3 Soft Skills Advisors Need to Refine for an Immediate Connection with Prospects

3 Soft Skills Advisors Need to Refine for an Immediate Connection with Prospects

Not to diminish the hard work, effort, and time that goes into becoming a financial advisor—few professions are as demanding—but the essential skill advisors must acquire is the ability to sell. Perhaps a more acceptable term would be “the art of persuasion.” Whichever way you want to frame it, if you have difficulty persuading or convincing people to take action, you stand little chance of success.

Of course, that’s true of just about any profession that requires changing or influencing people’s behavior. It just happens to be more challenging when selling financial advice and expecting to get paid for it. Advisors must understand that buying an intangible service requiring people to trust that the advisor can deliver that intangible value is scary for most people. It’s far less threatening to stay with the status quo and do nothing.

The trouble is, if you can’t convince people to follow you or your advice, you aren’t accomplishing anything. To overcome the inherent trust deficit and open prospects’ minds, financial advisors must constantly refine three critical soft skills, or they will have fewer chances to demonstrate their highly trained competencies.

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How to Get Clients to Stick to the Plan

It’s crucial that you get your clients to stick to the plan. If they don’t, they could forgo their comfortable retirement or build up debt when they put their kids through college. Your responsibility, as their financial advisor is to keep them on track. Here are three effective ways to do that.

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5 Stories to Develop Strong Relationships with Clients Based on Trust and Likeability

5 Stories to Develop Strong Relationships with Clients Based on Trust and Likeability

The best way to initiate a strong relationship with clients is to tell them stories. People don’t need to have a ton of data thrown at them in the first meeting. They will be more interested in whether they like and trust you. Forget the numbers and pie charts, and use your personal stories and experiences to help you establish trust and likeability in the minds of your prospects. Here are five such stories to get you started.

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