social distancing Archives - Don Connelly & Associates

Working Mostly Online in a Post-pandemic World Is Especially Hard on New Advisors

/ by Diana Marinova / Best Practices, Connelly Corner / 0 comments

This turbulent year is almost over and looking back, we see a few clear trends of topics that interested Financial Advisors the most on our blog during 2020. We’d like to share some of them with you now, in case you missed them the first time around.

Here are the first three topics most requested and read by our community of financial professionals in 2020.

Six Ways Financial Advisors Can Establish Trust in Today’s Virtual World

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

You can have all the technical and market skill in the world. But if people don’t trust you, you’re not going to open new accounts.

It’s just a fact of life in sales: If people don’t trust you, their defensive mechanisms are going to be up during the entire sales process. If you’re lucky, they’ll tell you. At least that way, you get to face the trust issue head on. That might give you a fighting chance.

But more often than not, you’ll be met with polite silence, and the dreaded “we’ll give you a call if we decide to do anything.”

If you hear that, chances are you whiffed on the trust issue.

After all, if you had their trust, they’d be looking for ways to talk themselves into doing business with you!

Making Sure You Make the Most of Market Uncertainty – What Advisors Read the Most on the Blog

/ by Diana Marinova / Connelly Corner, Investing Wisdom / 0 comments

As you very well remember, we had a quick and severe market downturn in March and April 2020, followed by the greatest stock market rally in the history of the stock markets. Naturally, clients are panicked because of the market uncertainty. Regardless of where the DJIA closes today, we know for a fact that there will be another bear market – we just don’t know when.

To help you prepare yourself and your clients for what inevitably lies ahead, we bring you the top 10 most-read posts on the topic of market volatility, falling markets and growing your business in a post-pandemic world.

How to Fill Your Pipeline Despite the Coronavirus Pandemic

/ by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

Back in 1998, physician and author Spencer Johnson wrote a best-selling book called “Who Moved My Cheese?”

It’s the story of four mice who live in a maze and who have grown accustomed to cheese being deposited in the same spot every day… until one day it didn’t happen. The rest of the book explores their strategies for coping with change – both successful and unsuccessful.

The moral of the story is this: “Change happens.” It’s inevitable. Not everyone can roll with the punches, but you’ve got to adapt, improvise and overcome. You’ve got to move with the cheese.

Well, friends, the cheese just got moved!

Now, don’t get me wrong: The cheese hasn’t gone away. It’s still out there! People still want and need help managing their money. In fact, they want and need it now more than they have in years. But the way to get to the cheese is now radically different.

Communication in a Post-Pandemic World: How to Connect with Prospective and Current Clients

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

All of us are affected by the coronavirus and the shutdowns. The virus is slowly running its course but social distancing will be with us for a very long time to come.

That means most of us are going to have to change the way we market and sell our services. “Meet and greet” networking events will be out of the picture for a while. When they do come back, they’ll be different. They may look more like ‘show and tells’ with slide shows than mingling sessions.

Even walking into businesses and asking for the owner is going to be fraught. The small ‘handshake’ ritual that has been with us since antiquity will be changed as we figure out our new forms of etiquette and social conventions.

So, what’s the best path forward?

5 Advantages Young Financial Advisors Have Over Older Advisors

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

When it comes to asking people to handle their money, having a few grey hairs does bring a small advantage. People are just naturally reluctant to trust people with managing their money who are younger than their own children.

But there are some huge advantages to being a younger advisor, as well. In fact, I can tell you after decades in this business, there has never been a better time in the history of the financial services business to be coming into this business as a young advisor, or even a career changer under 40.

Financial Advisors and Social Distancing: How to Keep Prospecting and Servicing Clients

/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments

Traditionally, being a financial advisor has been a face-to-face business. We are creatures of the working lunch, the handshake, the coffee meeting. Appointments are the lifeblood of our business, because we’re in the business of personal relationships. That’s our real advantage over the low-cost robo-advisors, and a big part of how we justify our fees.

But social distancing is changing all that in a flash. I’m optimistic about the economy and the stock market long-term. But this bug isn’t going away anytime soon. We are undergoing a rapid cultural shift where social distance may very well become the norm for a good, long while.

And all of us old-school financial advisors, as well as brokers, planners, insurance agents, all of us, are going to have to adjust.

I’ve talked with a lot of people, and I’ve seen a lot of economic cycles. Here’s what I suggest you do to keep growing your business even with social distancing.