September 26, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
According to a Morningstar study, what clients want most from their financial advisors is to help them reach their financial goals. That should be good news for financial advisors because, generally, people with clearly defined goals and ambitions for the future have the conviction to adhere to a long-term plan to achieve them.
However, it could also spell disaster for advisors who fall short in helping their clients articulate their most important goals and fail to gain their commitment to achieving them. To inspire action, client goals must be well-defined and quantifiable with genuine intrinsic value. Anything less is a hopeful aspiration, and hope is not a strategy.
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To Win More Prospects, Show Them You Are the Goals-centric Advisor Clients Want
January 16, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments
As a financial advisor, you have one job and one job only—to help your clients achieve their financial goals. At least, that’s how your clients see it. That’s according to a research study by Morningstar, which revealed what clients value most in an advisor. Advisors would be well-served to keep that in mind in their efforts to win over more prospects.
Next on the list of what clients value most from an advisor is “skills and knowledge,” followed by “maximizing returns.” Unquestionably those are essential attributes. However, the study indicates that prospects may put less weight on them if you fail to check off the one they deem most important—helping them to achieve their goals.
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What Advisors Need to Do to Help Set Client Goals
September 26, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
According to a Morningstar study, what clients want most from their financial advisors is to help them reach their financial goals. That should be good news for financial advisors because, generally, people with clearly defined goals and ambitions for the future have the conviction to adhere to a long-term plan to achieve them.
However, it could also spell disaster for advisors who fall short in helping their clients articulate their most important goals and fail to gain their commitment to achieving them. To inspire action, client goals must be well-defined and quantifiable with genuine intrinsic value. Anything less is a hopeful aspiration, and hope is not a strategy.
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Financial Advisor Do’s and Don’ts During Extreme Market Volatility
June 27, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Investing Wisdom / 0 comments
Financial advisors play a vital role in helping clients achieve their most important financial goals. But where they really earn their fees is during times like these, when helping clients navigate the choppy waters of extreme market volatility. Clients look to their advisors to guide them through scary times and reassure them that everything will be okay.
Emotions run high when the market turns volatile. When stressed, humans instinctively want to do something and take some kind of action to reduce or eliminate the threat. That’s when mistakes typically occur. The value of a financial advisor rises in direct proportion to the anxiety levels of their clients, who look at volatile market swings as a threat to their financial security. The critical role of financial advisors is to keep their clients from making costly behavioral mistakes. During periods of extreme market volatility, there are some things advisors must do and things they should avoid doing to maximize their value to their clients. Here are a few.
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5 Things You Should Do to Successfully Manage Your Relationships with Clients
May 29, 2017 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
What your clients do this year and going forward will not be dictated by world events alone. It will be dictated by the strength of their relationship with you. That’s why you need to make relationship building one of your top priorities.
Here are five ways to keep your relationship on a firm footing.
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How to Get Prospects Off The Fence
February 20, 2017 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments
When a prospect turns around and says he or she needs to think things over they’re likely basing their indecision on fear or laziness. Maybe they’re fearful about the shaky economy, distrustful about paying you a fee, or just simply don’t want to leave their comfort zone. All their ‘reasons’, however, are based on emotion – and to break this inertia, you need to use techniques that will motivate them to act.
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Why Financial Advisors Must Embrace Prospecting
December 21, 2015 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 1 comment
Prospecting is the one crucial marketing activity you need to undertake in order to identify and attract new clients.
New clients will not fall into your lap by accident. If people don’t know who you are, they will never understand what you can do for them. If you don’t make prospecting a habit you will neither achieve success in terms of your own goals, nor will you be able to help others achieve theirs. So rather than dreading the ‘prospect’ of prospecting, see it for what it is: the backbone of your business.
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