brilliant at the basics Archives - Page 3 of 12

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.

The Paradox of Financial Education: How Too Much Knowledge Can Cost You Clients

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

Financial advisors constantly walk a tightrope between empowering clients and overwhelming them. While financial literacy is crucial for informed decision-making, overeducating prospects and clients can backfire, resulting in the loss of an account. This phenomenon can be better understood by examining the psychology of financial decision-making and the delicate advisor-client relationship.

The Perils of Lacking Empathy: Why It Matters for Financial Advisors

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

Nothing can form a human connection quite like the genuine expression of empathy. That human connection, which is the basis of trust in a relationship, is what clients want from their advisors. Failure to make that connection quickly can drive clients into the arms of a more empathic advisor.

Why empathy is so powerful

Empathy is the ability to see the world through someone else’s eyes, understand their emotions, and connect with them on a deeper level. But to your clients, it’s much more than that. When you express genuine empathy with a client, they feel like they are the most important person in your life at that moment. You took the time to step inside their shoes, walk around, and make them feel understood without judging them.

7 Common Mistakes Financial Advisors Make that Repel Clients

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

To be successful, financial advisors must work tirelessly to master their craft while putting in countless hours to build their business. Some have an easier time of it than others because they avoid the many missteps that can drive prospects and clients away. Even the most well-intentioned advisors can sometimes engage in behaviors that unintentionally repel potential and existing clients, creating an enduring uphill battle to grow their practice.

You spend a lot of time and resources to gain a foothold in this business. But if you’re not aware of the crucial mistakes many advisors make in trying to build relationships, you are less likely to avoid them yourself, making your job much more difficult—maybe even impossible. Here are seven common missteps many advisors make that you must avoid to have any chance of success.

How Financial Advisors Can Be the Leader Their Clients Want

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

In today’s complex financial landscape, being knowledgeable and able to connect with people is not enough. Clients expect more from you as their financial advisor. They expect you to lead them to financial security. Individuals seek financial advice because they lack the knowledge and expertise to navigate their financial futures effectively. But they are not inclined to follow just any advisor—only those who can unequivocally inspire trust and confidence. Why bother with anyone else?

Advisors must work each day to demonstrate leadership qualities that inspire trust, confidence, and informed decision-making. Here are the critical areas advisors should focus on to become leaders in the eyes of their clients:

How to Educate Clients About the Importance of Investing Beyond Their 401(k)

/ by Don Connelly / Investing Wisdom / 0 comments

For most people, there’s little to think about when it comes to making contributions to their 401k plans. They enjoy reduced current taxes, deferred taxes on account earnings, and, for most, a matching contribution from their employer. That’s a huge incentive to contribute as much of their earnings as possible—up to $23,000 in 2024, and those over 50 can add $7,000 in annual catch-up contributions.

But is maxing out 401k contributions really the best retirement savings strategy for your clients?

While deferred taxation in a 401k is great for capital accumulation, they will owe ordinary income taxes on their withdrawals, impacting their cash flow in a critical life stage. Many retirees are shocked by the amount of taxes they owe on their retirement income.

To Ensure Success, Financial Advisors Must Fight Through Mental Roadblocks and Self-Doubt

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

Being a financial advisor can be an enriching career with both monetary and personal fulfillment. The price for such success is years of hard work, sacrifice, and overcoming extended bouts of mental roadblocks and self-doubt that can shatter one’s self-confidence and potentially derail a career.

These mental hurdles can manifest in various ways but are almost always a result of intentional or unintentional behavior that hinders your own success or well-being—in other words, self-sabotage. It’s like consciously or unconsciously throwing a wrench in your own engine by the actions you take, such as procrastination, negative self-talk, perfectionism, quitting tasks prematurely, and avoiding challenges.

It can also transpire through unhealthy mindsets such as fear of failure, fear of success, low self-esteem, imposter syndrome, lack of confidence, and limiting beliefs.

Few careers are as demanding as being a financial advisor, which makes it imperative to avoid doing things that can make it more difficult. All these actions and mindsets are avoidable, but it takes a conscious effort to weed them out, using “emotional self-regulation” – a process of monitoring, evaluating, and modifying your behavior. Here’s how it works:

Getting SMART About Setting Goals for You and Your Clients

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

Anyone who has ever accomplished anything of significance started with a goal. Professional athletes, entertainers, business titans, and the millionaire next door will all tell you that they began with the end in mind, visualizing their destination and then mapping the road to get there.

We’ve written about the importance of goal setting and the significance of writing them down and keeping them in front of you to remind you of what’s possible. However, the process of goal setting is often marred with unrealistic expectations or ambivalence about what you want to achieve, resulting in unachievable or unmeasurable goals.

Financial advisors on the path to success can’t afford to wallow in hopes or pipe dreams. You need clearly defined, actionable goals that reflect your professional and personal ambitions. Although goal setting isn’t rocket science, it does require a deliberate process to ensure your goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. In other words, it requires the SMART goal-setting framework.

For the Sake of Time, Learning to Say “No” Is a Vital Skill Advisors Must Master

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

Being able to maximize time to spend on high-payoff activities has long been a significant challenge for financial advisors who must wear many hats on their path to success. Advisors not in control of their time typically have less of it to spend interacting with clients and prospecting for new clients and other activities essential to the growth of their practice.

To gain more control of their time, advisors can follow these steps:

– Setting clear goals,
– prioritizing and planning tasks and activities,
– delegating and outsourcing administrative tasks,
– utilizing technology to automate repetitive tasks where possible,
– blocking time and batching similar tasks together,
– creating a focused work environment to limit distractions and
– learning to say “no.”

How Financial Advisors Can Take Control Over Their Time

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

As a financial advisor, your most valuable resource is your time. If you are not in control of how you spend your time, then you are not in control of your results. Controlling your time and injecting your schedule with the right mix of high-payoff activities is vital to achieving your goals.

However, time is a diminishing resource, which is why it’s so valuable yet so challenging to manage. Advisors must find a way to maximize their critical high-payoff activities, such as client interactions, prospect meetings, and prospecting, while allocating sufficient time for other essential activities that need to get done, such as administrative tasks, marketing, and planning. Advisors must also be able to allocate adequate time for professional and personal development and ensure there’s enough left over for a healthy work-life balance.

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