financial advisor Archives - Page 3 of 5 - Don Connelly & Associates

Tell Simple Stories

March 20, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Storytelling, analogies and power phrases / 0 comments

Clients, as we’ve discussed in the past, love word pictures. What we find very, very simple, people find very, very difficult to comprehend. This is much the same as you and I having difficult time understanding two lawyers when they talk. It’s because of lingo.

Because our lingo in the financial services industry is just as confusing to people you need to use stories when communicating to current and prospective clients. So tell them stories.

Learn to Laugh at Yourself when It Is Called for

March 10, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

It is hard to overstate the importance of being able to laugh at yourself. People who can do this are generally more optimistic than those who cannot.

Optimistic personalities go far in the Financial Services industry.

I have seen a lot of Advisors fail over the years, but I have never seen an optimistic Advisor fail. Being more cheerful and less serious is a great survival technique.

Common Sense Is Quite Uncommon

March 3, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 2 comments

Our A students become professors. Our B students go to law school. Our C students rule the world.
So wrote Dean of Harvard College, Henry Rosovsky.

The inference to be drawn from Rosovky’s observation is that common sense will take one very far in life. Street smarts trump book smarts.

Everybody seems to know that common sense is always the answer.

Optimism Is a Choice

February 24, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 1 comment

Optimism Attitude and Financial Advisors

I read an interesting article that stated each of us has nearly 60,000 thoughts per waking day, one each second. We mostly think about things we have thoughts about before and many of those thoughts are negative.

Mood and memory are linked.

For whatever reason, bad thoughts seem more powerful than good thoughts. We hash over the bad thoughts and we get in a bad mood. People in bad moods think negative thoughts. We should call it a negativity loop.

Having Problems Is a Plus

February 17, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

If you know you’ve got problems gathering assets and growing your business, you are lucky. A problem can be turned into an advantage and that’s a good thing.

The very fact that you recognize a problem means that you are concerned enough to recognize it, that you want to better yourself. Too many Advisors drift along waiting for magical occurrence to turn their business around. You are trying to make things happen.

Get Your Work Done in Sixty Percent of the Time

February 6, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 1 comment

I can tell you without hesitation that the amount of time you spend marketing yourself this year determines how much you will grow next year. If you don’t prospect and market yourself, your business will wither and die.

I can also tell you without hesitation that running your business gets in the way of growing your business. The details eat up your time. There are only so many hours in the day. What to do then? Why do we give tasks more time than they need and what can we do about it?

There Is No Ambiguity When It Comes to Being a Good Advisor

January 30, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

Yet, while certain elements of this business are ambiguous, the challenge we face is not.

The correct way to succeed is straight-forward. Either you do things right or you don’t. Either you do the right things or you don’t. Either you see enough people or you don’t. Either you build a good business or you don’t. Embrace the clarity.

Can You Tell Me in Eight Seconds What You Do for a Living?

January 16, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 2 comments

When someone asks you what you do for a living or asks you exactly what it is you do as a Financial Advisor, how simple do you think your answer should be? Bingo. Very simple.

According to the NationalCenter for Biotechnology Information, the attention span of a human being is eight seconds. To put that in perspective, the attention span of a goldfish is nine seconds. If you like that statistic and want to learn others, check out www.statisticbrain.com.

The More Words You Use to Get Your Point Across, the Less People Listen

January 13, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Presentation Skills / 0 comments

Have you noticed that the more a person talks, the less connected to the listener he or she seems to be? There is no give and take. People like that think the listener finds them as fascinating as they find themselves. They are not fascinating. They are boring.

In your role as a Financial Advisor, talking too much is the kiss of death.

When Asking for a Commitment, Make Up Your Mind in Advance

January 9, 2014 / by Don Connelly / Presentation Skills / 0 comments

Of all the presentations given by Financial Advisors to prospective clients on any given day, how many end up with no commitment being made? We’ll never know. Of all the presentations which end up with no commitment being made, how many end up that way because the Advisor didn’t ask for the commitment? We’ll never know that either. But we can take a pretty good guess and we can also guess why.

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