/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
“If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse,” is a widely quoted saying in athletic and business circles. Translation: if you’re not proactively doing things to improve yourself, your competitors are, which means you’re getting worse. Paraphrased for this article, it says, “If you’re not adapting, you’re falling behind.”
The financial advisory industry is evolving at a blurring pace, with rapid technological advancements, changing regulatory frameworks, and rising client expectations. From the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) to the proliferation of digital tools, these changes are reshaping how financial advisors interact with clients and manage their businesses. Simultaneously, clients are demanding more personalized, efficient, and transparent services, leaving no room for complacency.
Financial advisors who resist adapting face significant consequences. Stagnation or losing relevance in an increasingly competitive market can spell doom for a once-thriving practice. In this environment, the ability to adapt is not just a competitive advantage but a necessity for survival and success.
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Embracing Adaptability: A Key to Staying Relevant in the Financial Advisory Industry
/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
“If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse,” is a widely quoted saying in athletic and business circles. Translation: if you’re not proactively doing things to improve yourself, your competitors are, which means you’re getting worse. Paraphrased for this article, it says, “If you’re not adapting, you’re falling behind.”
The financial advisory industry is evolving at a blurring pace, with rapid technological advancements, changing regulatory frameworks, and rising client expectations. From the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) to the proliferation of digital tools, these changes are reshaping how financial advisors interact with clients and manage their businesses. Simultaneously, clients are demanding more personalized, efficient, and transparent services, leaving no room for complacency.
Financial advisors who resist adapting face significant consequences. Stagnation or losing relevance in an increasingly competitive market can spell doom for a once-thriving practice. In this environment, the ability to adapt is not just a competitive advantage but a necessity for survival and success.
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Understanding Your Strengths and Weaknesses as a Financial Advisor
/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
For financial advisors with ambitions of taking their practice to the next level, self-awareness is fundamental to their success. Knowing your unique strengths enables you to maximize the value you deliver to clients while understanding your weaknesses helps you address critical areas that may impact your effectiveness.
Continuous self-assessment to develop a clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses is essential in a fast-evolving industry where personalized service and superior client experience have become minimum expectations.
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To Better Understand Your Client’s Goals, Listen Carefully to How They Express Them
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
A critical aspect of advising clients is to ascertain their financial goals correctly. If you or your clients don’t genuinely understand the goal, your advice could be dangerously off base, and you could lose your client’s confidence.
Clients typically come to financial advisors with various goals, but they might articulate them in nuanced ways, reflecting their concerns, values, and life circumstances. Your role as a financial advisor is to listen carefully, ask probing questions, and translate these expressions into actionable plans created around their biggest concerns, preferences, and priorities.
Here are five common financial goals clients have and how they might express them differently:
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Financial Planning Challenges for Financial Advisors
/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
In today’s saturated market, financial advisors must offer holistic financial planning for several reasons: It’s a sure way to differentiate themselves from those who only offer investment management. It can build deeper, more trusting relationships with clients, and it leads to better financial outcomes for clients. It can also attract a broader client base and retain those who might otherwise seek these services elsewhere.
Financial planning should unquestionably be a cornerstone service offered by financial advisors. However, performing the service is not without its challenges, particularly as it relates to communication and relationship skills. Awareness of and overcoming these challenges through focus, practice, and sound execution is critical to providing effective guidance and building enduring relationships with your clients.
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Understanding Why Clients Might Seek a Second Opinion in Financial Planning and How to Avert It
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
If you’ve been in this business long enough, you’re bound to encounter a client who wants to get a second opinion on some of your advice or a strategy you’ve developed. There’s no sugar-coating it—that can feel like a low blow—questioning your expertise and even your integrity.
While it might feel like a vote of no confidence, it’s often a symptom of a deeper need. Understanding these reasons and fostering a solid client relationship can help advisors minimize the need for external validation.
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5 Scenarios When Advisors Should Fire Clients with Conflict of Interest
/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
We’ve posted several times on the topic of conflicts of interest created by financial advisors when their objectivity may be compromised, and their interests are not necessarily aligned with their client’s best interests. We talked about the harm it can cause to the advisory relationship. Financial advisors caught up in ethical dilemmas, whether intentional or not, must be ready to take corrective action to save the relationship and keep the trust of their clients.
But what about when the tables are turned, and the client creates a conflict of interest or ethical dilemma? It happens more than you might think—when a client’s personal interests or values don’t align with their advisor’s. The conflict may not be egregious or illegal, but even if it just rubs you the wrong way, it might be time to cut the client loose.
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First Meeting with a New Client—Preparation Checklist
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
The first meeting with a new client should be a momentous event for both you and the client. For your client, it’s the first opportunity to validate their decision to select you as their advisor. For you, it’s the first opportunity to showcase your professionalism and reinforce your new client’s decision. You both hope this will be the beginning of a long and trusting relationship.
As you prepare for your first client meeting, it’s critical to remember that you are being carefully evaluated. Your new client is essentially taking a leap of faith in choosing you, and you must always strive to make them feel like they have made the right choice. With that in mind, your first meeting sets the tone for the entire relationship. Plan it with care.
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Not Getting Through to Your Clients? 5 Ways to Step Up Your Engagement
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
Most financial advisors understand the importance of client communications. Those who don’t find out the hard way that poor or infrequent communications is the number one reason clients leave their financial advisor, according to a Financial Advisor Magazine survey. But what if you feel you have a deliberate client communications strategy, yet your clients seem to be unresponsive or not engaging with you at a level that gives you confidence they are fully on board?
That’s not a good feeling, and it should sound alarms if you hope to maximize client retention.
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Want Your Clients to Take Their Financial Plan Seriously? Keep It Front and Center in Your Relationship
/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
It wasn’t so long ago that clients perceived financial plans as an extension of the prospecting process to entice them to open an account and hand over their money. Many financial advisors feigned the role as a financial planner to create the perception of objectivity with the recommendations they would make. Clients received a faux leather-bound financial plan that just took up shelf space, never to be revisited by them or their advisor.
Fast forward to today, and we see an increasing number of financial advisors who are committed to a more holistic approach to working with clients, making the financial plan a critical cornerstone of their relationships. That, of course, is in response to what more and more clients are looking for in their advisor relationships—a plan that addresses the entirety of their financial life to guide them in life-critical decisions.
Why is it then that the value of a well-conceived financial plan seems to wane among clients who, further into the advisory relationship, begin to question their advisor’s advice or express disenchantment because their investments are underperforming their neighbor’s or colleagues’ portfolio? What do advisors need to do to get their clients to refocus on what’s really important?
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Why Client Communications Must Be Your Highest Priority
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
Going into the new year, financial advisors need to take stock of their business and determine the one critical aspect they need to focus on that could make or break their year or even their career. Acquiring new clients is always a top priority, but there is even a higher priority for advisors hoping to break through to the next level. That’s because if you can’t retain the clients you have, you’ll find yourself in a deep hole, trying to claw your way out.
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