| BILL BACHRACH'S MOST RECENT BLOGS
Friday, August 6, 2010
Are you swayed by the facts?
Last week, after a workshop for top advisors, one of them said something interesting to me; "90% of the population is not swayed by the facts." Think about that for a moment and ponder the truth in that statement. Then, be sure you are not part of the percent who is not swayed by the facts.
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Thursday, July 15, 2010
What are the Short-Term and Long-Term Consequences of Making Good Business Decisions?
In her soon to be released book, "Living Life With No Regrets," my wife, Anne, interviewed Denis Collier. Denis is a registered dietician and certified exercise physiologist. One of the questions she asked Denis is, "What is the impact of choosing not to lead a healthy lifestyle over the short-term and long-term?" His answer can have a profound positive impact on your business health and fitness also. He said, "This question really gets to the root of the cause of why people often choose NOT to do the healthy things. The key is this – there are minimal short-term consequences to making the unhealthy choice. In fact, quite often it is just the opposite: the unhealthy choice is the one that is most pleasurable. This applies to many things in life, not just health and fitness."
In another part of the interview Denis continues, "Few individuals can honestly say that eating a spinach salad generates the same immediate pleasurable sensation as eating an ice cream sundae. On most nights, it is immediately easier to go home and curl up on the couch instead of going for a workout in the gym. It is only in the long-term, after a lifetime of such choices, do the negative consequences rear their ugly head. My friend, who has lost a great deal of weight, said it best when asked how he, an intelligent, successful man, could have allowed himself to go through life so obese for so long, 'I knew that it was probably going to kill me, but I also knew that it probably wasn’t going to kill me tomorrow!'" Denis continues, "The key term we could all benefit from exploring is that of delayed gratification. We need to shift our focus from the pleasure that we will immediately get from the unhealthy choice, to the more fulfilling life of abundant health and energy that will surely come to us if we choose to make the healthy choice." And the same is true for making good business decisions, isn't it? It's easier to read an article about the market or the economy. It's easier to do research about the next great technology tool. It's easier to help your assistant do an administrative task. If you don't ask for referrals today it isn't going to kill your business. If you don't make follow calls today it isn't going to kill your business. If you don't improve the value you deliver for your clients today it isn't going to kill your business. If you don't get more organized today it isn't going to kill your business. If you don't hire a great assistant today it isn't going to kill your business. Etc, etc, etc. String those days together, however, and after a few years you find yourself smack, dab in the middle of mediocre-land. Mediocre production. Mediocre qualify of life. Mediocre clientele. Mediocre value proposition. My guess is that you didn't enter this business intending to put down permanent roots in the heart of mediocre land. So, what can you do about it? Take it one day at a time. The beauty of it being easy not to ask for referrals today is that it's also easy to start asking for referrals today. Today you can make follow-up calls. Today you can improve your value delivery. Today you can get more organized. Pick one or two things and do them today. Today you can also stop doing one or more of the many things that do not move you toward your goals. And then you can do what you know moves you towards your goals again tomorrow. And while you're at it, feel free to do the same with your health and fitness. Make it a great day... today. | No comments on this Blog | More in Sales and Marketing | Send to Friend | Print |
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Success Leaves Clues (Don't Shoot the Messenger) You have probably heard the saying that success leaves clues. These "clues" are Universal Truths or Laws of Nature that we observe successful people following that provide a good example of what to do if we would like to be successful also. These are things we accept as being true and unchangeable. Some of the more obvious Universal Truths or Natural Laws are that humans need to breathe air to survive, gravity, and that water is wet. | No comments on this Blog | More in Sales and Marketing | Send to Friend | Print |
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
6 Do's and 6 Don'ts of a Successful Advisor's Practice (Part 2 of 2)
This is Part two of the 6 Do’s and 6 Don’ts of a Successful Advisor’s Practice. If you missed Part One, go back and read it first.
Six Do’s
Now that we’ve identified the most common work-avoidance behaviors, you’re probably wondering how a successful advisor’s work day does look. Here are six areas on which they spend the vast majority of their time.
1. Holding Their Clients Accountable: Successful advisors report that their highest priority is to hold their clients accountable for doing what they need to do to achieve their goals. Most client-advisor relationships are backwards. When clients and advisors get together, the conversation tends to revolve around trying to rationalize things that aren’t rational and can’t be rationalized, like, “Why did the market do what it did?” and “What do you think the market’s going to do in the future?” and “Based on what you think the market’s going to do, what do you think we ought to do?” Most advisors waste time answering these questions, but successful advisors tell the truth: “I have no idea, but I do know that if you behave this way—if you invest your money this way over time and stick with this plan—you will achieve your goals.” Competent advisors hold their clients accountable to do what needs to be done so goals can be achieved in the face of the truth, which is that we don’t know what’s going to happen. I often say that the success of what you’re currently doing is built on the foundation of what immediately preceded it. When you create the impression that you have access to some magic information about the future, sooner or later you’re going to be wrong. If that’s the basis for a relationship, your clients will leave when they realize you can’t predict the future.
2. Helping New Clients Get Clarity: The most successful advisors spend a considerable amount of time helping potential clients get clarity about what’s truly important to them (their core values), helping them define their goals, and benchmarking their current reality so they can make the smart decision to hire the advisor to create and implement a written, comprehensive financial plan. Don’t overlook this important step. Remember, you can’t help your clients get what they want until you know what they want and the reasons those things are important to them.
3. Harnessing Their Resources: To create a plan that gives clients the highest probability of achieving their goals, successful advisors spend time harnessing their resources. This includes both the resources at their company and the external relationships they’ve developed. Their resources might include a plan writer, a money manager, an insurance expert, and several tax and legal experts. Remember, it’s your job to build a team of experts who facilitate the delivery of your promise to the clients, which is to help them achieve their goals for the reasons that are important to them.
4. Execute a Referral System: Successful advisors want their appointment calendars to be full, with as little time taken away from serving clients as possible. There are many ways to fill your appointment calendar, and the least expensive, least time-consuming, and most effective way is through referrals. Make sure you have an effective system for obtaining and following up with referrals.
5. Hire a Competent Staff and Keep the “Machine” Running Smoothly: Successful advisors hire competent staff people and hold them accountable to develop and implement effective operational and administrative systems to serve their clients. The size of your staff will depend on how many clients you have and how little you want to work.
6. Write Your Own Financial Plan: You’d be surprised to learn how many advisors neglect this step. They recommend financial plans for their clients, yet they fail to write a plan for themselves. Walk your talk! The most successful advisors take time to write their own financial plans, then they build their businesses so their financial goals are actualized.
Last but not least: Don’t be a salesperson, be a Trusted Advisor.
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Thursday, June 10, 2010
5 Great Words Made Even Better In Action
Commitment.
Consolidation. Coordination. Simplification. Confidence. Here's how you can put these powerful words into action to communicate with your clients and prospective clients the value of having a Trusted Advisor leading a team of Best-in-Class Subject-Matter-Experts for their benefit. True commitment is the key to any successful program, process, and relationship. When you make a commitment to truly comprehensive financial services and commit to implementing the advice of your team of your Best-in-Class Subject-Matter-Experts led by your Trusted Advisor you will get your entire house in perfect financial order and keep it that way forever. Regardless of their success or wealth, we estimate that less than 1% of people in the world actually have their entire financial house in perfect order. You can be one of them. This will not happen by accident. It happens by commitment. Consolidation means that everything is organized together. You no longer have multiple relationships with different institutions that you have to manage and keep track of. Everything is in the hands of one team of experts, led by your Trusted Advisor, so all decisions are made with complete visibility to everything you have with your goals and values in mind. Coordination means that there is synergy between all areas of your financial life and the expertise necessary to make smart choices about your money in alignment with your goals and values. Your Trusted Advisor is involved in every element of your financial life coordinating with you and the appropriate experts. Every member of your team: financial planner, tax experts, legal experts, insurance experts, money managers, etc. are always aware of your complete picture so you get the best advice possible. Simplification. Your commitment to all of your financial affairs being consolidated and coordinated makes life for you and your family much simpler. Therefore, you can relax, enjoy your life, and do the things that are much more important in life than worrying about your money. By making a commitment to consolidation, coordination, and simplification you also gain confidence. Confidence about your future. Confidence that your team of experts will make certain that nothing falls through the cracks, ever. Confidence that no matter what happens in the market, the economy, or the world that you have the highest probability of achieving your goals because your Trusted Advisor and your team of Best-in-Class Subject-Matter-Experts are giving you the best advice possible under all circumstances. You are confident that you will achieve your goals and fulfill your values. Continue your journey of implementing the Values-Based Financial Planning® Turn-Key Business Model. If you do not already have the systems and processes to earn commitment from your prospects and clients to hire you to consolidate, coordinate, simplify, and be more confident about their future, contact one of our coaches at (858)558-3200 or email SRMinterview@baivbfp.com for a complimentary consultation. | No comments on this Blog | More in Sales and Marketing | Send to Friend | Print |
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Fiduciary Standard? The headline reads: "Wall Street wins big as Dodd drops fiduciary provision." And the first line of that article is "Chalk it up as a win for the securities and insurance industries." How do the securities and insurance industries win when the client loses? It's a fascinating way to view the world, but not surprising. Here's my translation: "the lower the standards the easier it is for us to manage our advisors, salespeople, and agents." It's the usual product-oriented, fear-based thinking from our industry at-large and it proves, once again, that you have a competitive advantage as an individual Trusted Advisor who chooses to put the client first. Can you believe what you just read; you have a competitive advantage by putting the client first? Yes, you do. Doesn't everyone put the client first? Apparently not. Amazingly enough, our industry considers it a win when they don't have to adopt the highest standard of care for their clients. Wow.
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Monday, March 22, 2010
What's new in building high-trust client relationships?
Over the years, 21+ now, I've studied a lot, taught a lot, and written a lot about building high-trust client relationships. Lately I've found myself saying to our core group of committed advisors who implement the Values-Based Financial Planning™ turn-key business model that, "trust is not the objective, trust is a by-product of the other things that you do, like your behavior, your communication, and the quality of your work."
I've come to believe that if gaining your clients trust is your objective then the focus is on the wrong place: you. When, of course, the focus should be on them. When your goal is to establish trust it might be to further your agenda, like, “I have to get them to trust me… so they hire me... so they give me assets… so they buy my product or idea, etc, etc. etc.”
Consider this point of view instead: “I am going to show up relaxed, be authentic, behave with an extremely high level of professionalism, skillfully execute my process for creating a great client interview experience or progress meeting experience, ask great questions, listen with empathy, be well-organized , be respectful of their time by not bragging about myself or my company or boring them with over-explanations of financial concepts and ideas, and be selective about only letting the truly right-fit people join my community of Ideal Clients. And if, in the process of behaving this way, they trust me and hire me, fine. If not, that's okay too.”
Some advisors try to force things to happen with everyone they meet by using sales, influence, or persuasion tactics to "close the deal." This is akin to a woman desperately seeking a husband because her "biological clock is ticking" instead of looking for the right partner with similar goals and values who is best suited for the two them to create a life together of happiness and fulfillment.
I'm in the business of helping successful advisors double-quadruple their business revenue in 4 years or less, so what I'm writing about here is not purely altruistic. You may be concerned that "relaxing" or abandoning a more intense sales focus will diminish your results. Actually, the contrary is true. Which "way of being" do you think is more likely to attract successful people to want to become your clients, the relaxed Trusted Advisor or the intense salesperson? Relaxed doesn't mean wishy-washy or lacking in passion for helping people make smart choices about their money. It means that you don't show up with what we used to call "commission breath."
Think of each client relationship more like a professional marriage. The objectives are for them to have the best possible experience, whether they become a client or not, and for only the "right-fits" to become clients.
Here are a few time-tested ideas for behaving in ways that create the by-product of trust and a few thoughts about not-to-do behaviors that erode trust.
1 Look for "right fit" people to join your client community versus a "they have money therefore I want them" mentality. Create an Ideal Client Profile where the personality element of the people you meet is equally important to the money element in order for them to earn an invitation to join your client community. Notice the difference in how it feels to think of inviting people to do business with you versus "closing the deal."
2 Ask good questions.
a. Values (What's important about money to you?)
b. Goals (What are your tangible goals that require money and planning to achieve? How much do you want to have for that goal? By when? What are two or three words that describe what you are thinking and feeling once you have achieved that goal?)
c. Does the idea of having a comprehensive financial plan which gives you a higher probability of achieving your goals and fulfilling your values appeal to you?
d. Would you like to join our client community and have us do this work for you?
3 Listen with empathy. The tendency, especially during an initial client interview with people you may have never met face-to-face, is to think more about what you are going to say next while they are answering your questions. When you do this you don't really hear what they said, therefore it's hard to be empathetic to things you weren't fully present, mentally, to hear. The solution is to have your questions memorized so you don't have to think about what you are going to ask next, thus allowing you to be fully present and a much more empathic listener.
4 Record your client meetings, especially the initial client interview. I've written in this magazine before about recording client meetings and to save you the trouble of searching back issues here's a script for introducing the recorder. “I appreciate the investment of time and effort you made to be here today. The fact that you have done so tells me that you must be serious about your money, is that true? (pause for answer) You’ll notice that I’ll ask many relevant questions, take copious notes, and I also record the meeting. (refer to the recorder and pause) The reason I record is because I’m very thorough. (pause) Do you know how you can watch a movie a second or third time and see things you missed the first time?” (Nice long pause for them to respond.) “Well giving you advice about your money so you can achieve your goals is obviously much more important than a movie, so I want to make sure our advice is right for you. If we choose to work together, I’ll listen to this recording at least one more time to make sure to get it right. ” (pause) Ask your first question. (See "ask good questions" above)
5 Give advice with conviction. Salespeople tend to offer alternatives and let the prospect or client choose. Trusted Advisors gather all the information they need, consult with other experts where appropriate, and give the best advice for the client… with conviction. There may be more than one way to achieve a goal, but there is only one best way. Find the best way and give advice with conviction.
6 Tell the truth even if doing so jeopardizes the relationship. Serious and successful people don't want to pay good money for a rubber-stamp, yes-person kissing their butts and telling them only what they want to hear. It's your job to tell the truth, especially when it's what they need to hear and not what they want to hear.
7 Avoid direct statements or indirect implications that you can do the impossible. Ie: beat the market. The primary determinant of a person achieving their goals is their own behavior. Your job is much more about managing your clients’ choices and actions than it is about managing their money. The bottom line is that there is no guarantee of anything. The best you can do is to help people get their entire financial house in order, make the best choices possible at the time, and be in the strongest position possible to adapt to whatever non-controllable events occur. The less you play the predict-the-future game the more credible you are.
8 Be inspiring. Focus on helping clients and prospective clients create a compelling vision for their future and become their bridge to make it happen. Being a future vision creator is much more trust-building than being a problem-solver.
9 Avoid the use of the old-school greed appeal: “work with me and you'll get a better return because our guru has a better beat the market black box.”
10 Avoid the use of the old-school fear tactic: “buy gold (or whatever) now because the big deficits and weak dollar mean inevitable inflation coming to erode your buying power! You could outlive your money and end up a burden to your family, living off community hand-outs, or on the government dole. How would that make you feel?”
11 Be a comprehensive financial professional. It's interesting that most financial advisors claim to be comprehensive. But what does that really mean? What is “comprehensive financial services?” At the very least, comprehensive implies "everything." Do you really help your clients take care of everything related to their money? How many things is that? I know of one advisor who has done such a great job of defining comprehensive financial services that many advisors look to him for leadership on this subject. Check out www.trustedadvisortoolkit.com for the best information I know of about delivering truly comprehensive financial services.
12 Put the client first. Duh. I know. It sounds almost silly and certainly cliché. And yet there is a lot of discussion and controversy by the regulators and industry leaders about the fiduciary standard. Am I the only one who finds it absurd that legislation is necessary for our industry to step up and adopt a fiduciary standard? Isn't that simply always, in all situations, and under all circumstances putting your client's needs ahead of your own? Isn't that what you already do? Do you really need a law about that? Apparently the industry does. The good news is that your competition needs somebody else to define integrity for them. And speaking of integrity…
13 Have no conflicts of interest. Notice I didn't say "disclose conflicts of interest." Run your business without any conflicts of interest. Why should there be any conflicts of interest to disclose?
Keep in mind that these are not "tactics" to build trust. These are the powerful behaviors of financial professionals who are very good at what they do and who genuinely care about helping people get their financial house in order, achieve their goals, and fulfill their values. By behaving at this very high level of professionalism trust is the by-product of that behavior.
The bottom line is that you can't "technique" your way to trust. You earn it by who you are and what you do.
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Monday, March 22, 2010
Achieve Your Goals Sooner by Implementing the "Most Program"
A favorite saying that I’ve heard over the years is, “the solutions are often obvious once you get the questions right.”
Here are a few questions to consider that might help you achieve your goals (maybe even sooner than you thought).
1. Is what I’m doing right now moving me toward my goals?
2. Does my behavior move me toward or away from my goals?
3. Of all the things I could be doing right now with my time, is this really the best thing I can do right now to move me toward my goals? (Or am I just rationalizing that this is moving me toward my goals because I am unwilling or unable to do what I know really needs to be done?)
4. Am I really serious about achieving my goals?
My advice: Do the things that move you toward your goals, and stop doing the things that don’t move you toward your goals.
Some people say, “It’s not that simple.” Really? Are you sure? Because it’s probably not that complicated!
Most days, most of the things you do should move you toward your goals. For example:
Ÿ In business, most of what you say and do should move you toward your goals; like getting clients, taking care of your clients, and building and/or managing your deliverables team.
Ÿ In health, most of what you eat and most of what you do should improve your health.
Ÿ In relationships, most of what you say and do should improve your relationships.
Ÿ If you are spiritual, most of what you say and do should honor your beliefs.
Nobody is suggesting that you be perfect. We just encourage you to consider the question, “What would happen if most of what I said and did moved me toward my goals?”
First of all, do you have goals?
Second of all, do you have some compelling reasons behind the goals to drive you to say and do the things that move you toward them? In other words, do you have some reasons to be serious about achieving your goals?
For example, do you have a compelling reason to be fit and healthy? Is there something you want to be able to do now or in your 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and beyond that gives you good reasons to do what you need to do today in order to be fit and healthy? The more reasons you have for achieving your goals, the more likely you are to do the things the goals require to achieve them.
Your goals are the tangible what … and your values are the emotional why behind your goals.
Here’s one of my personal goals:
I want to be fit and healthy enough to regularly participate in vigorous exercise that can last as long as 5 – 10 hours at a time.
My related value:
The more fit and healthy I am, the better I feel. The better I feel, the more I am able to help people and the longer I will be able to help people (I hope!). I can help them by leading by example. I can help them by being around for another few decades to coach and mentor them. And this makes me feel like I am fulfilling my purpose in life and honoring my creator by using my gifts wisely.
Notice, I don’t have to be perfect … which is a very good thing because “perfect” is beyond my capacity! For example, when I indulge about once a month at In-N-Out Burger in two “double-double” burgers, fries and a chocolate shake, this is a choice that clearly does not move me toward my goal. However, as long as I do this infrequently and, on most days, I eat well and exercise, my body can process the “bad” meal, and my goal can still be achieved. In fact, I especially enjoy the trip to In-N-Out Burger on the way home after a nice, long, hard 4-5 hour bike ride.
What about you? What would happen if MOST of what you said and did moved you toward your goals?
If you are not moving as rapidly as you would like toward your goals, chances are that there is too large of a gap between your current behavior and the most-of-the-time behavior that the goals require to achieve them. Take advantage of the fact that you have the ability to change that. So … just change that now!
Perfection is not required. Just get on the “MOST Program” so you can achieve your goals for the reasons that are important to you.
Have fun!
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Monday, March 22, 2010
6 Do's and 6 Don'ts of a Successful Advisor's Practice - Part 1 of 2
Don’t be a salesperson, be a Trusted Advisor.
Stay tuned for Part 2....
Most financial advisors say they want to build a business that generates a sizable income and lets them live the life they want. Yet few advisors consistently do what it takes to create that kind of business. They seem to be very busy, but they’re actually engaging in something I call work-avoidance behaviors. If you want to build a successful business that lets you meet your financial and life goals, you need to uncover and eliminate work-avoidance behaviors from your daily routine.
Work-avoidance behavior includes just about anything that doesn’t really serve your clients. Here are six typical examples that I see again and again.
Six Don’ts
1. Keeping Up with Financial News: Some advisors think they need to know exactly what’s happening in the market, the economy, or the world. Although what I’m about to say flies in the face of conventional wisdom, pay close attention—reading financial magazines and listening to financial radio and TV are absolutely useless behaviors for a financial advisor. The time you spend following the news is time when you’re not building an intelligent business or taking care of your clients. The only people who need to know what’s going on in the market, the economy, and the world are the people who actually manage money. Some advisors get confused. They seem to forget that they’re financial advisors, not money managers, insurance experts, accountants, or lawyers.
2. Getting Ready to Get Ready: I’ve adopted a mantra at my firm: Bill should only do what only Bill can do. If a task is delegable, it should be delegated. A corollary to that rule is that certain things should be done during prime time, and certain things should be done during non-prime time. For example, you definitely need to spend time creating an image for your company. You must be able to communicate and articulate who you are and what you do. The question is, when should you do that? The answer, of course, is during non-prime time. Unfortunately, many advisors would rather spend time working on their company brochure, marketing materials, or Web site than actually ask for and follow up on referrals. After all, they can’t possibly feel rejected when they’re rewriting their promotional literature for the seventeenth time!
3. Becoming Overinformed or Overeducated: Another form of work avoidance is to be informed and educated beyond what your clients actually need. Some advisors do this by studying for every possible designation in the financial services industry. Others do it by reading books and magazines, listening to tapes, or attending training programs and conference sessions that are incompatible with the systems they’ve chosen for acquiring clients and running their business. Which leads to a very good question: Do you have a system for acquiring clients and running your business? Since most advisors don’t, they frequently go to conventions and sit in on every session. They don’t discriminate between what they need and what they don’t. Very few advisors attend conferences with pre-planned agendas and then come back with something they can really use. Instead, they come back with pages and pages of notes that they put on a shelf and instantly forget. Before you sign up for your next course or seminar, ask yourself honestly whether it’s the best use of your time or whether you’re simply engaging in work-avoidance behavior.
4. Talking About Your Business Instead of Working On It: Many advisors spend a tremendous amount of time talking about what they’re going to do, especially during prime time. When I was an advisor, five to eight times an hour, one of the other advisors in my office would walk in to ask me a question or talk about something that was completely irrelevant for prime time. I tried hanging a sign on my door, but that didn’t work, so I’d literally barricade my door with my chair in order to get some work done. If I didn’t, I’d get interrupted continuously. Prime time is for taking care of existing clients and acquiring new ones. Period.
5. Putting Out Fires: “Fires” are usually situations that your staff should handle. Many advisors don’t empower their staff members to solve problems or serve clients. They unconsciously sabotage their own success because complaining about their staff and then doing the staff’s work is frequently more comfortable than doing what they’re supposed do, which is asking for and following up on referrals. Managing money, writing financial plans, being a junior wanna-be economist, or doing anything else that could be delegated or outsourced (such as taxes, insurance, legal decisions) are serious work-avoidance behaviors.
6. “Checking In” to See How Clients Are Doing: Except for emergencies, client interaction should occur on a regular schedule. I’ve heard statistics that the most successful advisors are in contact with their clients 28 times a year. That could happen through 12 monthly statements, 4 (quarterly) face-to-face meetings, and 12 additional scheduled contacts, such as monthly phone appointments, non-financial newsletters, or other written or verbal contacts. Client contact should always be orchestrated; random contact is just another work-avoidance behavior.
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Thursday, March 11, 2010
Olympic Inspiration
What were the most inspiring moments of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver for you? | No comments on this Blog | More in Sales and Marketing | Send to Friend | Print |
Monday, February 22, 2010
Your success depends on you doing the most important things first
To create an excellent business life that supports a phenomenal personal life, you must take charge of your time and put the most important things first. Many advisors aren’t willing to do this. They tell their clients, “You want to be educated? I’ll educate you. You only want to meet once a year? We’ll only meet once a year. You don’t want to do comprehensive planning? Fine, we won’t do comprehensive planning. You want to give me a little piece of your money and expect me to help you when I only have part of the picture? Fine, I can accommodate that.” Then those same financial advisors wonder why they don’t make the money they want to make, have the quality of life they want, or have a valuable business to sell or pass on to their heirs.
So, what should you tell the client who wants to be educated or wants to dictate how the relationship should work instead of trusting you to do your job? Just tell the truth. Tell the client, “That’s not the basis of our relationship. There are a dozen people who are going to contribute to your financial plan and I can’t possibly be expected to know everything they know. The basis of our relationship is for me to understand YOU. It’s my job to understand your current financial situation, your goals, and what is truly important to you (your core values). Then I orchestrate the creation of a comprehensive financial plan that involves the collective wisdom and expertise of an entire team of professionals. This brings to bear virtually hundreds of years of experience to develop the best advice for you. Then it’s my job to hold you accountable to implement this advice over time, which will give you the highest probability to achieve your goals for the reasons that are important to you. We’ll meet once per quarter to provide you with progress updates, make appropriate adjustments so you achieve your goals, and ensure that you are doing your part to get where you want to be. Is this the kind of relationship you’d like too have with a financial advisor and his or her team?”
Put the tasks on your calendar that you must perform to create the business that will support the life you want and you’ll find that there’s no time left for anything else. You have time to serve existing clients, acquire new clients, and manage your staff and deliverables team. That’s all you have time to do, and none of these three activities can occupy more than a third of your time. When you become consumed with client service, your client acquisition and staff suffer. When you try to get “caught up” with hiring the right staff and organizing your office, your client service and client acquisition suffer. When you are over-weighted toward client acquisition, the other two aspects of your business suffer. It’s like having a balanced portfolio. You have to divide your time between these three vital areas consistently, all the time, over time.
There are only 168 hours in the week, period. How you use those 168 hours determines your business success, your client satisfaction, and your personal happiness and fulfillment. You have to sleep, eat, spend time with your family, exercise, and more. With the time that’s left, you have a business to run and build. And you have to run your current business while you build your ideal business. There simply is not enough time to do everything. You have to choose; 168 hours is all you’ve got.
In the end, you will end up exactly where your choices take you. As the renowned political leader and orator William Jennings Bryan once said, “Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” Make the choices today that will take you where you want to be. Take three steps back and decide how you want your life to look, create your financial game plan, and choose where and how to best spend your time. Create the kind of business you really want and take less time to achieve it.
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Monday, February 22, 2010
Three Reasons Firing Clients in a Tough Market Makes Good Business Sense
Remember your initial training? If you’re like most, you got the message loud and clear that if someone could fog a mirror, he or she was a “prospect” who should be pursued. It was your job to bully, B.S., and generally bother them until they said yes. You were to be flexible enough to offer them whatever they wanted (so long as it wasn’t that you’d stop pestering them). And when, lo and behold, you landed yourself clients, you were to serve them regardless of how unreasonable they became. To keep their business, you were to accommodate every whim, no matter the cost.
With that in your background, it may be hard to swallow the idea that being more selective and even more demanding of your clients will actually make you more successful. What’s more, firing clients who don’t meet your standards is a necessary part of growing beyond the do-anything-for-you mentality of the salesperson.
Take a minute to digest this. It may be true that jumping when they say jump actually sells more aluminum siding or used cars or vacuum cleaners, but it’s a shoddy business practice for someone who aspires to be something more than a salesperson. Financial professionals have a choice: push products or graduate to the level of Trusted Advisor, someone who builds his or her financial practice on something far more solid than convincing and closing skills. Trusted Advisors follow a business model that fits the industry better, gives them more self-respect, and provides clients with a helluva lot more value.
Trusted Advisors seek out a finite number of clients who fit a strict set of criteria—including both a financial and psychological profile, as well as predictable minimum annual recurring revenue—so that the business becomes populated not only with people they can serve well, but with people they enjoy serving, and who provide the necessary income for the business to flourish. Instead of indiscriminately taking on anyone walking in the hopes of making sales quotas for the quarter, the Trusted Advisor focuses on the big picture of following a real business plan that includes finding the ‘right’ people, who will become loyal, long-term clients.
It’s like choosing sailors for a voyage. As the captain of a ship, you want people aboard who have the right stuff, who can hack it when the waters get rough and whose company you’ll enjoy for the entire trip. And if they start causing trouble or sleeping when the deck needs swabbing, you don’t send them down the gangplank, but you don’t keep them aboard without trying to fix the problem, either. And if the problem proves unfixable, at the first available opportunity, you take them ashore and send them packin’. It’s just the right thing to do for you and the rest of the crew.
Likewise, getting rid of any clients who are a drag on your time and energy and whose financial contribution to your business doesn’t far outweigh their cost is just the right thing to do for you and the rest of your clients. You do the math: Take a look at what certain difficult clients net the business, and then consider how much you have to put up with in these relationships. This calculation is what we affectionately call the “pain in the butt to revenue ratio.” Of course, you also have to factor in your business’s financial outlook, but you get the picture. Of the thousands of financial professionals I’ve coached in the art of disengaging gracefully, I’ve never heard one of them say it was a bad idea. In fact, most have said it was the single most important career move they’ve ever made—and the most gratifying.
So, for those clients whom you aren’t really advising but from whom you collect a paltry sum as the broker of record, and for those clients who regularly waste your time or irritate you to no end: Heave ho.
You might be wondering, “How does this help me make more money right now? Whatever time and energy I might put into firing people—shouldn’t that just go into getting more of the right kind of clients? Can’t I just let sleeping dogs lie?”
Well, sure. If you have “sleeping dogs”—clients you never hear from but who aren’t really right for your business in the long term—maybe you should just let them snooze while you focus on generating new business. But here’s the risk: They come out of hibernation angry because you’ve been ignoring them and calling yourself their advisor. The risk is they wake up and start sucking your time. The risk is that even if they don’t take your physical time, there’s a certain amount of guilt and mental energy that goes into maintaining these people. There’s all of this to consider, and it just depends on where you are and what your true financial reality is. But I’ll bet there is at least one client you could fire today and actually profit by the experience. Here’s how:
1. You can recover the real costs to you and your business. Never mind the psychological costs—no doubt you’re already painfully aware of how keeping some clients sucks the enjoyment right out of your work. But how about the time these people waste? Time that could be better spent on following up with new client referrals, developing yourself professionally, serving clients who appreciate what you’re doing for them, improving business systems—all of which contribute directly to the bottom line.
2. You can capitalize on the current environment instead of suffering from it. Today’s economic climate provides you with the opportunity to create the kind of business you really want to generate more revenue.
Tough times can bring out the best and worst in people. As you’ve labored through this bear market, no doubt your clients have shown their true colors. Is there any evidence that it’s time to disengage from someone? I’m not suggesting you just dump everyone who’s irritated you in the last two years and start all over (though maybe that is exactly what you’d like to do), but only because I understand the economic realities of this profession. I realize that some people do bring in too much money to consider firing them right now. But it’s a rare business that doesn’t have a few clients who are real pains in the neck and who don’t bring in enough revenue to justify keeping them on. That’s the easy decision. That’s where to start.
3. You can redefine your relationships and re-examine your strategy. Maybe it’s been a long time since you set the ground rules with some clients. Maybe you never did. Now’s your chance.
When you are feeling compelled to disengage from a difficult client, then it’s time for some candid conversation, which may turn out exactly as planned (the person disappears from your business) or may actually give you a pleasant surprise. (“Really? I didn’t know that calling and whining in your ear every day about my portfolio prevents you from doing a good job with managing my money and your business. I was just venting. I love what you do for my family. Under what conditions would you consider continuing to work with me?”)
The conversation does not have to be a confrontation. You don’t actually have to announce, “I’m firing you!” to anyone. Instead, you can present it as a choice. Share your ideal client profile and explain, “We are restructuring our business and focusing on serving a specific type of client from now on. So far, you haven’t met all of these criteria, and I wanted to talk with you about that to see what the best course of action will be for both of us going forward.” For example, if the problem is they haven’t met your minimum asset criteria, you can give them an opportunity to change that by moving assets if they have them. If the problem is they have been unwilling to follow your advice, you can give them an opportunity to change that, too. If they can’t or won’t make a change, then you can make a graceful exit with a referral to another advisor. But if you don’t know anyone to whom you can confidently refer people, that doesn’t mean you need to keep them on. Let them go, and they will find their own way. It’s best for both of you—and the rest of your clients, too.
I suggest you choose the most obvious candidate for dismissal and give this a try. As long as you evaluate and don’t just select someone indiscriminately, you have nothing to lose but dead weight in your business. You probably already know who this person is. As you’ve been reading this article, you’ve probably been saying to yourself, “I really need to get rid of so-and-so.” Then do it! Only a salesperson would hang onto someone for no really good reason. Don’t be a salesperson; be a Trusted Advisor.
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Wednesday, February 17, 2010
What an Idiot!
Do you remember when professional football player Plaxico Burress shot himself in the leg and was ultimately sentenced to 2 years in prison? Did you say something to yourself like, "What an idiot!" Maybe that was followed by a thought like, "How could anyone squander such a great opportunity by doing something so stupid!?" To refresh your memory, in March of 2005 the free-agent wide receiver signed a 6-year, $28.5 million dollar deal to play for the NY Giants. He caught the winning touchdown pass in their 2008 Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots. As far as we know, he has no other opportunity to make this much money in some other line of work. He'll be almost 34 when he's released from prison. Mr. Burress lost his substantial income, his freedom for a period of time, and jeopardized his best opportunity for lifetime financial independence. Not to mention, the embarrassment of the situation. I guess that's why the mantra of NFL coaches is "nothing good happens after midnight." I don't have an axe to grind with Mr. Burress. I hope he returns to play in the NFL at a very high level. I'm interested in the lesson for the rest of us. What is the relevance for you? What is your opportunity? Among other things, you have the opportunity to create your Ideal Life in Four Years or Less, by building an Ideal Client Community, by referral only, using the Values-Based Financial Planning™ turn-key business model. This industry affords you the opportunity to earn high six-figures, or seven-figures, of business revenue, hundreds of thousands of dollars of personal income, help people achieve their goals and fulfill their life values, enjoy significant personal freedom, live a great life, etc. etc. etc. But most financial advisors are almost certainly doing some things just as dumb as Plaxico Burress shooting himself in the leg. It's just not making headlines… thank goodness. The situation with Mr. Burress illustrates that some things are monumentally dumb. What about the more subtly stupid behaviors and day-to-day choices that may be having just as devastating of an effect on your success? Do the small dumb mistakes add up to have a larger total effect? You may not be doing the business equivalent of shooting yourself in the leg, but your smaller, more subtle, poor choices could be having an equivalent and negative cumulative impact on your success and quality of life. Reflection is healthy. My advice is that every time you read a headline about somebody else doing something really stupid, reap the rewards of that situation by reflecting on your own behavior. Ask yourself a few good questions: · What dumb things am I doing to squander my opportunity?
· How much is it costing me in terms of time, money, and happiness?
· What is the corresponding opposite behavior that would have a positive impact on my life instead of detracting from it?
It's so easy to see why everyone else is an idiot, isn't it? But we can learn lessons from other people's dumb behavior. Their stupidity can be our springboard to success!
Here are a few more great self-examination questions: · Could I spend less time in low pay-off activities?
· Could I be investing more time every day and week asking for referrals, making follow-up calls, effectively engaging prospective clients I was referred to in compelling phone conversations about what matters to them, doing more initial client interviews, and delivering truly comprehensive financial services?
· Could I eat better and exercise more consistently?
· Could I be more productive at work so I can spend more time with the people I love?
Make it another great month on your way to your best year ever.
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Monday, February 8, 2010
Predictable Business Results in All Economic Cycles
Can you run your business so it's not subject to events outside of your control? Ie: the market, the economy, the global financial crisis, the latest corporate or political scandal, and world events like the war in Afghanistan, etc? This includes dubious decisions by the leaders or your own company or our industry.
Can you create a business that delivers predictable, minimum, annual recurring revenue in any economic cycle or under any circumstances our industry leaders might create? The answer is "yes." The better question is "how?" By providing a client experience and service that is valuable regardless of what happens in the market, the economy, or the world. How about this value proposition for a superior client experience: "Work with us and you will get your entire financial house in order and keep it that way forever. Do what we tell you to do regarding those things over which you have control and you will achieve your goals and fulfill your values, regardless of what happens in the market, the economy, or the world." Do not make promises you can't keep that are dependent on things you can't control. Ie: stating or implying that you, or your professional money managers, will beat the market. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, right? What does it mean to get your financial house in order and keep it that way forever? Would that ever go out of style? Is there ever a market or economic condition where having your financial house completely in order doesn't matter? Do you think many people, regardless of their wealth, have their entire financial house in order? No matter how bad the economic crisis, how much better would it have been if your entire financial house had been in order before it happened? How important is it right now to get your entire financial house in order? In a good, bad, or sideways economy, it's vital to get and keep your financial house in order. If you have your financial house in order it reduces the impact of bad markets, down economies, and global financial crises. Run a business that delivers this client experience and service and you are not only well-positioned to weather the storm, but you will capitalize on the opportunities the storm provides. The last 15 months have been a boom client acquisition time for some advisors. Why not you? What about the future of the financial services business? It looks VERY bright to me. One reason is because the fundamentals of financial health never go out of style. Can you envision a time when money will not matter to people? Can you envision a time when many of those people will not prefer to have professional advice rather than do it themselves? Will the fundamentals of financial health ever change? Will there ever be a time when there are people who don't need to implement these fundamentals? The days of over-priced and complicated financial products may be gone, hopefully forever, but the need for good advice is still important and valuable. What's the first step to having a business that delivers predictable, minimum, annual recurring revenue in any market cycle? Making a decision that this is how you are going to run your business and live your life. The training and resources are available. The choice is up to you. | No comments on this Blog | More in Sales and Marketing | Send to Friend | Print |
Monday, February 8, 2010
Rick Barerra joins Bachrach & Associates, Inc.
Listen to the interview with Rick Barrera about why he joined forces with Bill Bachrach. Rick is a marketing expert and author of “Non-Manipulative Selling,” “Collaborative Selling,” and “The Dollars and Sense of Service Delivery.” Penguin has just released the second edition of his book, “Overpromise AND Overdeliver: How to Design and Deliver Extraordinary Customer Experiences” which has made both the Business Week and Wall Street Journal best sellers lists. Each year he works with leading organizations such as Intel, Lexus, JD Edwards, Harley-Davidson, General Electric and Hewlett Packard helping them reach new levels of excellence. He is now working with Bachrach & Associates (BAI). Find out what prompted him to join forces with Bill Bachrach. He is known by BAI clients as the Ideal Life Accelerator.
To listen to this interview with Rick Barerra, go to: http://www.baivbfp.com//assets/audio/mp3/barrera/index.php
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Monday, January 4, 2010
Take 3 Steps Back and Create the Business You Want
Have you ever wondered why some financial advisors have the kind of businesses they want, while others don’t? It’s really no big mystery. They simply took three steps back and made the important choices that led them to their current success.
To create the business you want, start by taking the first step back: Decide what kind of life you want. Do you know exactly how you want to spend the next 10, 20, or 30 years? When you decide how you want your life to look and why, you’re ready to take the second step and create a financial game plan.
It almost goes without saying that there’s a financial component involved in creating the life you want. Therefore, step two is to figure out how much money you need to live the life you want. You also need to consider the time component: How much time are you willing to invest today in order to earn for your future? Most people are willing to sacrifice some quality of life today so they can achieve a better quality of life in the future, but if that sacrifice gets too big, then their willingness to continue eventually diminishes.
By figuring out how much money you need and how much time you’re willing to work, you’re ready for step three: figuring out how to invest that time. When you know what you want your life to look like and how you’re willing to invest your time, you’ll quickly realize that you don’t have any time to waste.
I’m sometimes criticized for telling advisors not to spend their time poring over the financial news or becoming overeducated, which I define as spending more time trying to understand the market, economics, how world events affect the markets, and investment selection than is incrementally beneficial to your clients. (Notice that I did not recommend that you be a complete financial idiot.) I also tell advisors not to waste time educating clients, not only because your clients don’t need to be educated about every aspect of financial services in order to make good decisions (they don’t), but also because you don’t have time to become an expert in all things financial.
The good news is that what produces a simpler and better life for you also creates better results and value for your clients. Our experience shows that clients are much better served when you organize a “deliverables team” that is dedicated to making sure your clients achieve their goals regardless of what happens in the market, the economy, or the world. Whether you’re 22 years old and a brand-new advisor, or 65 years old with decades of experience, your personal time in the business will never match the collective wisdom and experience you can put to bear toward your client’s best interest when you assemble a team of competent, professional, trustworthy money managers, financial plan writers, insurance experts, tax professionals, attorneys, etc., to work for you and your clients.
You have too many clients and too many variables to ever be able to manage in the finite amount of time that you can dedicate to your business without letting the rest of your life falling apart. Do you know why you feel like there’s never enough time? Because there isn’t enough time to run the business you have or are trying to build.
If you want your business to take off, focus your attention on the only three things that matter: acquiring new clients, serving your existing clients, and managing your staff who handles the administrative details of your business. Unfortunately, many advisors get so consumed with putting out administrative fires, money management, investment selection, insurance products, annuities, account aggregation systems, client service platforms, CRM software, staying current with tax laws, etc., that they don’t have time to acquire enough great clients or run a great business. They rationalize that their business isn’t as successful as it could be because they have to spend their time “serving” their clients. It’s a real trap that actually leaves most clients under-served and most advisors under-successful.
Here’s a great resource for you to review: www.trustedadvisortoolkit.com
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Monday, December 21, 2009
Why do you find your keys in the last place you look?
As the comedians like to point out, it's because you stop looking after you find them, of course! | No comments on this Blog | More in Sales and Marketing | Send to Friend | Print |
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Three Common Mistakes Advisors Make And How to Avoid Them
When you put other people first, you get all the business you’d ever want to get, because that’s what they want. Yet there’s the paradox: You can’t be thinking I’m putting clients first so I can get what I want, because the dominant thought is get what I want. Although you accept this as a fundamental truth of your business—that putting clients first gets you what you want—you have to put that principle out of your mind when you are with clients. Focus only on putting them first and forget the rest. Trust the process, which means letting go of certain old habits that could be holding you back from realizing your true potential and developing new ways of being with people—ways that may feel more comfortable to you.
Yet there can be pitfalls. In my experience, advisors make three common mistakes, which can be avoided easily with a shift in skills and mindset. These mistakes are 1) most advisors talk too much, 2) many don’t bother to listen, and 3) even when they do manage to be quiet and hear what clients have to say, they don’t clearly communicate to the client the connection between their recommendations and what’s in it for the client. How can you remedy these mistakes? Simple.
1. Stop talking so much.
Stop rattling off your credentials, employing manipulation tactics, and jabbering on in the hopes that if you just say the right thing, they’ll buy. It’s simply not true that a sales-chatter method leads to a greater number of clients than a client-centered approach, so let go of the illusion that you can control the outcome of the conversation by doing all the talking. Learn to let the outcome just happen: If they decide to work with you, great. If they decide not to work with you, equally fine.
Instead, concentrate on learning about the person. The objective is not to win him or her over, but rather to determine whether there’s a fit with your business. You don’t take on all comers; you are selective and choose to work only with those people who will help you build a profitable, solid business so you can ultimately enjoy a great quality of life.
2. Listen.
How can you distinguish the best clients for your business? How can you communicate to people that they are important to you? How do you let people know “it’s all about them”? Simply ask questions and then listen to the answers.
This is different from asking manipulative questions to probe for pain and instill fear. The questions we teach advisors to ask in the initial client interview are designed to help the advisor and, more significant, the potential client make some discoveries about what’s most important to them: their core values. And as people respond, the advisor listens not only by hearing the words people speak, but also by being attentive to the experience they have while they talk. We use a tool called a Financial Road Map® to record people’s answers and demonstrate that they’ve been heard.
3. Make the connection between what you can do for your clients and what’s in it for them.
If, after this conversation, you feel there is a good possibility for a working relationship, then offering to work with someone needs to be phrased in such a way that people understand how you will benefit them, not the other way around.
The wrong way: “How would you like us to create a financial plan for you so you can make smart decisions about your money?” (Focuses on what you do and what you think is important to them.)
The right way: “Now that we’ve explored what’s important to you, we can see how I might be of service to you. Your financial plan will be designed to help you so you can spend more time with your family, build the retirement home of your dreams, help your grandchildren with their schooling, and lead a life filled with the happiness, freedom, spiritual development, and sense of balance that you identified are so important to you. Let’s say we create a financial strategy that has this kind of impact on your life, is that the kind of relationship you would like to have with a financial professional?” (Reiterates what they’ve said is important and connects your helping them make smart choices with their money to actualizing what’s really meaningful to them.)
Although all three of these actions clearly put the focus on clients, clearly this is not an altruistic business model. It’s simply that, because of your ambition to have a practice that yields the highest possible income, runs smoothly and efficiently, and serves clients who value your services enough to gladly make referrals to friends, family and peers, you are unwilling to put your desires (for momentary comfort or control) ahead of what’s in the best interest of somebody else and, therefore, the business. So you’re willing to walk away from people who won’t augment your business and welcome any opportunity to meet someone who might be just the client you want. But it’s always all about them.
Don’t be a salesperson; be a Trusted Advisor.
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Monday, November 23, 2009
What Happens When People Trust You?
The smartest and most successful people aren’t the ones who question authority and try to do everything themselves. The smartest, most successful people outsource. They defer to someone with greater expertise—someone like you!
When people trust you, they not only give you their business, they also listen to your advice and defer to your knowledge. Isn’t that the kind of relationship you want to have with your clients? The great industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie understood this philosophy extremely well. The epitaph on his tombstone sums it up perfectly. It says, “Here lies a man who knew how to enlist the service of better men than himself.”
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Monday, November 23, 2009
3 Ways to Tell If You're Running a Smart Business
Basically, there are three ways to build a business in the financial services industry. What kind of business are you running? Here’s a three-step litmus test to help you find out.
1. How full is your appointment calendar? Are you spending your time prospecting and marketing because you’re not earning the referrals you’d like? Are you meeting with people three or four times before they hire you? Are you sitting down with clients to discuss irrelevant, superfluous topics that waste your time and theirs? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’re running a dumb business.
Don’t allow your clients to pull you into discussions about what I call financial pornography. If I was your financial advisor and you wanted to have a discussion about how the war on Iraq was going to impact the market, I would not even entertain that conversation with you. Instead, I would explain to you why that’s a waste of your time and mine, and remind you that we have an investment philosophy where we focus on what we can control. I would also remind you that we have a long-term financial strategy, so regardless of what happens in the economy, the market, or the world, my job is to help you achieve your goals for the reasons that are important to them, not time the market.
Although this flies in the face of conventional wisdom, educating clients is a waste of your time and theirs. Discussing the war in Iraq as it relates to investments is academic. It’s not practical and it doesn’t alter the outcome of your clients’ investments. At most, it provides nothing but a false sense of security. “But it makes the clients feel comfortable,” you might argue. Well, do you want to be in the business of giving your clients a false sense of comfort, or telling your clients the truth?
Telling the truth is actually an interesting and surprisingly effective marketing strategy. When you take a rational approach—when you have rational discussions with rational people—they respond rationally. If you’ve got an irrational approach to try to move irrational people to buy investments and insurance from you, you’ll end up with a high-maintenance clientele and your primary function will be to accommodate their baggage. There’s a whole group of advisors who say, “Yeah, that’s what it’s like to be an advisor. You have to accommodate people’s ineffective and false beliefs.” If you want to run a smart business, don’t focus on educating clients and having these kinds of conversations. Instead, fill your appointment calendar with meaningful, rewarding engagements.
2. Are you comfortable asking for referrals? If you’re great at what you do, you won’t be uncomfortable asking people to introduce you to others. You’d never hear someone say, “I’m a great pilot, but I wouldn’t want to ask anybody to fly with me.” When I was single, I noticed that my most attractive friends were always comfortable approaching someone they wanted to meet, and they always got a great response. In the most extreme cases, they didn’t even have to do the approaching—people would just find them.
If nobody’s finding you, maybe you’re not as attractive as you think you are. Do your clients make excuses when you ask them for referrals? Do you they tell you, “I don’t know anybody who’s looking right now, but if I come across someone, I’ll let you know. Why don’t you give me a couple of your cards?”
3. Do your clients give you all of their financial business? In other words, do you have all the money? In a smart business, you want your clients to give you all of their money and do whatever you tell them to do with it. You want clients who want more from you than state-of-the-art schmoozing; they want you to be a Trusted Advisor, and they expect you to handle their financial affairs. Most people want to work with one person that they trust. If you aren’t getting that level of trust and all the money, you’re running a dumb business.
The smartest and most successful people aren’t the ones who question authority and try to do everything themselves. The smartest, most successful people outsource. They defer to someone with greater expertise. Andrew Carnegie, one of America’s most successful and wealthiest men, understood the wisdom of this philosophy, as reflected in the words he chose for his tombstone: “Here lies a man who knew how to bring into service men better than he was himself.”
Yes, it’s true—in a smart business, you get to work with clients who tell the whole truth about where all money is, do what you tell them to do, do all your prospecting and marketing for you, are more influenced by you than anything else, and don’t let events you cannot control diminish your working relationship. They sincerely value your advice and their relationship with you. That’s the proof of great client relationships, and the sign of a very smart business.
Given the choice, which type of business will you pick? Which kind of business do you think your clients would want you to pick? | No comments on this Blog | More in Sales and Marketing | Send to Friend | Print |
Monday, November 9, 2009
3 Ways to Earn Your Clients' Trust
How do you become a Trusted Advisor? You start by earning people’s trust, which you can easily do by following these three steps: Communicate with conviction, ask better questions, and tell the hard truth.
1. Communicate with Conviction
Have you earned the right to expect people to follow your advice and respond to your authority? No one will give you that authority unless you first believe you deserve it. If you show up in the marketplace assuming that you’re not going to be trusted and people aren’t going to respond to your authority or advice, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The result is a collaborative environment where the client directs you instead of following your advice.
I often see clients or prospects who strongly believe that they know what they’re doing. Others think, “It’s my money, so I should be in charge.” There’s certainly some truth in that, but unless they’ve dedicated themselves to becoming financial experts, they should find somebody smarter than themselves and defer to that person’s expertise. Unfortunately, many financial advisors don’t convey the impression that they really are more competent or knowledgeable than their potential clients and prospects. Therefore, people don’t defer to them.
To become a Trusted Advisor and have people defer their financial decisions to you, your clients need to think, “I trust you and I believe you have my best interests at heart. I also trust that you’re competent enough and, between the two of us, you know better.” There’s nothing wrong with a client questioning your authority, but at some point all clients want to find an advisor they can trust. Deep down inside, they want you to tell them what to do. If they can trust you, they’ll do it. If they can’t trust you, they’ll find someone else. That’s why so many people have more than one advisor—they don’t completely trust any of them. Communicate with conviction, and you’ll earn your clients’ trust as well as all of their business.
2. Ask Better Questions
Have you ever noticed that most people would rather talk about themselves than listen to you talk about yourself? If you want to build a high-trust relationship, shallow chitchat or talking about your credentials won’t do it. You need to talk about what’s meaningful, important, significant, and compelling to that person. One of the best things you can do to prepare for that kind of conversation is to gather information in advance. Anytime someone refers a potential new client to you, ask the referring person questions that will lead to meaningful, important, significant, and compelling information. Find out as much as you can about your prospects: What are their values, interests, passions, and goals? What do they do for fun? Who do they care about most? When clients or prospects see the connection between the value you bring and what’s most important to them, they tend to respond positively. In the process, you lay the foundation for a long-lasting, high-trust relationship with the people you truly want as clients.
3. Tell the Hard Truth
If your clients don’t defer to your authority and expertise, there’s a good reason, and it’s not them. Chances are, it’s because you’re behaving like a salesperson. Instead of communicating with conviction and earning your clients’ respect, you’re following the old “customer is always right” mentality. Even though your clients may have little or no financial expertise, you defer to them rather than take the chance of upsetting them and jeopardizing your insurance or mutual fund sale.
I spend a lot of time coaching my Trusted Advisors to tell the truth and be direct. At first, many argue, “I’m afraid of how clients will respond if I tell the truth.” I understand that. However, if you want to be a Trusted Advisor, you have to tell the truth—even when the consequences are less than desirable. Think about it this way: If you tell people the truth and they respond poorly, do you really want them as clients? Most people appreciate and respond positively to the truth; honest communication is a cornerstone for building trust.
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Monday, November 9, 2009
To niche or not to niche?
During your career you have probably heard a lot about niche marketing and wondered whether or not you should niche and, if so, what your niche should be.
I think you should niche, but probably not the way you usually think of it or how it’s typically taught to financial advisors.
Traditional niches are occupational or demographic. Occupational niches are criteria like dentists, highly compensated executives, or business owners. Demographic niches are criteria like people between the ages of 50 and 70 with $500,000 of investable assets.
Instead I suggest that your “niche” is your Ideal Client Profile. Let’s first discuss what an Ideal Client Profile is.
Your Ideal Client Profile consists of two parts: Personality and Economic Viability. In other words, you want to work with people you like who have the ability to pay you enough money to make it worth your while to have them as clients.
For example, how would this be as an Ideal Client Profile: People who are serious about achieving their goals, want comprehensive financial services, have a delegator personality, and are willing and able to pay $ / year to have a Trusted Advisor help them make smart choices about their money.
For clarity, a delegator personality is someone who truly values the advice of a professional and consistently acts on that advice. You determine the amount of annual recurring revenue each client must pay you based on your financial needs, overhead, and how many hours of time it takes you to serve each client.
Imagine having an entire client community made up exclusively of people who meet your Ideal Client Profile? How would that impact your financial health? How would that insulate you from the adverse affects of market downturns and other events outside of your control? What would your quality of life be like?
How do you build a business of only Ideal Clients?
Step 1: Identify your current Ideal Clients. Don’t be discouraged if it’s not a large number. You can build an entire Ideal Client Community in just a few years beginning with only a handful of Ideal Clients. How do you know who your Ideal Clients are? Look at the names in your appointment calendar. The names that make you smile are probably people you like who have the ability to pay you enough money to make it worth your while to have them as clients. And the people who make you frown are likely those who you either dislike or who consume too much time to be profitable – or both. Once you are clear who is an Ideal Client and who is not, make a short list of the Ideal Client attributes. This is your Ideal Client Profile. Utilize the online exercise to help you get started (http://www.accountabilitycoach.com/bw/icp/icp1.php).
Step 2: Replicate your Ideal Clients by referral. Your Ideal Clients know others who are just like them. And if these people are serious about achieving their goals, want comprehensive financial services, have a delegator personality, and are willing / able to pay you $ / year for you to be their Trusted Advisor to help them make smart choices about their money… do you really care about their occupation or their age?
One of the most important skills you will ever develop is the ability to articulately ask for referrals, get introduced well to the people to whom you are referred, and effectively follow-up to schedule appointments. This is a skill anyone can develop with the right process, training, coaching, and practice.
If you are unclear about how our turn-key business model can help you build your Ideal Client Community in 4 years or less by referral only, thus helping you have your Ideal Life, maybe it’s time to speak with one of our Accountability Coaches. There is no charge for you to experience the Success Road Map® in an initial consultation. Whether you do business with us or not, it is something that is a good use of your time to help you get even clearer on creating a game plan for increased success.
We wish you continued success in building your Ideal Client Community.
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Tuesday, October 13, 2009
How to earn more money and lead a simpler life
Is it true that you are where you are today based on the choices you have made in the past? Then it also stands to reason that you will get where you want to be in the future based on the choices you make in your present. This fundamental truth is the basis for this article.
I have identified 12 clear choices that are turning points in the careers of virtually every financial professional. Every producer makes these choices either deliberately or by default. Six of these are best presented as positive choices that consistently lead to greater success and six of these choices are best presented as commonly unmade choices that lead to failure, or worse: mediocrity.
The 6 positive choices:
1. A choice of self-reliance. It has always amazed me when a producer says that they would attend a seminar, a training course, or workshop provided they can get someone else to pay for it. Make a choice to pay your own way and take TOTAL responsibility for your success or failure.
2. A choice to have a comprehensive, long-range business plan.
Would you buy stock in a company whose CEO had no plan?
3. A choice to take more time off.
Eddie Bauer has a powerful advertising slogan: "Never confuse having a career with having a life." Make it your mantra.
You see, when you decide that you are only willing to work a certain number of hours or days per week, but you want your income to go up anyway, you become more resourceful and skilled at producing more results in increasingly smaller amounts of time.
4. A choice to be paid what you are worth.
Stop giving your services and value for less than they are worth. You have known this for a long time. It's time.
5. A choice to be on the path of continuous improvement.
You have heard it before. Everyone has a next level. We live in a world and have chosen a business that changes rapidly. This means that you become comfortable learning, growing and continuously improving.
6. A choice to be clear about you do, what you don't do, and do only what you do well.
One of my friends and mentors says, "I am very good at what I do because I only do what I am very good at." This is a very smart way to live.
I suggest you create an informal, honest self evaluation. Simply rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 in each of the 6 areas we have discussed and then begin to make incremental improvements. "The truth will set you free" is not just a Biblical reference, it's the truth. Be honest with yourself and make a commitment to make the choices that will propel you to your highest level of success.
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Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Create the Business You Want
Have you ever wondered why some financial advisors have the kind of businesses they want, while others don’t? It’s really no big mystery. They simply took three steps back and made the important choices that led them to their current success.
To create the business you want, start by taking the first step back: Decide what kind of life you want. Do you know exactly how you want to spend the next 10, 20, or 30 years? When you decide how you want your life to look and why, you’re ready to take the second step and create a financial game plan.
It almost goes without saying that there’s a financial component involved in creating the life you want. Therefore, step two is to figure out how much money you need to live the life you want. You also need to consider the time component: How much time are you willing to invest today in order to earn for your future? Most people are willing to sacrifice some quality of life today so they can achieve a better quality of life in the future, but if that sacrifice gets too big, then their willingness to continue eventually diminishes.
By figuring out how much money you need and how much time you’re willing to work, you’re ready for step three: figuring out how to invest that time. When you know what you want your life to look like and how you’re willing to invest your time, you’ll quickly realize that you don’t have any time to waste.
The good news is that what produces a simpler and better life for you also creates better results and value for your clients. Our experience shows that clients are much better served when you organize a “deliverables team” that is dedicated to making sure your clients achieve their goals regardless of what happens in the market, the economy, or the world. Whether you’re 22 years old and a brand-new advisor, or 65 years old with decades of experience, your personal time in the business will never match the collective wisdom and experience you can put to bear toward your client’s best interest when you assemble a team of competent, professional, trustworthy money managers, financial plan writers, insurance experts, tax professionals, attorneys, etc., to work for you and your clients.
Don’t delude yourself into thinking, “Once I get my arms around all this stuff, my business will really take off.” All that stuff is impossible to “get your arms around.” It’s simply too much stuff, coming from too many sources, and there’s simply not enough time. You have too many clients and too many variables to ever be able to manage in the finite amount of time that you can dedicate to your business without letting the rest of your life falling apart. Do you know why you feel like there’s never enough time? Because there isn’t enough time to run the business you have or are trying to build.
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Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Just tell the truth! What should you tell the client who wants to be educated or wants to dictate how the relationship should work instead of trusting you to do your job? Just tell the truth. Tell the client, “That’s not the basis of our relationship. There are a dozen people who are going to contribute to your financial plan and I can’t possibly be expected to know everything they know. The basis of our relationship is for me to understand YOU. It’s my job to understand your current financial situation, your goals, and what is truly important to you (your core values). Then I orchestrate the creation of a comprehensive financial plan that involves the collective wisdom and expertise of an entire team of professionals. This brings to bear virtually hundreds of years of experience to develop the best advice for you. Then it’s my job to hold you accountable to implement this advice over time, which will give you the highest probability to achieve your goals for the reasons that are important to you. We’ll meet once per quarter to provide you with progress updates, make appropriate adjustments so you achieve your goals, and ensure that you are doing your part to get where you want to be. Is this the kind of relationship you’d like to have with a financial advisor and his or her team?” | No comments on this Blog | More in Sales and Marketing | Send to Friend | Print |
Monday, September 28, 2009
Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?
Larry is early in his Values-Based Financial Planning™ Journey building his Ideal Client Community and he wanted my point of view about the benefits for clients or potential clients in creating their Financial Road Map®. Whether you are new to the Values-Based Financial Planning™ journey or a veteran you will appreciate my response to Larry.
First, for the clients, they LOVE the Financial Road Map®! It's big, colorful, and visual. Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words... maybe more. The Financial Road Map® takes what's most important to them and puts it on one single piece of paper in a way that is aligned with the flow of time. Husbands and wives see their values side-by-side on the values staircases, their goals are clearly defined with target dates, specific amounts of money, and the positive reasons these goals are a priority have been expressed. Also, there is simple summary of their current financial reality. Once equipped with a Financial Road Map®, most people feel as though they have never been better equipped to make smart choices about their money so they can achieve their goals and fulfill their values. A visual tool, like the Financial Road Map®, is very important because most Financial Advisors are much too linear and tend to way, way... WAY over-explain financial concepts, financial products, and financial services. The Financial Road Map® makes the whole idea of having a financial plan and a relationship with a Trusted Advisor, to create and implement that plan, much easier to understand ---- for the client. When I wrote the Values-Based Financial Planning™ book I asked the practitioners of Values-Based Financial Planning™ to ask their clients to describe their experience with the Financial Road Map®, some of which were published in the book. Comments like this one from Jerry Mercer were common, "The Financial Road Map® concept is ideal for the serious investor. Being able to compare our holdings with our needs has led my wife, Ruth, and I to a financial plan that gives us peace of mind and maximum control of our funds. Our Financial Road Map® is a terrific tool for managing our future." The clients love the Financial Road Map® and so do Advisors who learn to facilitate the quality experience described above. What's in it for you? Delivering the Financial Road Map® experience gives you a process to make a strong human connection in less than an hour. During the Financial Road Map® interview your prospective clients talk for most of that hour giving you the opportunity to make an intelligent choice about whether or not you want to invite them to join your Ideal Client Community. Done properly, they learn that you really care about them as humans and that you are trustworthy. This is very important because a huge career mistake made by most Financial Advisors is not being more discriminating about who they accept as clients in the first place. Most Financial Advisors end up, after years of working hard to build a business, with only a handful of truly Ideal Clients. We call this a dumb business. Look at the cold hard facts of life for most Financial Advisors, even before the recent economic problems: they work too many hours, for not enough money, with too much liability for the reward. This is at the root of why so many who enter the financial services business fail and most who "make it" past the first several years look a lot more like mediocrity than success. How much more successful would you be if you were skilled at conducting an interview where, in less than an hour, people hire you to write a plan, want you to be their Advisor for all of their financial affairs, entrust you with all of their money, act on your advice, and refer you to others for the same service? That's the impact the Financial Road Map® is having for other Financial Advisors and it can do the same for you. Using the Financial Road Map® and building an Ideal Client Community by referral only on the Values-Based Financial Planning™ platform will enable you to have your Ideal Life in 4 years or less. It's the ultimate client-centered win / win and it's how we train Financial Advisors to build an Ideal Client Community by referral only in 4 years or less. If you have not done so already, contact us to schedule your complimentary Success Road Map interview with one of our Accountability Coaches today. Remember, it's a great time to be a Financial Advisor! | No comments on this Blog | More in Sales and Marketing | Send to Friend | Print |
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Keep Your Head Above Water: 5 Distractions That Can Sink Your Business
Keeping your head above water. Drowning in paperwork. Trying to stay afloat. Up a creek without a paddle. Smooth sailing. Have you ever noticed how many water-related expressions there are for describing the way you do business? That’s because it’s such a great metaphor, and one you can easily relate to.
Do an interesting little exercise using this metaphor. Take out a piece of paper, draw a horizontal line across the middle, and pretended it was a water line. Above the line, list all the activities that really matter in building a successful business. Below the line, list the distractions that could keep them from being successful financial advisors. Basically, only three activities belong above the line: acquiring clients, serving clients, and building your team.
ABOVE-THE-LINE ACTIVITIES
Nearly everyone agrees that brand-new advisors should spend a huge amount of time on client acquisition. Unfortunately,many established advisors think the rule doesn’t apply to them. They often ignore this crucial above-the-line activity. Instead, they spend their time on all the activities below the line and soon find their businesses starting to go under.
The second above-the-line activity, serving clients, simply means delivering what you’ve promised. Meeting your clients’ expectations is an absolute must for keeping your head above water. This includes ensuring the timely delivery of financial plans, money management services, and advice about insurance, budgeting, debt reduction or elimination, cash management, and emergency reserves.
The third above-the-line activity is building your team. This means organizing your employees and creating successful relationships with outside resources who can provide the services your clients need.
Basically, that’s it. Unless you’re doing things to acquire clients, serve clients, or build your team, you’re spending your time on below-the-line activities that do nothing but distract you from becoming a successful advisor. Here are five common examples.
BELOW-THE-LINE ACTIVITIES
1. Overeducating Yourself: Some advisors think their job is to know everything about insurance, investments, and financial planning. Instead of harnessing the knowledge of experts who can best serve their clients, they spend all their time becoming educated in those areas.
2. Reading Financial Pornography: Watching 24-hour news reports, reading financial newspapers and magazines, tracking the prices of oil and gold, and trying to guess the impact that the next terrorist bombing will have on the market is a waste of time, yet advisors are consumed with that kind of stuff. Your clients really want you to help them achieve their goals—and for the record, beating the market is not a goal.
3. Hanging Around with the Wrong People: If you’re hanging out with people who have average businesses with average client satisfaction and average productivity, then chances are your business will be a lot like that, too. Don’t confuse consensus with wisdom. Just because most of the financial services industry is living below the line doesn’t mean it’s the right place to be. As Jim Rohn says, you can do anything you want. You’re not a tree. Move! Be where you want to be, and do what you want to do. How can you tell whether you’re hanging out with people who are living below the line?
4. Failing to Delegate: Trying to do everything yourself is the last and probably worst example of below-the-line activity.
No one wants to see their businesses sink. To keep your head above water, remember this simple metaphor and spend your time above the line. Focus on the three activities that really matter—acquiring clients, serving clients, and building your team—and don’t get drowned in a sea of distractions.
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Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Secrets to Success? There are no *%#@ing secrets. I find it interesting how many articles, books, and professional / personal development programs refer to their content as "secrets." "We'll unlock the secrets..." "You'll discover the 5 secrets to..." The bottom line is there are no secrets. Just because you don't currently know how to do something that will produce a result in your business or life does not mean it's a secret. In fact, the contrary is true. Everything you need to know to accomplish just about any goal you can imagine is readily available information. You just need to make one good statement followed by 2 good questions to find out anything you need or want to know. So, let me tell you about this secret process known only to a handful of gazillionaires who I happened to be lucky enough to catch at a moment of weakness and they revealed them only to me on their deathbed! (Just kidding.) Here you go:
Fill in the blank with anything you want to be able to do or achieve, ask people who would probably know the people you need to meet, and follow-up on the introductions you get.
Shhhhhh. Don't tell anybody. It's a secret. | No comments on this Blog | More in Sales and Marketing | Send to Friend | Print |
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Are you aware that not everything you believe is true? And that some things that you don't believe to be true actually are? "I thought it was impossible too, before I did it."
LANCE ARMSTRONG 7x Tour de France champion | No comments on this Blog | More in Sales and Marketing | Send to Friend | Print |
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Measuring Success by Feelings or Results?
Have you noticed that some of the things that are good for you aren't necessarily pleasant? Not everyone loves to exercise. Many people would prefer to not eat well. (It might surprise you to discover my 3 favorite food groups are In-N-Out burgers, pizza, and Taco Bell.) I don't have personal experience raising children, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it would be easier to be your kids' buddy than to be a good parent. Some of things you have to do in order to earn the living you want may not be pleasant either.
It might be one of the most challenging things for humans to deal with and, certainly, one of the comments that I hear on a regular basis from the advisors we train and coach. "I'm failing in ___________ area because it's just not comfortable or not something I enjoy." What do you say to a client when something their goals require is unpleasant or uncomfortable? "I just don't find writing those insurance premium checks much fun." "Do we really have to save that much every month? It would be more fun to spend it all now." Can you just skip these things and get the same results? What do you say to a child about eating their vegetables or doing their homework when they don't feel like it? Can you just skip vegetables and homework and have your life turn out just fine? What do you say to a friend or family member about exercising, eating well, and generally taking good care of their health? What if it's just not fun or comfortable or enjoyable or pleasant? You've heard the saying you are only as strong as your weakest link. That's definitely true for running a business. You are the CEO of your Financial Planning business and not everything that makes your business successful will be pleasant. In Dr. Scott Peck's landmark book, The Road Less Traveled, he begins the first chapter with this, "Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters." Read that paragraph as many times as you need to until you really get it. Where do most businesses break down? That's right, client acquisition. Why? Lack of a good system? Inconsistent execution? Weak people skills? All three? What is the best method for acquiring new Ideal Clients? According to those people you would like to acquire, it's by referral. Yet most advisors manage to get through their entire careers knowing this to be true, but never approaching mastery of this basic skill. Why? Back to square one: it's not comfortable or enjoyable. Vegetables? Exercise? Homework? Insurance premiums? Saving? Bummer. Life is difficult. And once you accept that... Asking for referrals, making follow-up calls, conducting phone conversations, and scheduling appointments may be difficult for you. Once you accept this truth it no longer matters. It becomes something you just do. And if you're not willing to do what is difficult in your life then how do you earn the right to advise others to do what's difficult in their lives? Let your integrity be your inspiration for doing the things in your life that you find difficult so you earn the right to give advice to others to do the things they need to do that might be difficult for them. This is what it means to be a Trusted Advisor. "Too many people see change as what other people need to do" – David Zach "Daddy or Mommy, if you don't ask for referrals and make your calls, do I have to eat my vegetables and do my homework?" Seems silly from this point of view, doesn't it? The bottom line is that you have to let go of the fantasy that every element of running your business is going to be enjoyable. If comfort is your goal then success in business is not in your future. There is no silver bullet. Some aspects of being a business owner just suck. Deal with it. Some things are just not fun and the time and effort spent worrying about is unproductive. Put on your big boy or big girl pants and get on with the work your goals require to achieve them. Getting results is fun. It's become a popular idea in recent years that you should focus on your strengths and delegate your weaknesses. And this is a great idea, where it's possible. And what's possible is defined by your goals, not by your likes and dislikes. When building your Ideal Client Community you simply can't delegate the relationship-building and relationship-management part. Asking for referrals and following-up with the people to whom you are referred is your job. If you were single and a friend referred you to someone for a date, you wouldn't have your secretary call to make the date, would you? If you would, this could explain why you're single. There are certain calls YOU have to make. Following up on referrals is one of them. Over 21 years of coaching and training Financial Advisors, there is another interesting dynamic I witness. I call it the consensus-versus-wisdom phenomenon. This is well-illustrated by the group of fat people who get together and decide that exercise is bullshit and agree that a trip to the all-you-can-eat buffet is a better use of time. While they all may agree, creating consensus. Their choice clearly isn't wise, presuming being healthy matters to them. Obviously silly when I put it that way, but what about when a group of financial advisors have a "meeting of the minds" and decide the method must be flawed because they aren't doing the work required to be successful? Don't blame the method for poor execution. The bottom line is that the most client-centered, cost-effective, time-efficient, and results-producing way to build an Ideal Client Community is by referral. No matter how uncomfortable you find it to be or how many other advisors you can find who are equally inept at building their business by referral, the fact remains: the most client-centered, cost-effective, time-efficient, and results-producing way to build an Ideal Client Community is by referral. My advice: suck it up, make a REAL commitment to build your Ideal Client Community by referral only, get good at it, and keep doing it until you're done. The positive feelings from the results will far outweigh any unpleasantness along the path. It’s a great time to be a Financial Advisor! | No comments on this Blog | More in Sales and Marketing | Send to Friend | Print |
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Continuous Learning or Continuous Improvement?
I sometimes hear people refer to continuous learning and continuous improvement as though they are the same thing. They are not the same.
Can you learn without improving? Certainly. Can you improve without learning something new? Definitely. Does all learning create improvement? No. Before you read that next book or attend another webinar or seminar or conference, ask yourself a couple of important questions: "Am I doing this to learn or to improve?" "What will I be able to do to be better as a result of reading this book or attending this webinar or seminar or conference?" "How quickly will I be able to implement what I learn to produce results in one or more key areas of my personal or professional life?" If we've done your Success Road Map®, you can give it the Success Road Map check with questions like: "How will this help me bridge the gap between where I am now and where I want to be with one or more of my success metrics?" "How will this help me achieve me goals?" "How will this impact the fulfillment of my values?" (Go to www.baivbfp to learn more about taking advantage of your complimentary Success Road Map® experience.) Professionals at the highest levels are masters at refining what they know to approach perfection at their craft. Through diligent practice and repetition they become virtuosos. While this term is normally used to describe musicians and singers who operate at the highest levels of technical proficiency, could it apply to you as a Financial Advisor? In Music in the Western World by Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin, we find the following definition of virtuoso: "...a virtuoso was, originally, a highly accomplished musician, but by the nineteenth century the term had become restricted to performers, both vocal and instrumental, whose technical accomplishments were so pronounced as to dazzle the public." Wouldn't it be great to be dazzling at the key elements for building your community of Ideal Clients? Ie: Conducting a brilliant initial client interview as well as effectively asking for and receiving referrals. Also, being good enough on the phone, when you make your follow up calls to your referrals, so they call you back, and when you do speak with them you are articulate and compelling. Maybe you have some learning to do. Once you learn how, then continuous improvement applies until you are producing the desired results. My advice: Learn less. Apply more. Continuously IMPROVE. Get great results. Repeat. | No comments on this Blog | More in Sales and Marketing | Send to Friend | Print |
Monday, August 17, 2009
Is there a "formula" for success?
Yes. While I don't believe there are any secrets to success, there are a couple of simple formulas that can serve as good reminders of what's necessary to be successful. One of them is Effort x Effectiveness = Results. Simply put, you have to put out a high enough volume of work at a high enough degree of effectiveness in order to achieve your goals. If you feel like you are working hard, but not getting the results you want then you either are not being effective or the amount of time that has elapsed has not yet been enough for the desired results to occur. If you believe you are effective and not achieving results you probably just need to look at your calendar and you will likely discover you are not investing enough time in results-producing activities. You may be busy, but success comes from being busy doing results-producing activities. These two things go hand-in-hand, effort and effectiveness, because you tend to become more effective at those things you do frequently and consistently. This is especially true of the activities required to be a successful financial advisor building an Ideal Client Community. Ie: Serving clients, getting referrals, following-up with referrals on the phone, and conducting the initial client interviews that lead to referrals becoming clients.
A formula which I developed that may help you be more productive is Success = words on-purpose + time on-purpose. My experience is that successful people live and work "on-purpose." They are good with words and manage their time well. Being on-purpose with time means that you plan your work and you work your plan. The most productive time-planning is when you know your priorities, place them on your calendar as appointments with yourself and others, and honor your calendar. Consider how seldom an unscheduled interruption is more productive than what you would have been doing if you had planned that time to do something highly productive on-purpose. Far less productive is working from a to-do list. And the least productive way to manage your time is to go work with a mostly blank calendar and attempt to stay focused on the most important tasks throughout the day. Given that life, business, and the financial services industry in particular are distraction-producing machines it is difficult to be successful without managing your time and high-payoff-activities on-purpose. Can you think of anything in your personal or professional life that would not be enhanced by managing your time and priorities on-purpose? What about words on-purpose? I sum this up as knowing what to say, how to say it, and when to say it. You could call it being articulate. The financial services profession is all about human interactions. Interacting with your clients, referrals as prospective clients, staff, subject matter experts who help you serve your clients, your company leaders and support personnel. It means talking with people. It means asking good questions. It means being a good listener. It means connecting what people tell you about their needs, wants, goals, and values with your value proposition. You will be most productive when scripted. At the very least you must have talking points you can instantly and effectively articulate. Who wants to trust their financial future to someone who stumbles over their words? It doesn't matter that you are smart if you don't sound smart. Politics aside, I find it interesting that President Barack Obama has gotten flack for using the teleprompter and he and his staff get criticized for being on the same page with their talking points. You can laugh if you want, but knowing what to say, how to say it, and when to say propelled him into the Oval Office. What might this do for you? Can you think of anything in your personal or professional life that would not be enhanced by being able to choose and deliver your words on-purpose? The bottom line is that success is rarely, if ever, an accident. Successful people use their time and words on-purpose. | No comments on this Blog | More in Sales and Marketing | Send to Friend | Print |
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
It's called a `correction' for a reason.
All of my business owner friends are becoming better business people. That's why it's called a correction. During times of excess we get sloppy. We didn't even realize it was a time of excess. We just thought we were finally getting all that we deserved. It's supposed to be this easy, right? Simply put, average people were getting above-average results because of the economic tail wind, not necessarily their true abilities. When the tailwind ends the results migrate back to their rightful owners. Much like lottery winners almost always wind up broke again. Where does the money go? Back into the hands of people who earn it.
For example, a billionaire lives in our neighborhood. (Actually, his home in our community is his warmer-weather second home where he spends just a couple of months each year.) I met him once at a party – 4 years ago. He's very nice, seems approachable, and I always thought it would be a good idea to get together with him to learn more about his perspective about success. Perhaps I would get a few nuggets to be a better businessman. But I was too busy. Times were too good. Last week, while he was out for a walk in the neighborhood, I pulled my car over and asked if he would be amenable to a meeting. He said, "sure!" He's on my calendar for tomorrow. How much better might my business decisions have been if I had done this on one of the dozens of opportunities I squandered during the past four years? Too busy to meet with a billionaire! The question is what can you do now? How do you get strong when times are difficult and carry that strength into the next boom so the subsequent bust has less effect on you and your business? First of all, be hard on yourself about your mistakes. Hard enough to do something about them, but not so hard that you become immobilized. It is what it is. Move on. Yes, I was a bonehead for not stopping the billionaire to schedule a meeting on one of his many walks in our neighborhood during the past four years. It's history. I made my peace with my stupidity and now I've done something about it. Lesson learned. Case closed. Next. Be committed to seize the current opportunity. As I've written in previous columns, this is a great time to be a financial advisor. Everyone is conscious about their money, but few have a plan of action that's being implemented. It's up to you to step in and fill the void of leadership. Grab your calendar by the proverbial tail and make time for new client acquisition. I recommend 15 hours per week for experienced advisors and more for rookies, maybe much more. Your biggest challenge may be the tug you feel to spend all of your time "nurturing" your existing clients. Of course you should do some of this, but don't burn all of your time with your existing clients. I was visiting one of our industry's major broker / dealers this week and during lunch their CEO told me the story about his early career as an advisor. He was torn between his commitments in life. He had a young family, his career needed plenty of attention to be successful, and he had hobbies he was passionate about. His wife helped him solve his dilemma by telling him this, "Your family will take up as much time as you will give us. No matter how much you give we will want more. So, you will have to decide for yourself how to divide your time among your priorities." Sage advice. The point I took away from that story is that you will have to decide for yourself how much time you give to your existing clients and how much time you invest in new client acquisition. It's possible that no matter how much time you give to your existing clients it will not seem like enough. This is simply too good of time to go out and get new clients to not invest a consistently large amount of time every week to acquire new clients. I would hate for you to reflect on this period of time in a few months and regret having not seized the day to add new Ideal Clients. Heed the wake-up call of this business correction. Cut the fat. Improve operational efficiencies. Refine your systems and processes. Build momentum to carry into the next boom. Keep your antenna up for opportunities. It’s a great time to be a Financial Advisor!
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Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Lessons from a Billionaire
As a result of me scheduling an appointment with my billionaire neighbor to ask questions and gain some knowledge, insights, and wisdom to become a better CEO, here are some ideas you might apply in your business. I’m gladly sharing with you some of the nuggets he shared with me that could benefit you. You may find these ideas useful as you decide your course of action during these challenging times.
The 5 most significant, transferrable ideas for being successful are: 1. A desire not to be controlled by circumstances.
2. An unwavering determination that nothing was going to prevent me from accomplishing my goals.
3. The determination to increase my knowledge through study and experience.
4. Continuous effort.
5. A passion for helping people.
When he talked about a lifetime dedicated to helping people he got tears in his eyes. His passion for helping people was palpable.
How do you rate yourself in each of the above categories? What about the rest of your team? How strong is your desire to NOT be controlled by circumstances? Now is a great time to put that desire into action. How would you describe your determination to accomplish your goals? Unwavering? What is the level of your commitment to increase your knowledge through study and experience? Is that just something you do when times are "good?" Continuous effort? For example, are you continuing to ask for referrals, make contact with new people, and add new Ideal Clients during this unprecedented opportunity to build your business? Or are you justifying your lack of continuous client acquisition effort because you're too busy holding your existing clients' hands? Do you care so much about helping people that you get emotional about it? Your ability to survive, and even thrive, during challenging times has nothing to do with your technical ability or your tenure. Lots of smart, experienced financial advisors are either considering leaving the business or are squandering this unprecedented opportunity to add new Ideal Clients to their practices. The single word that exemplifies how my neighbor became a billionaire is DETERMINATION. His "unwavering" comment was also a clue to what it really takes to thrive in any economic environment. The legendary boxer, Joe Louis, is famous for saying, "everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody is willing to die." And that's a good lead in to the other big lesson that was reinforced for me during our 3-hour conversation: there is no "silver bullet." His success was due to applying fundamental principles over time. He was simply willing to do, consistently and with determination, what most others knew to be true, but just didn't do it. It's a great time to be a Financial Advisor! | No comments on this Blog | More in Sales and Marketing | Send to Friend | Print | |
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Saturday, December 5, 2009
MA beneficiaries receive superior care Seniors in Medicare Advantage spent fewer days in a hospital, were subject to fewer hospital re-admissions, and were less likely to have potentially avoidable admissions, according to data released by America's Health Insurance Plans, or AHIP. In terms of region, findings indicate that Medicare Advantage beneficiaries in California spent 30 percent fewer days in the hospitals than patients with FFS Medicare.
And in Nevada, seniors in Medicare Advantage plans spent 23 percent fewer days in the hospital.
Meanwhile, Medicare Advantage enrollees were re-admitted to the hospital for the same condition 15 percent less often in California, and 33 percent less often in Nevada.
Finally, in both California and Nevada, seniors in Medicare Advantage were 6 percent less likely to be admitted to the hospital for conditions described as "potentially avoidable," such as dehydration, urinary tract infection, or uncontrolled diabetes.
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