succession plan Archives - Don Connelly & Associates

To Better Understand Your Client’s Goals, Listen Carefully to How They Express Them

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

To Better Understand Client Goals, Listen Carefully to How They Express Them

A critical aspect of advising clients is to ascertain their financial goals correctly. If you or your clients don’t genuinely understand the goal, your advice could be dangerously off base, and you could lose your client’s confidence.

Clients typically come to financial advisors with various goals, but they might articulate them in nuanced ways, reflecting their concerns, values, and life circumstances. Your role as a financial advisor is to listen carefully, ask probing questions, and translate these expressions into actionable plans created around their biggest concerns, preferences, and priorities.

Here are five common financial goals clients have and how they might express them differently:

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.

5 Steps to Attracting and Retaining More Clients

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

Lack of success in this industry can be a result of many failings – from a lack of business acumen to ineffective soft skills. In this post we’ll look at some key areas many advisors might consider focusing on in order to attract and retain more clients.

How People Pick a Financial Advisor

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

When people choose a financial advisor, they’re looking for someone who’s not only qualified but someone they can trust. Without these attributes you won’t get hired. But in this crowded industry – one that’s projected to grow 15% more by 2026 – it will help if you understand other factors people may consider important in a prospective advisor.

Here are a few things to remember as important to people who pick a financial advisor.

7 Things You Can Do for Clients to Show That You Care

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

If you are to be a successful financial advisor, you need to do more than simply manage money. You need to be great at managing relationships – in particular, you need to show your clients that you truly care about them.

If you care more than people expect you to care not only will clients remain loyal to you, but they’ll feel comfortable about referring you to friends, family and colleagues.

Here are 7 ways to show you care.

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

/ by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

Just as there are many questions you need to ask a potential client, prospects will have plenty of things they’ll want to know before they consider doing business with you too. Here are five questions you’re likely to receive.

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.

5 Things Financial Advisors Should Do to Make the Most of This Holiday Season

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

As the year draws to a close it’s the ideal time to reflect, regroup and make plans for the New Year. What went right and what went wrong? What things can you do to make sure your career is in great shape going into the next year?

Here are five ways to help you hit the ground running next year.

Maintaining Meaningful Relationships Is Hard but Essential Work

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

As a financial advisor you need a wide range of skills, not least the ability to prospect and win new business. However, another area of expertise – and one which is frequently overlooked – is the ability to maintain a meaningful ongoing relationship with your clients. Here are a few ways to do this.

How Do Clients Choose a Financial Advisor?

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

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…

1 2