/ by Don Connelly / Presentation Skills / 0 comments
Undoubtedly, you are familiar with the theme: You have a prospect in front of you with a clear objective. After gathering all the facts and probing them on why it’s important to them to achieve the goal, you present an iron-clad solution that checks all their boxes, throughout which they nod in agreement. You lay out the steps to get started and ask them for their approval to move forward. When they shift back in their seats, you know what’s coming—the pause, the hesitancy, and the anxiety over making a decision, leading to the standard, “We’d like to think about it.”
After addressing their concerns, walking them through how your solution helps them achieve their objective, once again with approving nods, they again shift in their seats and confide that they just don’t think it’s a good time to start investing.
That’s a very good sign—a strong indication you’ve done your job—up to this point. But your job is not complete until your prospects take action to improve their situation. All they need now is a reassuring nudge. All they might need is some perspective—some time perspective.
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Long-Term Care: Help Your Clients Prepare While There’s Still Time
/ by Don Connelly / Long-term Care / 0 comments
Over the course of my career coaching and mentoring Financial Advisors, I’ve prided myself on staying product neutral. I’ve always believed that my value lies in helping Advisors build trust, sharpen their communication skills, and become more persuasive and empathetic—not in recommending specific financial products. I’ve never picked sides. Never told you what to sell. That changes today.
For the first time ever, I am recommending a product: the Bridge® annuity by EquiTrust. And I want to explain why I’m doing this—and why it matters so deeply to me.
This isn’t about commissions. It’s not about product placement. It’s not about jumping on a bandwagon.
It’s about preparation—specifically, preparation for one of the biggest risks to retirement that no one wants to talk about: the need for long-term care.
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6 Essential Investment Tenets to Instill in Your Clients for 2024
/ by Don Connelly / Investing Wisdom / 0 comments
The stock market has taken investors on another wild rollercoaster in recent years. The market recovered from a bear market in 2022, and after a solid up year in 2023, there’s bound to be another one at some point. Going into 2024, the market will keep investors guessing, which is why helping your client maintain a long-term perspective is essential.
We can’t know what stocks will do today, next week, or next month. But we know that, over the long term, stocks will continue their century-long advance. Reacting to short-term swings in the market means moving in and out of the market at the wrong times, locking in permanent losses, and often missing out on the biggest gains in the market.
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Use the Perspective of Time to Move Your Prospects to Action
/ by Don Connelly / Presentation Skills / 0 comments
Undoubtedly, you are familiar with the theme: You have a prospect in front of you with a clear objective. After gathering all the facts and probing them on why it’s important to them to achieve the goal, you present an iron-clad solution that checks all their boxes, throughout which they nod in agreement. You lay out the steps to get started and ask them for their approval to move forward. When they shift back in their seats, you know what’s coming—the pause, the hesitancy, and the anxiety over making a decision, leading to the standard, “We’d like to think about it.”
After addressing their concerns, walking them through how your solution helps them achieve their objective, once again with approving nods, they again shift in their seats and confide that they just don’t think it’s a good time to start investing.
That’s a very good sign—a strong indication you’ve done your job—up to this point. But your job is not complete until your prospects take action to improve their situation. All they need now is a reassuring nudge. All they might need is some perspective—some time perspective.
Read more
Teach Your Clients to Focus on the Destination, Not the Journey
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
As an Advisor, you are perpetually caught in a paradox. You want your clients to focus down the road on the outcome, while you, in fact, can’t do that. You are bound to focus on the process of investing; because the process is all you can control. You certainly can’t control outcomes.
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