/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
If you are to be chosen as someone’s Financial Advisor, you must pass three tests. The person must like you and think you are smart, but, most importantly, the person must trust you. There is no substitute for trust.
When mom and dad leave you after that first meeting, they do not talk about convexity or tactical asset allocation.
They ask themselves one question: “Do you trust him? Do you trust her?” If the answer is ‘no’ or ‘not really’, you stand no chance of getting those folks as clients. There are too many other Advisors they can turn to.
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Sociability Is the Skill of Interacting Well with Others
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 2 comments
The definition of sociability sounds mild: the quality or state of being sociable. The significance of sociability is anything but.
Sociability spawns likeability and likeability cannot be overstated in a business based on strong relationships.
People do business with people they like. An Advisor who does not have good social skills is probably not going to be likeable; and Advisors who are not likeable don’t last too long. They just don’t interact well.
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Your Clients Look to You for Leadership
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
The more uncertain the times, the more certainty clients want from you. They want you and they expect you to guide them to their goals. Like it or not, you are depended upon for your leadership skills. This may be unfair to you.
You weren’t taught leadership in training.
Nonetheless, the role has been thrust upon you.
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Without Integrity, There Is No Credibility
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
If you are to be chosen as someone’s Financial Advisor, you must pass three tests. The person must like you and think you are smart, but, most importantly, the person must trust you. There is no substitute for trust.
When mom and dad leave you after that first meeting, they do not talk about convexity or tactical asset allocation.
They ask themselves one question: “Do you trust him? Do you trust her?” If the answer is ‘no’ or ‘not really’, you stand no chance of getting those folks as clients. There are too many other Advisors they can turn to.
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Every Advisor Needs to Bring Back the Story
/ by Don Connelly / Presentation Skills, Storytelling, analogies and power phrases / 3 comments
The ability to tell good stories is vital if you want people to like and trust you. Your clients like you and trust you. They didn’t buy a financial plan or a managed account. They bought you.
People can’t ‘buy’ you until they know you and the best way to get to know you is to hear your story. And they can’t hear your story until you tell it to them. The better you do that, the sooner you open the account. As Peter Guber says, you tell to win.
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The More Words You Use to Get Your Point Across, the Less People Listen
/ 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.
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When Asking for a Commitment, Make Up Your Mind in Advance
/ 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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Do Full Service Advisors Deserve Commensurate Compensation?
/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
There’s probably precious little a Financial Advisor can offer that you aren’t offering. Some Advisors do taxes and some do not, but basically we all generate revenue the same way. We offer the same products and the same process at essentially the same price. It’s hard to charge more than the other guy if you are both doing the same thing.
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Care More than People Expect You to Care
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
When people get poor service, they are not the least bit surprised.
People no longer expect good service except in the very finest of establishments, places where they willingly pay a lot in exchange for that good service. Mediocrity is the new standard.
That opens an enormous door for you. Once people get used to mediocrity, anything above mediocrity stands out.
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Think like a Lifer – Being a Financial Advisor Is a Career, Not a Job
/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments
If anybody asks, you don’t have a job. You have a career. Think that way. Think like a lifer. You are here to stay.
A job involves the pursuit of money. A career involves the pursuit of a lifelong ambition.
A job is something you have to do. A career is something you love to do.
Jobs come and go. Careers last a lifetime.
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