build trust Archives - Don Connelly & Associates

How to Become Your Client’s Trusted Confidant

November 13, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

We’ve frequently stressed the importance of building deep and trusting relationships with clients. Practically speaking, the stronger and more enduring your client relationships, the greater their lifetime value to you in terms of repeat business, growing assets under management, referrals, and family legacies. For financial advisors, the profit truly is in the relationship.

The most successful advisors seek to take the relationship even deeper—to the point where they become a trusted confidant of their clients. They want to be the first person their clients think of when any significant issue arises, be it a family milestone (i.e., birth, college graduation, engagement), family tragedy (i.e., divorce, death), career change, or any major family decision (i.e., new home purchase).

To some, that may seem like going above and beyond. After all, isn’t it enough to have the family’s trust to act in their best interests in helping them manage their money? Is it appropriate to try to insert ourselves into every aspect of their lives? What do we gain from that? What does the client gain? Why would a client want their financial advisor as a trusted confidant?

How to Bring Back Face-to-Face Meetings with Clients

October 2, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

A survey by YCharts in December 2019 found that clients didn’t feel engaged and wanted more personalized communications. We’ve posted several times that, pre- and post-pandemic, the frequency and style of advisors’ communication directly impact client trust and confidence in their advisor, financial plan, and their likelihood of keeping their advisor.

A more recent report, post-pandemic, found that, though virtual meetings had taken hold as a viable form of communication for advisors forced to limit in-person meetings, it’s likely that the decrease in face-to-face contact contributed to client feelings of reduced communication. That’s a direct threat to the strength of the advisor-client relationship.

7 Qualities Financial Advisors Must Have to Achieve Their Goals

April 5, 2021 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

What do successful financial advisors do that unsuccessful or even adequate advisors don’t, won’t, or can’t do? I could list several things here, but it all starts with setting clearly defined goals—and then achieving them. But, while the vast majority of advisors understand the importance of setting goals—actually writing them down—and having a plan to achieve them, fewer manage to achieve them. As a result, they never raise the bar for themselves, gradually slipping into mediocracy.

The failure to achieve goals can be attributed to a number of things—i.e., the goals are unrealistic or too vague; not having or strictly following a plan; not being accountable for your goals, to name just a few. While these are identifiable reasons for not achieving goals, they are more of an expected outcome for advisors who lack the vital qualities to carry them to success. You can have the most incredible work ethic, but if you’re not setting and achieving your goals, it’s like a rudderless motorboat spinning around in a lake.

The Importance of Your Storytelling Skills in Building Trust

March 8, 2021 / by Don Connelly / Storytelling, analogies and power phrases / 0 comments

Now and then, financial advisors must be reminded that they are in a relationship business and that what they have as a clientele is a direct by-product of trust.

The cold hard reality is that people need to trust you before they will engage with you. Especially these days, people are almost instinctively cynical, overly careful to approach others they don’t know with a heavy dose of skepticism. So, when we want to connect with any group of people, our first task must be to break through their defensive shells so we can build trust. Without trust, there can be no connection, no relationship, and no channel through which vision and ideas can flow.

How to Succeed at Giving Financial Advice

February 15, 2021 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

So, you want to be in the business of giving financial advice. That’s understandable because not only can the career of a financial advisor be financially rewarding, it can also be very fulfilling. Through a relationship that can span a lifetime, you become the essential source of advice in one of the most important aspects of your clients’ lives. There’s just one problem. You don’t have any clients—yet.

As a new financial advisor, your number one job is to find new clients. That has always been advisors’ biggest challenge but more so today due to the trust deficit that exists in the financial services industry. According to a CFA Institute survey, only 57 percent of retail investors trust the financial services industry, which is up from a few years ago, but it’s still a wide chasm to overcome. The same survey found that retail investors listed “trust” as their top consideration when hiring an advisor. Prospective clients simply won’t work with an advisor they don’t trust.

Digital Marketing for Financial Advisors – How Social Media Can Generate Leads

January 25, 2021 / by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments

Financial advisors know how difficult it is to make contact with high-net-worth people through phone calls and emails. However, when they reach out to connect with the same people via LinkedIn or Twitter, they are often welcomed with open arms. From there, they simply become part of the conversation, which opens the opportunity to build relationships.

By actively participating in popular social media sites, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you automatically expand your online presence while building social capital. At the very minimum, your participation provides social proof to your target market that you exist and that you might actually have something of value to offer.

3 Issues Financial Advisors Should Address to Overcome the Trust Deficit in Clients

November 23, 2020 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

Financial Advisors face a huge trust deficit. That’s significant because who holds a more important position of trust than an advisor who can impact when people retire, how they live in retirement, and what’s their financial security late in life when they need it the most? For advisors whose livelihood depends on attracting new clients and retaining them, that’s a major obstacle to overcome every day.

Six Ways Financial Advisors Can Establish Trust in Today’s Virtual World

November 16, 2020 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

You can have all the technical and market skill in the world. But if people don’t trust you, you’re not going to open new accounts.

It’s just a fact of life in sales: If people don’t trust you, their defensive mechanisms are going to be up during the entire sales process. If you’re lucky, they’ll tell you. At least that way, you get to face the trust issue head on. That might give you a fighting chance.

But more often than not, you’ll be met with polite silence, and the dreaded “we’ll give you a call if we decide to do anything.”

If you hear that, chances are you whiffed on the trust issue.

After all, if you had their trust, they’d be looking for ways to talk themselves into doing business with you!

Why It’s Critical for Advisors to Build Online Influence

October 5, 2020 / by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments

The most significant transfer of wealth between generations is underway right now. For Financial Advisors, it could be an extraordinary opportunity, or it could threaten their very survival. Ultimately, it’s a matter of trust.

Do investors have trust issues with Financial Advisors? A study by the CFA Institute revealed that the financial services industry is among the least trusted industry. Only half of those surveyed indicated they trust the financial service professionals to do what’s right. In a separate survey, the CFP Board found that just 40% of investors trust financial advisors to put their interests first.

Of the emerging group of affluent investors, millennial and Gen Z investors – the ultimate beneficiaries of the great $30 trillion wealth transfer occurring over the next 30 years – may be the least trustful.

5 Signs a Prospective Client Will Avoid Digital Engagement

September 21, 2020 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 2 comments

For years, the financial industry has lagged in its adaption of digital tools to market to, communicate with, and manage the relationships of clients. While Financial Advisors have gradually, sometimes begrudgingly, come to embrace new technologies, the covid19 pandemic this year has accelerated their digital transformation.

For growth-focused advisors, the crisis has been a catalyst for creating more digitally-oriented business development strategies. For example, according to Fidelity, the use of video conferencing for client interactions has doubled since the pandemic hit. In a survey by Ernst & Young, 55% of advisors say they plan to use virtual meetings more in the future.

As with most trends shaping the financial services industry, clients are leading the change. With 64% of high-net-worth clients and 75% of mass-affluent clients counting on their advisor relationship to be digital, it’s not just millennial clients who prefer a virtual relationship. For the most part, advisors are adjusting well to the change, finding it more productive and more effective at building their business. It also opens up more opportunities to find and work with clients who live in other parts of the country.

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