ask open-ended questions Archives - Don Connelly & Associates

Why You Need to Encourage Your Clients to Ask Questions

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

As a financial advisor, you occupy a position of trust, guiding clients through complex financial landscapes. While knowledge and experience are crucial assets, an advisor’s success hinges on another critical factor: fostering a culture of open communication where clients feel empowered to ask questions. This often-overlooked attribute can unlock a multitude of benefits, leading to more effective financial planning, stronger client relationships, and, ultimately, a brighter financial future for the client.

Decoding Doubt: 6 Non-Verbal Cues Clients Might Be Giving You That Signal a Trust Deficit

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

Trust is the bedrock of any successful financial advisor-client relationship. But how do you know if a client truly trusts you, especially when they might not explicitly say it? Beyond the spoken word, clients often communicate their feelings through non-verbal cues. Learning to recognize these subtle signals can help advisors address underlying concerns and build stronger, more trusting relationships.

‘Why Should I Do Business with You’: Crafting a Compelling Response to a Prospect’s Critical Question

/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments

For every financial advisor, the question, “Why should I do business with you?” hangs heavy in the air during initial consultations, whether spoken or not. It’s a pivotal moment, a crossroads where trust and value must intersect to convince the potential client to take the next step. While tempting to launch into a self-promotional monologue, a nuanced, client-centric approach is critical to unlocking that coveted “yes.”

It’s crucial to understand that a prepared, cookie-cutter approach, such as reciting your value proposition, won’t work. Every prospect is unique, so it’s essential to adapt your approach based on their specific circumstances and needs using the following framework:

Goal Setting: Not Just About the Numbers. It’s About Emotional Connections.

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

Goal setting is the second step of the client data-gathering process —unquestionably the most critical step in solidifying the client relationship and the key to setting your clients up for success. Beyond offering the technical expertise to help clients navigate the complex realm of financial planning, the most valuable service financial advisors bring to the table is helping them align the use of their resources with the things that are most important to them.

Yet even though advisors are well-positioned in this stage of the relationship to have these critical conversations, encouraging their clients to discuss their financial goals and understanding on a deeper level why those goals are meaningful to them, is a significant challenge for many. They then wonder why the client later chooses to abandon their financial plan or the relationship.

How to Command and Maintain Control over Conversations with Prospects and Clients

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

How often have you been in a meeting with a client or prospect and felt like you lost control of the conversation? After starting on one subject, the other person goes off on tangents or takes the conversation in a new direction. Clients who are upset may launch into a rant with no particular point or one that isn’t related to the work you do with them. Or they simply want to talk about something other than the subject matter you broached with them.

Whatever the reason, when a client or prospect conversation goes off the rails, it’s incumbent upon you to steer it back in the right direction. Otherwise, your value to that person diminishes as long as you’re not in control. Taking control doesn’t mean taking over the conversation and dominating the talking space. Instead, it means getting it back on track, on the path to where it can achieve a productive or desired outcome. That can’t happen if you’re doing all the talking.

The File Note: How to Increase Your Closing Rates to 9 out of 10 in Life Insurance Sales

/ by Russell Collins / Connelly Corner, Presentation Skills / 0 comments

At the conclusion of my previous guest post – “Making Every Initial Meeting with a Prospect Successful” – I mentioned that if I could point to one thing that increased my closing rate to 9 out of 10, it was the file note. This in effect acted as a pre-presentation vehicle and I believe it motivated people to really look forward to our next meeting and my eventual recommendations.

Here’s how to start using the file note to increase your life insurance sales.

How to Increase Your Life Insurance Sales Making Every Initial Meeting with a Prospect Successful

/ by Russell Collins / Best Practices, Connelly Corner / 0 comments

When people meet with you for the first time, subconsciously they have four questions that need to be answered. They haven’t thought about these questions in advance but they cross their mind during that meeting. If they are answered, this will ensure that there is not only a second follow-up meeting, but also presents the immediate opportunity to develop a long-term relationship:

Do I like you?
Do I trust you?
Are you competent?
Are you the sort of person who will put my best interests before your own?

In addition to these four questions, I believe that a person would also have to be thinking to themselves “this adviser makes sense!” if there is going to be an ongoing relationship.

How to make every fact-finding meeting a success

First Meeting Conversations You Need to Have with Prospective Clients

/ by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

Let’s be honest. Many financial advisors view the first client meeting frettingly as an obstacle to overcome on their way to, hopefully, establishing a new client relationship. After all, the way you start a first client meeting sets the tone for how your relationship will develop—if it develops at all. Prospective clients don’t make it any easier, often approaching their first advisor meeting with an air of skepticism or apprehension. This creates an unnatural tension that crowds out trust-building. That tension must be broken at the outset, and the ball is in the advisor’s court.

How to Convince Prospects and Clients That You Understand What They’re Going through

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

It’s long been said that people might forget what you say. But they will never forget how you made them feel.

There’s a lot of truth to that. And one of the first things your clients and prospects should feel is that you understand what they’re going through. Before some of you were born, there was a great, great sales trainer and educator named Zig Ziglar. Look him up! He learned to sell by selling brushes. Door-to-door.

He went on more sales calls before breakfast than some of you go on in a month. And he used to say “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care… about them.”

There’s two steps to that equation: First, you need to genuinely understand what they are going through. Second, you need to communicate that to them.

Sales Jiujitsu: How to Introduce Yourself as a Financial Advisor

/ by Don Connelly / Presentation Skills / 2 comments

Occasionally I get asked about the best way to introduce yourself as a financial advisor.

That’s an important skill. But in some ways, focusing on introducing yourself to other people is looking at the problem from the wrong direction. There’s always the risk that going to a business mode when the prospect is not yet receptive to it will cause them to go into “shields-up” mode.

Instead, turn that process inside out: Consider finding ways to get prospects to introduce themselves to you.

The difference is fundamental.

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