leadership skills Archives - Don Connelly & Associates

How Financial Advisors Can Be the Leader Their Clients Want

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In today’s complex financial landscape, being knowledgeable and able to connect with people is not enough. Clients expect more from you as their financial advisor. They expect you to lead them to financial security. Individuals seek financial advice because they lack the knowledge and expertise to navigate their financial futures effectively. But they are not inclined to follow just any advisor—only those who can unequivocally inspire trust and confidence. Why bother with anyone else?

Advisors must work each day to demonstrate leadership qualities that inspire trust, confidence, and informed decision-making. Here are the critical areas advisors should focus on to become leaders in the eyes of their clients:

How to Help Clients Make Good Decisions

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Your job is as much about managing relationships as it is about managing money. You need to establish close ties with your clients so you can become a positive influence in their lives over the long term. Unless you can steer your clients into making good decisions you not only risk losing them as clients – but you are doing them a disfavor – because you are allowing them to make potentially disastrous financial decisions.

Here are a few things you can do to influence your clients’ decisions positively.

5 Traits You Need to Have If You’re to Build Strong Relationships with Clients

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Your personal likeability and trustworthiness are more important than your professional knowledge when it comes to winning and building enduring client relationships. Professional credentials, while important, are only a backstop to the forging of strong personal connections. Focus on developing your soft skills.

Here are five traits you need if you want to create long-lasting relationships with clients and become more referable.

What Clients Need from You to Stick to The Plan

/ by Don Connelly / Investing Wisdom / 0 comments

To get clients to stick with their long-term investments you need to get inside their mindset and understand how they think and feel. If you know how your clients will react in the face of market volatility, you’ll be ideally placed to counter their concerns. If you understand what they need from you in terms of maintaining a long-term relationship, you will know which soft skills to focus on.

Here are a few things clients need to help them persevere with their long-term investments.

How Do Clients Choose a Financial Advisor?

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If you don’t know what’s going on in a client’s mind when they’re choosing a financial advisor, you won’t be able to present yourself in a way that meets their needs. And you won’t get selected.

So let’s take a look at some of the things likely to be on a client’s mind when they’re looking for an advisor…

Develop Leadership Skills So Clients Will Follow You

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There’s far more to being a good financial advisor than simply setting up a financial plan and then walking away. The best advisors not only identify which path clients should take – but accompany them for the entire journey. Your clients need to know that you’re committed to their long term success. They will look to you for reassurance along the way. So you need to step up to the mark and develop strong leadership skills.

Being Proactive Is a Key to Financial Advisor’s Success

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No one becomes a great financial advisor by accident. In order to become successful you must decide to be successful, and you’re the only person that can do this. If you don’t like where you are today then do something about it. Change, do things differently. The only thing standing between you and success is you. If you are tired of not having enough people to talk to, then make the decision to sharpen your prospecting skills. If you are tired of hearing people say they’ll ‘think it over’, make it your aim to learn how to better overcome their objections.

12 Practice Building Tips for Financial Advisors

/ by Kirti Anand Sharma / Best Practices, Connelly Corner / 0 comments

According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the projected change in the number of Personal Financial Advisors from 2012 to 2022 is +27%, which is much higher than the average growth rate (11%) for all occupations.

This is a sign of opportunity as well as an increase in competition.

To help you outrank this growing competition and at the same time, build an enjoyable and dynamic practice, check out the infographic below – featuring the top 12 practice building tips by Don Connelly. Check out the infographic.

Every Time You Sit with a Client, Your Leadership Skills Are on Display

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I want to remind you that next to the family doctor, you are the most important person a family will meet. You are not a vendor. You are the person who has been chosen to lead this family to their safe retirement heaven. The burden is on them to make the sacrifices necessary to guarantee peace of mind in their later years. The burden of you is to make sure they do it.

Your Clients Look to You for Leadership

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Leadership Skills for Financial Advisors

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.