make prospecting a priority Archives - Don Connelly & Associates

5 Priorities Financial Advisors Must Have to Succeed in Our Business

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As you might already know, financial advisors need to be good business people to succeed, which entails having a solid business plan, creating an ideal client profile, developing project management skills, and acting and thinking like a CEO. Those are critical foundational elements for any financial advisor with ambitions of growing a successful business.

However, on a day-to-day basis, success in the financial advisory business requires a constant blending of priorities such as strategic focus, interpersonal skills, and industry knowledge. Here are the five top priorities financial advisors must focus on to thrive in their careers:

5 Top Priorities for Advisors Who Want to Build a Healthy Practice

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If you want to build a healthy practice, there are several things you must prioritize, including the following.

#1. Prospecting
To run a healthy business, you need a pipeline full of good leads. Referrals will probably not be enough to grow your business – and networking, whilst productive, won’t guarantee that you’ll meet the right people. So, prospecting (i.e. actively recruiting or seeking out new clients) must become your priority.

Prospecting may be the least favorite part of your job. If this is the case, work on developing your soft skills so you become more comfortable with this task.

Procrastination Will Ruin Your Chances of Success

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Procrastination can take different forms. You may consciously procrastinate and avoid what you know you should be doing, or you may unconsciously put off your top priority tasks by attending to a series of ‘never ending fires’. Whatever type of procrastination you suffer from it can be ruinous to your business. Here’s what to do instead.

How to Be a Better Prospector

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To succeed in this competitive industry, you need to be creative when it comes to acquiring new clients. No one universal approach is likely to be your Holy Grail when it comes to prospecting. Instead, you will need to adopt a number of prospecting approaches and learn, through trial and error, which work best for you. Once you’ve found a method you’re good at, you’re likely to enjoy finding clients that way, boosting your job satisfaction as well as your ability to attract new clients. Here are a few prospecting approaches to try.

Why Being a Good Advisor Is No Longer Enough to Succeed

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Few industries have become as commoditized as the financial services industry. It’s become more and more common to see a personal touch replaced by ‘cookie-cutter’ automated solutions.
On the bright side it’s clear that technology cannot replace the service of a really great financial advisor. Clients still crave advice that’s customized. They need the services of an advisor who can look at the ‘big picture’ and understand the complexities of their lives in terms of their aspirations, family and careers.
If you want to succeed you need to be more than ‘good enough’. You need to prove you are prepared to go that extra mile and provide a service that’s above and beyond your clients’ expectations.
How do you get to become an Elite rather than a “good” Advisor?

Why Financial Advisors Must Embrace Prospecting

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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.

How to Get More Referrals

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Referrals are integral to growing your business. They are one of the most profitable sources of new clients. So asking for referrals is a priority – even if the thought of doing so fills you with trepidation.

In order to get more referrals be selective where you focus your energy. Determine the right time to ask your clients and try these different approaches in order to make asking for referrals more natural – and more productive.

Five Steps to Help Make Prospecting a Habit

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If your appointment book is full to overflowing then you won’t need to read on. If however like most advisors you don’t have a line of prospects queuing at the door, you need to develop better and more successful processes when it comes to prospecting.

You must begin to see prospecting as your only real priority. It’s the only way you will get more appointments and win more business. You may not like prospecting – many advisors see this as the least favorite part of the job – but don’t let fear of failure prevent you from undertaking this core task.

Here are five steps to help you make prospecting more of a habit and less of a dreaded chore.

When Starting as a Financial Advisor …

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The financial services industry is incredibly competitive and the first few years can be especially gruelling for new advisors. When you first start out you won’t have many clients or a network to get you referrals but so long as you have a plan and stick with it, you will soon make an impact. You are not going to become successful by accident.

Five Actionable Ways You Can Stand Apart from The Crowd

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If you want to succeed as a financial advisor, you need to achieve a competitive advantage. There needs to be something about you that highlights you not superior to other advisors but different. You need to possess a ‘certain something’ that makes people want to do business with you.

Dare to be different

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