business growth Archives - Don Connelly & Associates

Changing Negative Perceptions and Attitudes as a Financial Advisor

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Most people become financial advisors because it is one of the more rewarding careers, indeed in terms of monetary rewards, but also working in the service of others to help them achieve financial security and long-term prosperity. However, many advisors struggle with aspects of their job that can lead to self-doubt, hesitation, and guilt.

These negative emotions often stem from deep-rooted perceptions and attitudes that can negatively impact client relationships and hinder professional growth. For example, for experienced advisors who become good at what they do, the job gets easier—almost too easy.

Factors Financial Advisors Should Consider When Choosing a Fee Structure for Their Practice

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Among the more critical decisions a financial advisor must make is determining their fee structure—what to charge clients and how to charge them. After all, the fee structure sets the tone for how clients perceive the value they receive from your services.

If clients feel that the fees are too high relative to the value provided, it can lead to dissatisfaction and attrition. Conversely, if they perceive your fees as fair, it can foster trust and long-term loyalty. However, if they are too fair, it could threaten your business’s bottom line and sustainability.

Choosing the proper fee structure is a delicate balancing act for advisors. It requires consideration of client expectations, business sustainability, and your own financial goals. Your fee structure should align with your business model and client base, leading to stronger client relationships and business success while fulfilling one’s fiduciary obligations to clients.

Here are the pivotal factors to consider when determining how to structure your fees:

Are You Working in Your Business or on Your Business? The Key to Growth Is Delegation

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Growing a successful financial advisory practice is one of the most challenging endeavors anyone can choose to undertake. The road to success is riddled with the many mistakes financial advisors make along the way, such as not prospecting consistently, not marketing themselves, or failing to provide their clients with an exceptional experience. These and other mistakes are symptomatic of a much bigger mistake many advisors make: spending too much time working in their business and not enough time working on the business.

For Financial Advisors, the Road to Success Begins with Solid Prospecting Habits

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For financial advisors, there’s nothing like the thrill of signing a new client. But it doesn’t take very long in the business to realize that, without prospecting, those thrills can be few and far between. While signing new clients is the opportunity all advisors relish, they must first create those opportunities, which can only be done through continuous prospecting.

Most advisors consider prospecting to be the most challenging aspect of their work. The challenge for many is doing it consistently and effectively enough to produce sufficient opportunities. For some advisors, prospecting is an afterthought, only becoming necessary when their pipeline dries up. But with the typical lead-to-prospect conversion process lasting as many as six months, that could mean weeks or months before signing a new client.

Successful advisors know that the key to sustainable growth is a constantly replenished pipeline through persistent prospecting. The only way that happens is by building solid prospecting habits.

Here are the essential success habits advisors must develop to become effective and consistent prospectors.

Self-Discipline Is Key

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An Advisor once sent me this message:

“You mentioned in one of your webinars that talent by itself means nothing. The key is to develop that talent into a skill. In your opinion, what is the most underappreciated skill among great advisors?”

Listen to this audio episode or read the transcript below to learn what I think great Advisors’ most underrated asset or skill is.

Why Financial Advisors Must Embrace Technology Now

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In the third of our series of Critical Issues Facing Financial Advisors Right Now, we turn to the challenge facing advisors in adopting the technologies that will drive business growth for the foreseeable future. Financial advisors have seen the future, and it is now. Those who learn to embrace it will have a distinct advantage over those who continue to run from it.

We can complain all we want about the rise of robo-advisors but, the fact is, they only control a minute portion of the trillions of dollars held by wealth managers, advisors, and asset managers. Still, robo-advisors are on the cutting edge of technological innovations, and venture capital is flooding the financial technology sector with billions of dollars.

Our industry has reached a critical juncture where advisors must now choose to embrace technological change to get ahead of their competition and provide the level of service their clients have come to expect or risk obsolescence.

Make Sure You Are Not Just Moving, but Moving in The Right Direction

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship, What's New / 0 comments

Don Connelly Center Stage with Brian Church - Moving in the Right Direction

Brian Church, business consultant and author, was our special guest on the recent April 30, 2014 Webinar. Participants from around the globe watched and listened as Brian put forth his ideas on how Financial Advisors can and must keep their businesses, their ideas and their client relationships moving in the right direction.

We must focus on LIFT, Brian’s term for growth; bettering our delivery, making the best use of our time, and growing our revenue through thick and thin. As fees continue to get compressed, we must increase the value of what we offer to the public.