Once you’ve developed a clearly defined and differentiated value proposition, there are many different routes to getting the word out to high end prospects.You can build profile as the “go to” resource within a defined client group, build referral relationships with accountants and lawyers or focus on developing media profile in your community.
And then there’s the role of patience – one of the most important qualities to an effective prospecting campaign.Recently, I talked to an advisor about the fine line between communicating that you’d LIKE to work with prospects on the one hand but that you don’t NEED to work with them on the other. In conversations with prospects, you need to avoid anything that makes them fear that they may be rushed or pressured when meeting with you.
Tags: Accountants, Cfa, Client Group, Client Meetings, Conversations, Fall Back, Job, Lawyers, Part Time, Patience, Personal Visit, Profile, Prospects, Referral, Relationship, Relationships, Retirement, Serial Entrepreneur, Take The Lead, Value Proposition
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Typically, financial advisors go through distinct growth phases or “paradigm shifts” as the practice grows. In the first few years of a financial advisory (FA) practice, the primary focus is attracting clients. The financial advisor is intent upon acquiring new clients. The processes that are applied in this phase include prospecting and face-to-face selling.
Tags: Administration Functions, Administrative Tasks, Amount Of Time, Complexity, Compliance, Credibility, Degrees Of Separation, External Marketing, Financial Advisors, First Few Years, First Transition, Five Degrees, Growth Phase, Internal Marketing, Marketing Initiatives, Marketing Sales, Paradigm Shifts, People, Service Administration, Specialized, Time Client
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Amidst all of the market uncertainty, some advisors find it helpful to email articles that provide a generally upbeat view of mid term prospects.For example, a recent cover story on Macleans featured “The case for optimism.” Other articles come from the Globe and Mail, National Post and Toronto Star.
Macleans
To view “The case for optimism”, March 24 – go to www.macleans.ca
Globe and Mail Report on Business
“Bear rally or not, there will be a recovery” – March 24, Rob Carrick When the market does come back, it’s going to look a lot like it has in the past couple of weeks
<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090323.wcarrick0324/EmailBNStory/SpecialEvents2/>
Tags: Decloet, Energy Stocks, Globe And Mail, Late In The Day, Mail Report, Market Uncertainty, New Faith, Oil Patch, Pendulum, Preferred Approach, Preferred Shares, Report On Business, Rob Carrick, Suncor, Swing March, Term Prospects, Theglobeandmail, Toronto Star, Upbeat View, Warren Buffett
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Advisors have two competing and contradictory imperatives when meeting with clients.On the one hand, it’s essential to establish an emotional connection and have clients feel truly listened to. You do this by engaging clients with good questions and by being alert for nuances in how they answer, maintaining eye contact and reading their body language.
On the other hand, we need to make notes to ensure that we capture new information and key points in our conversation.
The difficulty for some advisors is the focus on taking notes undermines your ability to fully concentrate on the subtle things that can be important tip offs in a conversation and prevents clients from feeling that they have your complete, undivided attention.
Tags: Administrative Burden, Body Language, Client Interaction, Client Meetings, Effective Meetings, Emotional Connection, Express, Eye Contact, Full Attention, Imperatives, Many Meetings, Nuances, Tip Offs, Undivided Attention, Upcoming Meetings
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Simon’s background and cultural experience gave him a great advantage in his chosen career as a financial advisor. Unfortunately, he was not aware of it. When we first started working together, it was clear that one of Simon’s strengths was his network.
Born and raised in Lebanon, he spoke English, French and Arabic. His clientele consisted primarily of people from his native country. Unfortunately, it was a small community that he had virtually tapped out. He did not realize that the characteristics of the people in his natural market created the greatest opportunity to grow his business.
Tags: Backgammon, Building Relationships, Client Profile, Clientele, Coffee Games, Countless Hours, Demographics, English French, Establishing Credibility, Family Values, Fourth Year, Games Chess, Network Of Friends, People Of Lebanon, Solution Seekers, Spades, Staple, Statistical Analysis, Strong Family, Value Relationships
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Two things go into making our days productive – the first is what we do and the second is how we do it.
In recent conversations with advisors, a number have begun using a simple idea to dramatically increase the return they get on their day, by ensuring that they’re focusing on high return activities.The first thing to making your time in the office productive is being intentional, stepping back at the start of the week and asking what is the highest and best use of this week as a whole and each day within this week.
Tags: 20 Inutes, 20 minutes, Appointment, Calendar, Conversations, Decisions, Least Three Hours, Maximum Productivity, Monday Morning, Priorities, Prospects
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Put together a list of the things that frustrate advisors targeting high-end clients and roadblocks to referrals from accountants are sure to be close to the top. Successful advisors recognize the power of a recommendation from a HNW prospect’s most trusted advisor.
Many have invested lots of time and energy trying to build referral relationships with accountants, with little to show for their efforts. My recent round table conversations with accountants have identified an approach that substantially increases the odds of success.
It all starts with looking at things from an accountant’s point of view. I’ve highlighted number of obstacles to getting referrals:
Tags: Accountant, Accountants, Commissions, Conversations, Financial Advisors, Goodwill, High Priority, Hnw, Hourly Billing, Obstacles, Paramount Concern, Point Of View, Referral, Referrals, Roadblock, Roadblocks, Six Words, Trusted Advisor, Voice Mails, Woes
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The following is based on one of Norm Trainor’s clients, Joel Goodhart.
I asked Joel, “What makes your advisory firm different?” He answered: “Experience”. Joel and his partners, Stuart Leibowitz and Dennis Freedman have 90+ years of experience. It was a good answer, but not the right one.
The right answer is rooted in the values that define how the partners approach their careers.
Tags: Advisory Firm, Affluent Societies, Born Teacher, Burning Desire, Choice Products, Cliff Notes Version, Due Diligence, Experience Economy, Financial Advisors, Financial Health, Freedman, Generous Man, Good Answer, Health And Wellbeing, Interest In Politics, Leibowitz, Norm Trainor, Peak Performer, Professional Approach, Symbiotic Relationship
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These days, we’re all looking for ways to make the time we spend talking to clients on the phone and in meetings more productive.Recently, I spoke to an advisor who has made one small change to his routine that has led to better results from client interactions. With an investment of just thirty seconds before each call and meeting, he has seen a meaninful change in outomes.At the beginning of each day, he takes a piece of paper with three columns.
Each time he picks up the phone to call a client or gets set to go into a meeting, he takes thirty seconds to enter the client’s name in the left hand column.
Tags: Advertisement, Client Interactions, Conversations, Investment, Key Goal, Led, Left Hand Column, Middle Column, Objective, Phone Call, Piece Of Paper, Single Most Important Thing, Success, Thirty Seconds
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Below is a template for a mid-year letter to go to clients. Please make sure you read the accompanying post, Guidelines for An Effective Mid-Year Letter.
Please remember that this letter is intended as a template only, be sure to take the time to modify this to reflect your personal views.
June 22, 2009
A mid year note to clients
For many of us, the July 1 Canada Day holiday is the official beginning of summer.
Tags: Beginning Of Summer, Business Sentiment, Canada Day, Corporate Earnings, Decade, Depression, Economic Growth, Economic Indicators, Forecasters, Global Economies, Global Markets, Job Losses, July 1 Canada Day, Market Bottom, Personal Views, Pessimism, Prospects, Recession, Resumption, Second Half, Wall Street, Wall Street Journal
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The following is based on one of Norm Trainor’s clients, Eric Scott.
The first thing that stands out about Eric Scott is his commitment to serving his clients. Eric shares two qualities of top advisors. The first is high self-efficacy i.e. the desire to grow and become as much as you can be. The second quality is generosity of spirit. Eric is a giver. He is passionate about making a difference in the lives of others. This transcends his business and touches every area of his life. He views his chosen career of a financial advisor as a call to serve. Yet, his commitment to service often left him feeling exhausted at the end of each day. There were just not enough hours in the day to accomplish everything that needed to be done.
Tags: Administrative Officer, Advertisement, Advisory Firm, Best Fit, Breakthrough, Coach Eric, Desire, Eric Scott, Financial Advice, Generosity Of Spirit, Mantra, Norm Trainor, Operational Aspects, Passion, People, Realization, Relationships, Self Efficacy, Study Group, Support Staff
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We’ve all walked away at the end of a busy day, wondering where the hours went – and discouraged because we didn’t get everything done we’d hoped to.
Last week I’d talked to an advisor who had invested $2 to make a small change in his routine – and immediately began feeling better about his progress at the end of the day as a result.
The $2 investment was for a yellow highlighter.
He starts each day with a list of calls to make and things to do.
Tags: Busy Day, Checks, Different Ways, External Reinforcement, Investment, Mid Morning, Motivation Level, Simple Steps, Starbucks, Stroke, Yellow Highlighter
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A couple of weeks back, I got a call from an advisor who found himself way behind on contacting clients, felt overwhelmed at the prospect of tackling this and was paralyzed by procrastination as a result.
We all suffer from procrastination – the only difference is the magnitude of the problem.
For advisors looking to overcome procrastination, here’s the three-step solution I suggested to this advisor.Step One:
At the end of each day, identify two things you’ve been procrastinating about.
Each should be something that can be addressed in fifteen minutes or less – a prospect or client to call, email to write or admin problem to resolve.
Tags: 30 Minutes, Address, Advertisement, Calendar Free, Day Timer, Fifteen Minutes, Logjam, Lunch Time, Magnitude, Next Morning, Piece Of Paper, Procrastination, Productivity, Step Approach, Step Solution, Suggestion, Target, Temptation
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This article by Nancy Opiela, is reprinted from AdvisorPerspectives.com
Establishing a connection with the children of affluent clients is one of those happy cases that can be a win for both clients and for advisors.
First and most important, many high net worth clients worry about their kids’ finances and attitudes to money and sleep better if they feel their children are in good financial hands.
As a result, establishing relationships with clients’ children can have existing clients feel better served and help deepen the bond with them as a result.
Tags: Advisory Relationship, Affluent Clients, Assets, Attitudes, Cincinnati Ohio, Consulting Firm, Family Relationships, Fracture, Generation To Generation, Generations, High Net Worth Clients, Intergenerational Relationships, Investment Issues, Kind Permission, Legacies, Money, Nancy, Nancy Opiela, Perspectives, Sleep, Transition
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The most successful advisors whom we have worked with have taken the time to really think about what’s important to them in their work and their life. They have thought about their values.
A value is a thing or condition we consistently act upon to get and to keep. A value is a vector – a direction with a force. The clearest indication of what we value is how we spend our time and our money. It is not what we say that tells people what we value, it is what we do.
When your values are clear, decision making is easy.
Tags: Advertisement, Business Definition, Business Values, Clearest Indication, Decision Making, Direction, Financial Advisors, Insurance, Insurance Company, Lunch, Money, Myriad, Practice Values, Receipt, Stakeholders, Tax Purposes, Value Honesty, Vector
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This article a guest contribution by Patti Branco, author of The Path to Million Dollar Production.
Why host a seminar, and do they really work to generate business? With a little planning and some personal savvy, the answer is yes, if done correctly. This blueprint will show you the way to have an effective and profitable event at almost no cost!
But, what do I have to offer as a new advisor? You might be surprised. The moment you stand in front of a crowd, whether to introduce another speaker or to take the floor yourself, you are the perceived expert. Don’t squander the opportunity to make a great and long lasting impression. It’s important to remember that like any other sales call, a seminar requires that you close, or ask for the order.
Tags: Blueprint, Branco, Dollar Production, Economic Trends, Fan Fare, Fluff, Insurance Products, Interaction With Others, Investment Professionals, Lasting Impression, Lavish Events, Limited Partnerships, Mass Market, Mid Eighties, Mutual Funds, Nineties, Old Stuff, Prospective Clients, Prospects, Whole Life
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As prefaced in today’s newsletter:
During this period of heightened requirements for communications to your clients, keeping in touch with your network of clients and prospects is critical. While there is no substitute for one-to-one meetings and phone calls, weekly or periodic emails are an effective way of staying visible and developing frank and open discussions with both clients and prospects.
Starting today, and every Wednesday from today, as a service to you, we will be sending a listing of 3-5 articles from high value sources (e.g., G&M, WSJ, NYTimes) that you may use to send to your clients and prospects as part of your communications strategy. We will also include some helpful prefacing notes that you may use as well.
Tags: Communications Strategy, Dashboard, Dividend Paying Stocks, Dividend Stocks, Earnings, Economic Cycles, Economic Forecasting, Economic Forecasts, Economic Outlook, Economists, Income Dividend, Jeremy Siegel, Lakshman, Leading Indicators, Offerings, Open Discussions, Periodic Emails, Prospects, Recession, Skepticism, Slate, Spocks, Vantage Point, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Wharton, Wsj
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I was walking through the airport on my way to business meetings in California
I saw a poster of a pair of hard core cowboy boots and denim with the word “Follower”. It immediately got my attention. The ad immediately confronted my expectations by playing on what we usually project when we think of a ‘follower’.
I was curious, who’s the leader? Sure enough, the next poster, “Leader” had a figure in a snappy suit, shirt and tie. That seemed to make sense but I wasn’t sure I saw the point.
Tags: Business Meetings, Contradictions, Contrasts, Cowboy Boots, Cruise Ship, Crux, Denim, Follower, Hard Core, Holding The Space, Management Consultant, Party Deck, Patient Support, Paying Attention, Playing With My Mind, Seduction, Shirt And Tie, Steve Walmsley, Top Performer, Top Performers
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The important thing is not to stop questioning.
—
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