why advisors fail Archives - Don Connelly & Associates

Why You Need to Be a Good Business Person to Succeed as a Financial Advisor

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

A large percentage of financial advisors fail, not because they aren’t good at what they do, but because they lack the core competencies of running a business.

If you want to succeed in this profession, you need to become a business person.

Let’s look at what this entails.

Common Mistakes New Advisors Make – Ones that Could Ruin Your Business

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 0 comments

There are many pitfalls to face when you’re first starting out as an advisor and mistakes are easy to make. Look out for these potential mishaps because they could halt your business in its tracks before it even gets off the ground.

Why Focus on Bringing Your Prospecting Skills Up a Notch

/ by Diana Marinova / Connelly Corner, Prospecting / 0 comments

The raw truth about our business is that nothing happens without an appointment. You may be the greatest or the smartest advisor in the world, but if you don’t have enough appointments your business will suffer. If you don’t meet enough people, your business will suffer. If you are not a good prospector, your business will suffer.
Check out several posts that continuously received the most positive feedback from our readers this year – coincidentally, they are all about prospecting!

Top 5 Reasons Advisors Fail

/ by Don Connelly / Marketing Yourself / 2 comments

It may come as a surprise to learn that financial advisors don’t generally fail because of the numbers. They do so because of poor ‘soft’ skills. Being unable to manage a business competently or provide top notch customer service are more likely to get you fired than an inability to get returns on investment.

If you want to succeed as a financial advisor you need to stand out in a highly commoditized industry – which means not being guilty of the following:

Looking Back on 2014

/ by Don Connelly / What's New / 0 comments

Thank you.

Your support means the world to everyone here at Don Connelly & Associates. Without you, there is no learning center. Your loyalty is not taken for granted.

2014 was a learning year for me, as I’m sure it was for you. I remember Bob Dunwoody once described himself as a student-teacher. He said he learns as much from Advisors as he teaches them. I know what he means.

It was also a year of observation.

Be Organized – Make Prospecting a Priority

/ by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 2 comments

I can conjure up many advantages to being organized. Less stress is way up there on my list. So is the luxury of having fewer decisions to make. But the number one reason is more time to sit face-to-face with clients and prospective clients.

My friend Jack is fond of saying that your success depends upon how many families you will touch going forward. Advisors who fare poorly generally do so because they don’t see enough people. It’s hard to have appointments when paperwork keeps getting in the way.

Self-Confidence Will Make You Unstoppable

/ by Don Connelly / Prospecting / 0 comments

I was speaking at a Financial Services conference in Australia and heard an insurance company CEO issue a provocative challenge to the audience members.

“If you stand on any street corner in Sydney and ask everyone who walks by to buy life insurance, every eighty-fifth person will. The questions is, do you have what it takes to hear the word ‘no’ eighty-four times in a row?”
The failure rate in the Financial Services industry is north of eighty percent.

This industry hires a small fraction of the people who apply. We provide good training, good products and good internal and external support. Yet most fail. And they are good people who got hired for good reasons.

Lack of self-confidence doesn’t mean lack of ability.

Love What You Do and Do What You Do Best

/ by David Hubbard / Best Practices / 1 comment

David Hubbard - Guest Author with Don Connelly blog

“I want to be more successful”, “I want to be a million dollar producer”, “I want to have one hundred million under management”. These are but a few of the phrases that hundreds of advisors have told me over the years. Many advisors measure their success by some numerical figure relating ultimately to income. The first thing that I have to do is to remind them that income is the result of running a successful financial advisory firm.

Why is it that the vast majority of financial advisors never achieve the success that they hoped for when they decided to enter the business?

Get Your Work Done in Sixty Percent of the Time

/ by Don Connelly / Best Practices / 1 comment

I can tell you without hesitation that the amount of time you spend marketing yourself this year determines how much you will grow next year. If you don’t prospect and market yourself, your business will wither and die.

I can also tell you without hesitation that running your business gets in the way of growing your business. The details eat up your time. There are only so many hours in the day. What to do then? Why do we give tasks more time than they need and what can we do about it?

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