Litany of Disaster Archives - Don Connelly & Associates

Overcoming Information Overload: What Advisors Can Do to Help Their Clients

September 11, 2023 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

Living in the digital world, with its instantaneous access to information, has made us smarter and more empowered. In many ways, it has leveled the playing field for clients who now have access to much of the same information once only available to investment professionals. Information is so highly valued that it is churned out 24/7, accessible on any number of devices people carry around. For clients especially, this should be a good thing, right?

The barrage of headlines and hype around market events often leads to behavioral mistakes, like following the panicky herd over the cliff during a market selloff or frantically trying to buy into the market after a massive rally. Studies show it is the primary reason why investors consistently underperform the market.

Keep Your Clients Focused on What’s Knowable and Important

May 9, 2022 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

The media has always run rampant with scary headlines. That’s how they increase readership or website traffic. However, in this period of increased market volatility, economic uncertainty, geopolitical upheaval, mixed COVID signals, and deepening political divisions, the headlines can be incredibly overwhelming or, at the very least, extremely distracting.

Trying to consume all the news coming at us 24/7 is like trying to drink from a firehose. It’s critical to understand that the barrage of bad news and hype around market events can trigger emotional reactions that often lead to making costly decisions around their finances.

Use the Perspective of Time to Move Your Prospects to Action

June 14, 2021 / by Don Connelly / Presentation Skills / 0 comments

Undoubtedly, you are familiar with the theme: You have a prospect in front of you with a clear objective. After gathering all the facts and probing them on why it’s important to them to achieve the goal, you present an iron-clad solution that checks all their boxes, throughout which they nod in agreement. You lay out the steps to get started and ask them for their approval to move forward. When they shift back in their seats, you know what’s coming—the pause, the hesitancy, and the anxiety over making a decision, leading to the standard, “We’d like to think about it.”

After addressing their concerns, walking them through how your solution helps them achieve their objective, once again with approving nods, they again shift in their seats and confide that they just don’t think it’s a good time to start investing.

That’s a very good sign—a strong indication you’ve done your job—up to this point. But your job is not complete until your prospects take action to improve their situation. All they need now is a reassuring nudge. All they might need is some perspective—some time perspective.

What Not to Do in Building Lasting Client Relationships

February 8, 2021 / by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

For financial advisors, building lasting client relationships is as essential as it is challenging. There’s really no more important aspect of an advisor’s practice to ensure sustainable growth. While many advisors try to focus on facets in their practice to bring more value to the relationship, they tend to gloss over what not to do, which can have an even more significant impact on their relationships – and not in a good way.

Here are four key “what not to do’s” all advisors need to proactively convert into a priority to-do list.

Being a Financial Advisor in Uncertain Times – What You Need to Know

November 2, 2020 / by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

As I write this in mid-October, 2020, the stock market is sitting right at an all-time high. But there’s still an ongoing pandemic – and a presidential election looming. Either of these things can cause big short-term swings in stock prices.

That means things are pretty risky at the moment. In the short-term, anyway.

As financial advisors, we have to help our clients understand that risk, and help them manage their money so they can accomplish their financial goals, but also so they can sleep at night in the meantime.

Those of you who have been around since before 2008 know this process well. For those of you who are just getting started, here’s what you need to know.

Convincing Clients of the Futility of Market Timing

September 14, 2020 / by Don Connelly / Investing Wisdom / 0 comments

We will probably never admit it, but most of us are lousy timers, and, of course, none of us can predict the future. How often have you tried to shift your way through stop and go freeway traffic to end up in the slowest lane again? For investors who try to time the market, the actual costs of underperformance and lost opportunity are invariably greater than the potential benefit.

How to Build Your Story-Benefit Matrix

May 25, 2020 / by Don Connelly / Storytelling, analogies and power phrases / 0 comments

Last week I blogged about a useful sales tool called a story-benefit matrix, and why you should develop one for your practice. Just going through the process is beneficial: It forces you to think through a number of different ways your prospective client will benefit by working with you – and gives you an opportunity to help tell an illustrative story that will cement that case.

It’s basic “soft-skills” at work.

But it’s helpful to understand how to build one yourself, so let me help you with that.

Reasons Clients Need a Financial Advisor – Overcoming the Do-It-Yourself Objection

April 6, 2020 / by Don Connelly / Investing Wisdom / 0 comments

We’ve all encountered them: The prospect or client who wants to go it alone. They want to manage their own portfolio.

Well, here’s one approach you can use:

First, ask the question, “Can I share something with you?” (I like this phrase because it’s non-confrontational. It doesn’t activate the prospect’s ego, leading to an argument you can’t win. It neutralizes it.

Then you can show them the latest DALBAR study.

It doesn’t matter much what year you use. The results for individual DIY investors are almost always dismal: According to the 2019 DALBAR Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior, the typical do-it-yourselfer achieved an annual real return of just 1.71%.

Compared with the S&P 500, do-it-yourself investors lagged the S&P 500 by huge margins:

• 4.35 percentage points, annualized, over five years;
• 3.46 percentage points, annualized, over 10 years;

The reason: Bad market timing decisions. People pile into the market at the wrong times, and then they panic and sell at the wrong times.

Why? Because people are irrational, and are hardwired to make sub-optimal decisions.

Coronavirus: An Opportunity for Financial Advisors to Strengthen Client Relationships

March 16, 2020 / by Don Connelly / Investing Wisdom, Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

As I write this after the market close on March 9th, 2020, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 1,800 points on the day, for a loss of 7.8%. The S&P 500 is down by 7.6% – the worst single day on for U.S. equities since the 2008 crisis.

This Monday loss follows some significant volatility late last week that already had a lot of investors on edge.

No doubt, most of you advisors out there are receiving some nervous calls and emails from your clients, wondering what’s going on.

This is where great advisors can earn their money. As a matter of fact, you as financial advisors may well not have as great an opportunity to add value for your clients for a very long time as you do today.

5 More Questions Prospects May Ask You before Deciding to Hire You as Their Financial Advisor

April 15, 2019 / by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

Choosing a financial advisor is a big decision for potential clients, especially if they’re new to the world of investing. Not only will they be looking for someone suitably qualified, they’ll be searching for someone who shares their goals and comes across as caring and authentic.

To try and deduce whether you’re the right fit for them, they’ll undoubtedly have questions. In this follow up to a previous post, let’s look at 5 more questions you may get asked in that first meeting.

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