisfaction. Great Advisors have these skills. If you acquire them, you will flat out open more accounts than an Advisor without these skills.
You must listen well. You must communicate effectively. You must be able to ask probing questions. You must be likeable. You must be able to influence and persuade tactfully. You must choose to be optimistic. You must be true to your word. Do all these things seem familiar?
These are essentially garden-variety interpersonal skills, the soft skills that account for the majority of your success.
You acquire interpersonal skills when you make it a point to be fair and empathetic in all your dealings. You make it obvious that you can be trusted. You speak so clearly and in such simple language that people always understand everything you say.
You’re never snarky. You’re a great listener. You make eye contact and you smile. You check your ego at the door. You choose your words carefully. And you make it a priority to get along with people.
But just as you are accommodating, you are also firm in your resolve.
You know what you want. You do not compromise and you do not lose sight of your goals. You ask for commitments with the confidence that you deserve them. You negotiate in earnest.
It is essential in negotiating with clients that you make your number one goal the continued health of the relationship.
Show the utmost respect. Never, ever consider doing anything for the short term. Negotiating is not an all or nothing game. Whether you win or lose that particular negotiation, the relationship must live to see another day.
Composure plays a big role because negotiations typically get emotional. Once a word is uttered it is gone. Once it is out there it cannot be retrieved.
Work on your sociability starting right now.
Engage people in conversation. Be interesting, but also be interested. Look the other person in the eye. If you agree with a statement, smile and nod. Be more anxious to agree than to disagree.
State you position clearly. Talk about what you care about and talk about it with passion. Passion is seductive and compelling. It shows you genuinely care.
Have the other person walk away feeling good about himself and glad he spent time with you. You do all of that and you’ll be a great negotiator.
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