exceptional service Archives - Don Connelly & Associates

5 Priorities Financial Advisors Must Have to Succeed in Our Business

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

As you might already know, financial advisors need to be good business people to succeed, which entails having a solid business plan, creating an ideal client profile, developing project management skills, and acting and thinking like a CEO. Those are critical foundational elements for any financial advisor with ambitions of growing a successful business.

However, on a day-to-day basis, success in the financial advisory business requires a constant blending of priorities such as strategic focus, interpersonal skills, and industry knowledge. Here are the five top priorities financial advisors must focus on to thrive in their careers:

How Newer Financial Advisors Can Build a Solid Client Base

/ by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

There’s never been a better time to build a financial advisory practice. More people than ever are clamoring for quality, objective financial advice to guide critical life decisions. It’s also a very challenging time for newer financial advisors as the competition for quality prospects is fierce.

However, unlike fledgling financial advisors of yesteryear who worked with little more than a reverse phone directory to find clients, advisors building a practice today have the advantage of years of hindsight along with some cool technology to get them over the proverbial hump.

Rather than applying a dated “all of the above” approach to prospecting that included endless cold calls, direct mail, and even blast emails, newer financial advisors can systematically and incrementally build a solid client base using a proven marketing and sales framework fit for the digital age.

Four Imperatives You Must Embrace to Achieve Sustainable Growth in Your Practice

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

As you might already know, the key to achieving sustainable growth in a financial advisory practice is to focus on your core business of business development and client management. From a practice management standpoint, that requires developing business processes that enable you and your team to gain greater efficiencies while increasing productivity by doing more with less. In other words, turning your practice into a well-oiled machine.

But what about you? As the guiding force of your practice, what are you doing individually to ensure its sustainable growth? Business processes are essential for scaling your business and expanding its capacity for growth. But there are certain things only you can do to drive its growth.

Here are four imperatives financial advisors must embrace to achieve sustainable growth for themselves and their businesses.

Want to Get Out of a Rut? Focus on Becoming Exceptional

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

We can all remember when we first became financial advisors, feeling like we could conquer the world. With our entire careers in front of us, we were excited, motivated, and ready to commit everything we had to become successful. The great thing about starting out as an advisor was that there was never a dull moment. Everything was new, and we thrived on the daily challenges of learning how to build a successful practice.

Flash forward a few years, and time seems to slow down. The hours don’t fly by as they once did, and the pace of change has slowed to a crawl. That’s when you know you’re in a rut, which can be agonizing for someone who once braved the many obstacles that lay in front of all new financial advisors. For financial advisors, being in a rut can seem like dying a slow death.

Why You Shouldn’t Be Apologetic when Asking for Business or Referrals

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

For many financial advisors, that moment right before asking a prospect to take action on a recommendation or, in sales parlance, asking for the order is filled with tension. It can be more stressful when asking for referrals. Less seasoned advisors are often overcome with the fear of rejection, which is natural until you’ve developed more confidence in your ability to close. That comes with practice and experience.

The bigger problem is with advisors who, for whatever reason, approach that critical moment feeling apologetic—as if asking a client for a referral or a prospect to act on their recommendation may seem offensive. It’s a bigger problem because it stems from a mindset that can be more difficult to overcome. It demonstrates a lack of conviction in what they are proposing or, worse, in what they do for a living. They’re not convinced they are providing genuine value. If you don’t believe in yourself at that moment, how can you expect your prospect to have conviction in your solution or your client to believe in you when you ask for a referral?

For Great Financial Advisors, the Profit is in the Relationship

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

The industry pressures that have weighed on financial advisors over the last few years will continue into 2021 and beyond, especially with the lingering effects of the pandemic. Fee compression, increasing regulation, heightened competition, and the commoditization of services are all part of an inevitable trend that threatens the survivability of many advisors. From now on, advisors who fall short of clearly differentiating themselves will have a difficult time bucking the trend, and advisors who fail to put their entire focus on their client relationships may be doomed.

Unfortunately, many advisors learn too late in their careers what I have stressed numerous times—that this isn’t a money business. It is a people business! For the first several years of an advisor’s career, the focus is almost solely on acquiring product knowledge, investment expertise, and planning skills. While that is essential for building necessary competencies, too few advisors come to realize that money management is not the lifeblood of their business—their clients are.

For financial advisors, the profit is not in the financial analysis or the transactions they conduct; it’s in the relationship.

Financial Advisors Who Lack These Soft Skills Often Fail

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 2 comments

The ability to master soft skills is key to your future success as a Financial Advisor. In fact, it’s easily as important as how much technical knowledge you have. However, advisors often struggle to develop the key soft skills required to build relationships with prospects and clients – and consequently their business suffers.

Perfecting your soft skills should be your number one priority. This post will help remind you to get back to the basics by focusing on five soft skills that could make or break your business.

Why Is Online Reputation Important for Your Success as a Financial Advisor

/ by Diana Marinova / Connelly Corner, Marketing Yourself / 0 comments

As Don Connelly always says, only three things must take place for you to get a new client: that person must like you, trust you and think you are smart. But how could prospects like you, trust you and think you are smart if they never met you? How do you come across as likeable, trustworthy and smart if you have no prior relationship with them?

The answer lies in your online reputation.

Why Financial Advisors Get Fired

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

Financial advisors get fired because they aren’t ‘the full package’. They may provide ‘good’ service, but is it exceptional? They may have a winning personality, but do they pay attention to their clients? They may return calls but never instigate them – and while they may understand their products, do they believe in them?

In order to make sure you don’t get fired you need to cover all these bases and more.