what clients want Archives - Don Connelly & Associates

What Advisors Need to Do to Help Set Client Goals

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

According to a Morningstar study, what clients want most from their financial advisors is to help them reach their financial goals. That should be good news for financial advisors because, generally, people with clearly defined goals and ambitions for the future have the conviction to adhere to a long-term plan to achieve them.

However, it could also spell disaster for advisors who fall short in helping their clients articulate their most important goals and fail to gain their commitment to achieving them. To inspire action, client goals must be well-defined and quantifiable with genuine intrinsic value. Anything less is a hopeful aspiration, and hope is not a strategy.

How to Provide the Level of Service Clients Will Talk About

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How to Provide the Level of Service Your Clients Will Talk About

By now, financial advisors with any ambition of success know that the only way to stand out in a vast sea of sameness is by providing an extraordinary customer experience—one that can turn your clients into stark raving fans. To do anything less relegates you to the ranks of every other advisor who prides themselves on providing “excellent service” to their clients. “Excellence” is now a minimum expectation of clients who have been raising the bar for advisors for the last decade.

So, what is an extraordinary client experience, and how can advisors consistently deliver it? The challenge for advisors is there is no standardization for delivering superior client service. One client is different from the next in how they view the level of service provided. The level of communication and engagement that suits one type of client may fall short for another type.

5 Things Nervous Clients Need from You

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

Let’s chat about the backbone of the business, client relationships. Client relationships are fragile. As soon as their money’s exposed to volatility, clients are on an emotional roller coaster ride and they need a lot of attention. And all too often, we get caught up in the details of products and services we’re offering to notice that our attention may have slipped. And I can tell you without hesitation that the minute your client feels your service is no longer personalized, he or she becomes your competition’s best prospect.

Watch this video episode or read the transcript below to learn a few ideas on how to make sure your clients hold you in high esteem.

How Financial Advisors Can Stay Ahead of Industry Commoditization

/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 0 comments

In our second in a series of Critical Issues Facing Financial Advisors Right Now, we focus on perhaps the most significant threat to advisor success, much less survival—the commoditization of the advisory industry. The threat is significant because most advisors don’t even know it’s happening to them. In this extremely cluttered and highly competitive advisory landscape, advisors who don’t find ways to stand out in the crowd get swallowed by a sea of mediocrity, where clients dare not go.

Sound overly dramatic? In fact, it might be understating what is happening. Striving to be a knowledgeable, client-focused, and trusted advisor is no longer enough because that is what clients expect. Advisors must work each day at providing their clients with the unexpected. Otherwise, why should they choose you over any other typical financial advisor? Equally important is why should they stay with you when they can find so many others like you from which to choose?

How to Succeed at Giving Financial Advice

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

So, you want to be in the business of giving financial advice. That’s understandable because not only can the career of a financial advisor be financially rewarding, it can also be very fulfilling. Through a relationship that can span a lifetime, you become the essential source of advice in one of the most important aspects of your clients’ lives. There’s just one problem. You don’t have any clients—yet.

As a new financial advisor, your number one job is to find new clients. That has always been advisors’ biggest challenge but more so today due to the trust deficit that exists in the financial services industry. According to a CFA Institute survey, only 57 percent of retail investors trust the financial services industry, which is up from a few years ago, but it’s still a wide chasm to overcome. The same survey found that retail investors listed “trust” as their top consideration when hiring an advisor. Prospective clients simply won’t work with an advisor they don’t trust.

Building Healthy Relationships with Clients – Six Steps Financial Advisors Should Take

/ by Diana Marinova / Connelly Corner / 0 comments

As an advisor, how high you go is dependent on your ability to maintain long-term relationships. There’s no activity more crucial for the success of an advisor than relationship building. To help you evaluate your relationship building and management skills, I’d like to share a few of Don’s top podcasts on the topic. Hopefully, they’ll give you some food for thought and actionable steps you can take to improve your practice and create loyalty among clients.

10 Things Clients Want from Their Advisors

/ by Don Connelly / Managing the Relationship / 0 comments

One of the things I’ve observed over the years is that good service does not sell. Great service sells.

Watch this video to hear Don explain how to make your service great.

One of the firms I really admire has done something that is so good that when you put together your service proposal, you have to refer to it.

The firm is Cadaret Grant. The late Mac Cadaret was a wonderful guy, Art Grant is a friend. The men and women that work there have built a tremendous organization. They took the time and the presence of mind to ask clients what top ten things they wanted from their advisors. I thought you’d like the answer.