/ by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments
As a financial advisor, you are valued for your expert knowledge, but you are only as effective as your ability to get your prospects and clients to act on your recommendations. If you can’t, their situations won’t improve, and neither will yours. Many financial advisors in that situation might chalk it up to them being “bad” prospects and move on, but aren’t they abdicating their role as an advisor?
Certainly, advisors shouldn’t use strongarm tactics to turn their prospects around, but shouldn’t they at least understand the reason behind the objection? Could they learn some valuable insights that would help resolve the issue, if not for the prospect in front of them, but for similar situations they encounter in the future?
In the financial advisory business, objections come with the territory. They’re often just knee-jerk reactions from clients hesitant to make a change. Prospects often don’t understand the real reason behind their objection—they’re just not comfortable moving forward. As an advisor, your job is to help them acknowledge the real reason so they can place it in the context of what you have offered them.
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How to Turn Data Collection into a Process Your Clients Will Appreciate
/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments
Financial advisors love data—until it’s time to collect it from a new client. Advisors know that data collection is an essential component of the planning process, without which they can’t get an accurate picture of their client’s current situation. But mining all the critical data needed to connect current circumstances to future aspirations can be tedious—for both advisors and clients.
It can also be a point of tension in a new advisory relationship, as new clients may still be working through trust issues. Advisors must understand this and continue working fervently to earn their client’s trust by expertly shepherding them through the process. While getting the data is important, advisors need to use this moment as another opportunity to engage their clients on a deeper level, focusing as much on the qualitative side as the quantitative side of data collection.
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Prospect Objections Are Often a Cry for Help. Your Job Is to Help Them.
/ by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments
As a financial advisor, you are valued for your expert knowledge, but you are only as effective as your ability to get your prospects and clients to act on your recommendations. If you can’t, their situations won’t improve, and neither will yours. Many financial advisors in that situation might chalk it up to them being “bad” prospects and move on, but aren’t they abdicating their role as an advisor?
Certainly, advisors shouldn’t use strongarm tactics to turn their prospects around, but shouldn’t they at least understand the reason behind the objection? Could they learn some valuable insights that would help resolve the issue, if not for the prospect in front of them, but for similar situations they encounter in the future?
In the financial advisory business, objections come with the territory. They’re often just knee-jerk reactions from clients hesitant to make a change. Prospects often don’t understand the real reason behind their objection—they’re just not comfortable moving forward. As an advisor, your job is to help them acknowledge the real reason so they can place it in the context of what you have offered them.
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Teach Your Clients Not to Watch The Evening News
/ by Don Connelly / Investing Wisdom / 0 comments
In our increasingly information-driven society, it’s your job to teach clients not to believe all they hear. They need you most of all when they’re being bombarded with negative news about the markets. Being exposed to excessive information without anyone there to guide them could see your clients making bad decisions regarding their investments.
Here are a few ideas how to make sure your clients stick to the plan despite what the media say.
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Three Major Challenges Financial Advisors Face when Acquiring Clients
/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments
Pinpointing the main challenges Financial Advisors face in their daily work is a challenge in itself, considering there are so many. But here are three of the most often cited pain points – with a few tips on how to address them.
#1. Getting referrals
If like a lot of other advisors, you often find it difficult to ask for referrals it’s because asking for referrals is essentially like asking for help to grow your business. And having to ask for someone’s help feels like admitting that your business is deficient in some way. Asking for referrals also means facing up to your fear of rejection.
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Client Goals Are Not Reduced by Falling Markets
/ by Don Connelly / Investing Wisdom / 0 comments
The biggest challenge every investor (and, actually, every Advisor) faces is staying fully invested in the face of bad news. It’s only normal to want to escape danger. Unfortunately, fleeing danger means timing the market. The stock market is too fragmented to successfully time over an extended period. In too many ways, tactical asset allocation is churning without the commissions.
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