PLATINUM MEMBER Library: Weekly Focus

Before starting the process of defining specific goals, it helps to stimulate your clients’ thinking by starting more broadly and then drilling down. Asking a question like, “What does having wealth mean to you?” will get them to talk about their dreams and ambitions. More importantly, it should reveal critical insights into your clients’ values, beliefs, and attitudes about money.

The client goal-setting process is critical. Done right, it should form the basis of an advisory relationship. Clients hire you to help them achieve their goals. But they need your help in defining them.

Advisors have plenty of tools to help them quantify client goals, utilizing assumptions and calculations to set the target, so their clients know where and how high to aim.

Advisors who are effective at managing client services work from a service calendar that includes all potential touchpoints with their clients—from onboarding to financial plan reviews to quarterly updates and periodic check-ins.

Identify which strengths are critical for getting to and succeeding at the next level. Highlight those strengths that, if exercised and improved upon, will add value and help you grow your practice.

There’s no such thing as too much rehearsing. Rehearsing instills confidence, which raises the level of your presentation.

You should always be mindful of your physical presence. Before you utter your first words, your audience is sizing you up. Your demeanor and body language reveal a lot about you to your audience, who are trying to decide if they should believe you.

These days, when you demonstrate a lack of knowledge about your prospects, you are confirming your laziness and a lack of interest.

You spend a lot of time and effort acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to present yourself as a knowledgeable and competent financial advisor. So, you may feel the need to showcase your expertise to your prospects and clients through the use of sophisticated language and visuals.

It’s not uncommon for advisors, in an effort to win new clients, to make promises they’re not sure they can fulfill.

If you’re hungry for business, it seems reasonable to cast as wide a net as possible to find prospects, ending up with a potpourri of personas.

I don’t think advisors intentionally ignore the spouse. But, when one of the spouses, typically the husband, stands out as the primary decision-maker or is more investment savvy, advisors tend to give them more of their attention.

There’s a significant difference between listening to someone and making them feel as if they’ve been heard. It takes conscious, active listening to make people notice when they are genuinely listened to and heard. They also notice when they are not.

In many respects, your follow-up to your first meeting is just as crucial, as it will either reinforce your prospect’s positive feelings about you and the experience, or it could raise red flags triggering remorse.

Even when you know your role is to be strong for your clients, there are going to be times when your resolve slips. You know that your clients need to continue with their investment journey during market downturns, but you can’t help but feel bad for them when they see their assets tumble. It drives us crazy.

It’s during volatile times like these when advisors really earn their pay. When clients are distressed, they question everything, including the value of their advisor relationship and whether it’s meeting their expectations.

I’m not sure who said this, but it stands to reason. Asking the right questions is the most essential element of communication.

Loyal clients don’t bend to the constant overtures from your competitors. They’re more than willing to hang in there when the market turns against them. They don’t hesitate to introduce you to their family, friends, and colleagues. They have complete confidence in you. In essence, you become part of their inner circle, which is the epitome of a trusted relationship.

Suppose you’re doing all the essential things we’ve often talked about to create satisfied clients, such as exceeding their expectations, providing frequent communications, constantly articulating your value, and demonstrating you care. In that case, you stand a better chance of retaining them, which is critical for your success.

Wouldn’t it be nice if, when prospects are ready to buy, they would just pipe up and say, “I’d like to get started?”

Your first buying signals are likely to be revealed by your prospect’s body language. We all know what crossed arms and lack of eye contact means—you’ve got more work to do. But when they start leaning forward attentively, nodding their head up and down, they are telling you, “I like what I see.”

In setting an agenda for the first client meeting, you must be clear on what you and your client want to achieve. At this stage, you may know some things about your new client, but you don’t know everything you need to determine how you can help them.

Being a proactive listener puts you in a position to demonstrate empathy—perhaps the most essential core soft skill in building a connection.

Most people appreciate a well-crafted presentation or hearing how your services are better, but rarely is that enough for them to take any action. After an initial conversation, you might understand what is important to them—what they want to achieve. But people generally don’t act on “what’s important.” If they did, they would have acted on it long ago.

For there to be trust between two people, there must be a connection. There’s no quicker path to making a genuine connection with somebody than through proactive listening.

Your clients know they’re saving and investing for the future. They know how much money they’re making and how much they have invested. They know when they want to retire and the lifestyle they envision for themselves.

You need to feel good about yourself before you can build any real confidence. If you’re out of shape, carrying a few extra pounds, and not watching what you eat and drink, it’s hard to feel good about yourself.

When it comes to building your confidence, you need to turn the chicken and egg conundrum on its head. Most people think you need success to build confidence. In reality, you need confidence to build success. That starts by focusing on your emotional confidence.

Understandably, it is difficult to feel self-confident when your successes are few and far between. If your definition of success means landing million-dollar accounts, you’ll make it even more difficult. Instead, create mini-milestones into your daily routine, which you can count as successes on the way to your larger goals.

Before initiating a call with your client, take a moment to review their dossier, focusing on a relationship that may be top of mind with them.

Client expectations have intensified in the last several years, meaning if they don’t feel like their advisor is making an effort to engage with them, they have no qualms about moving on.

Your communications strategy should consist of scheduled calls based on your clients’ preferences. But, if you want to enhance client engagement, make time for “just because” calls—non-business-related calls to check-in to see how the family is doing.

What more and more clients are looking for in their advisor relationship is a plan that addresses the entirety of their financial life to guide them in life-critical decisions.

Shore up your self-confidence, your belief in and trust of your abilities, qualities, and judgment. It is impossible to be an elite Advisor without self-confidence. Low self-confidence is a killer.

Unless a person comes to you immediately as a prospect—such as a referral or someone with whom you have a relationship—everyone is a lead.

As an advisor, you have to believe in yourself in times of uncertainty, especially. You have to believe that what you did at the beginning, that plan you set up, that’s the right way to go. You have to stick to your guns.

The most significant value financial advisors offer their clients is to help them understand what they want.

One of the primary drivers of fear, especially in the financial realm, is the media. The media, which needs to sell advertising to stay in business, must make its information more essential if it is going to be consumed.

This is where you, as the financial advisor, come in. If you’ve done your job right, your clients know a lot more than they probably realize.

To counter the media’s fearmongering, financial advisors need to proactively insert themselves into the consciousness of their clients. Fear is just a mindset brought about by a feeling of helplessness or not being in control.

The key to becoming a proactive listener is to speak less. Advisors tend to talk more than they listen. You can’t gain any insight into what a person thinks or feels by talking.

You’ve probably also heard that the human brain processes information about a person’s face and mannerisms within a matter of seconds, leading to a quick conclusion about their abilities. The hurdle just got higher.

What, when, and how you communicate is your greatest differentiator!

If you have been following my blogs for a while, you’re familiar with my core belief that communication is vital to developing solid and enduring relationships. You simply can’t form trusted relationships without good communication.

It all starts with getting an appointment. Nothing happens without an appointment in this business. Go on the appointment, get your nose bloody, come back and get another appointment. Then get another one. Then get another one. Building a career is a series of many steps. Success is not part time. Get in the habit of getting appointments.

In this extremely cluttered and highly competitive advisory landscape, advisors who don’t find ways to stand out in the crowd get swallowed by a sea of mediocrity, where clients dare not go.

Every financial advisor reaches a critical juncture in the growth stage where they crash into a capacity wall—the point when there just isn’t enough time to do what needs to be done to grow your business.

Your ideal mentor may be just steps away from your office. Who do you look up to? You’re likely to find someone who knows you and what you’re about. Some of the best mentor relationships are formed in the office with someone who wants to take you under their wing. It makes it easy to set up brief meetings.

Contacting people before they are ready and neglecting to find out how they prefer to be contacted is the surest way to burn through your pipeline. They’re in your pipeline for a reason.

Many advisors, especially those in the early stages of growth, attempt to cast as wide a net as possible to gather their leads. But that can be a highly inefficient way to prospect because, in essence, it’s just a numbers game.

When clients see you, do they perceive you as a knowledgeable and skilled financial advisor? Of course, they do, just as they view other advisors who have worked hard, obtained the credentials, and put in their time. There’s no differentiation with that.

I say “strive” because it’s difficult to become a thought leader overnight. But it’s well worth it. Clients want to be around people viewed as an authority and influential in their field. They gravitate towards people who can walk in a room and command an audience or whose social media posts are well-traveled.

When your clients are experiencing a life-changing event or a personal crisis, who do they think of? If it’s not you, you may not have the relationship you thought you had with your clients. If the pandemic and the volatile stock market of 2020 taught us anything, it’s that clients want to know their advisors are there to help them during times of crisis. Maintaining top-of-mind awareness among your clients is more critical than ever.

When you become referable by elevating your clients’ experience and strengthening your personal relationships, they become your advocates. You shouldn’t have to resort to asking them for referrals. Instead, ask them for introductions. There’s a difference.

It’s critical for advisors always to be prepared for ‘what ifs,’ particularly as it relates to a stock market crisis. That’s when your clients need you most.

Direct mail should never be used as a standalone marketing strategy. Your prospects expect to be communicated to through the various channels they use.

I’ve seen that type of behavior in salespeople who don’t believe in their product, sales process, or themselves. If you believe you are offering real value, then you shouldn't act apologetically when asking for the order.

Financial advisors are in their element when dispensing advice critical to their clients’ financial health—it’s natural for them.

Well-conceived client events can be game-changers for advisors, spurring business growth by bringing people together in a celebratory environment.

For many advisors, the kind of support they really need can’t be found within the confines of their office. Maybe they don’t feel a connection with any of their colleagues, or the experience gap is too wide.

Make providing your clients with an exceptional experience a top priority. It’s one area where advisors can truly differentiate themselves, making them more memorable and referable.

Make providing your clients with an exceptional experience a top priority. It’s one area where advisors can truly differentiate themselves, making them more memorable and referable.

It may not have occurred to you, but more than any other type of professional advisor, people rely on their financial advisor as the one who can help guide them through life’s challenges.

Think back to times in your life when you had to break out of your comfort zone to advance yourself to the next level. How about leaving the comfort of your home to go away to college? Of course, it probably helped to know your friends were doing the same thing, but it still required stepping outside your comfort zone.

The greatest value advisors can bring to a relationship is to be a coach. Though they may not realize it, that’s what clients are looking for.

During times of emotional distress, the last thing your clients are probably thinking of is their long-term goals. When they see their portfolio value plunging in a market downturn, all they want to do is stop the bleeding.

Go above and beyond. Great advisors are all about the value-add. They are constantly on the lookout for their clients’ best interests in all aspects of their lives.

You’ve heard it many times, but it bears repeating: Your clients don’t care about how much you know until they know you care. You can be the smartest advisor in the room, but if your client doesn’t get the sense that you are in this journey with them, they may eventually look for an offramp.

Prospects won’t have the desire to act on a recommendation unless they are convinced it will help them. It’s not about whether your solution will help them. Intellectually, they probably know it will. But they need to be convinced emotionally that it’s the best course of action.

Once you have isolated the prospect’s motivating factor, it is essential to incorporate it when presenting your plan or solution.

You probably know already how to connect with prospects using conversations designed to get them to open up about their issues and concerns. They will tell you what’s important to them.

What if, in every initial client meeting, your prospects would just come right out and tell you what’s important to them and what it would mean to them if you could help them?

Living for a higher purpose is a reason to get up in the morning, to contribute to the world in a way that derives immense satisfaction. It’s where we find our passion, and it’s the legacy we leave behind.

Most top financial advisors apply their work ethic in the pursuit of excellence. But if excellence is now the standard by which top advisors are being measured, it becomes more challenging to differentiate yourself.

Maintaining strong work ethic for a few years gets you over the hump, from newbie to “junior” advisor.

If you aren’t constantly striving to improve, you’re actually getting worse because your competition is constantly improving. Any edge you might have today will be gone tomorrow unless it is continuously sharpened and elevated. Nowhere is this truer than in the advisory business, where change is accelerating at digital speed, and the half-life of knowledge is a fraction of what it was just 20 years ago.

In any other endeavor requiring people to achieve a level of performance beyond their current capacity, people often seek out a coach. They do it in sports, business, and fitness training because they know how difficult it is to improve performance without a coach.

The most successful advisors got that way by narrowing their focus and specializing in a niche requiring a level of expertise not found with most advisors.

You could start by ensuring each of your clients receives highly personalized advice and service.

As you progress toward your goals, circumstances can change, and new challenges can pop up. Persistence can keep you moving forward but, if the strategy doesn’t seem to be working, you need to adapt.

Impatience is the enemy of endurance, which you need when going after anything important.

It’s not too late to adopt or develop the qualities of character necessary to go after your ambitions. In fact, they reside in all of us. You just need to accentuate them and use them deliberately to overcome your obstacles.

The best time to approach prospects is when they are in the middle of a life change—buying a home, having a baby, changing jobs, etc.

People who need immediate solutions to problems make excellent prospects because they have an incentive to act.

Your best clients may match your ideal client profile, or they are just great clients who know you and acknowledge the work you do for them. Also, they probably wouldn’t hesitate to introduce you to other people like them.

The cold hard reality is that people need to trust you before they will engage with you. Especially these days, people are almost instinctively cynical, overly careful to approach others they don’t know with a heavy dose of skepticism.

Provided how turbulent 2022 was, it’s no surprise that one of the most popular topics among Financial Advisors was market volatility and how to communicate about that with prospective and current clients.

Nothing can lead to mistrust faster than poor communication, which is why it is a top reason clients fire their advisor.

It’s just a fact of life in sales: If people don’t trust you, their defensive mechanisms are going to be up during the entire sales process. If you’re lucky, they’ll tell you. At least that way, you get to face the trust issue head on. That might give you a fighting chance.

This is one of my favorite trial closes. During selling situations, ask a prospect “what do you think about X?” That activates their natural skepticism and defensive mechanisms, which you then have to overcome before you can land a sale.

These current national and international situations are causing big short-term swings in stock prices.

No one can accurately predict the direction of the stock market at any given time, nor can anyone know when the next market-disrupting macro-event will occur.

Market corrections can be scary, especially if your clients aren’t prepared for them. But educating them on the role market corrections play in the long-term stock market advance, can alleviate their fears. 

With the stock market, the past is prolog. So it helps to put market corrections in a historical perspective. The fact is that market corrections occur with some regularity.

While you don’t have any control over market volatility, it’s essential to educate your clients on how it can enhance portfolio returns in the long term.

A lot of things in this business, you can’t control. You can’t control what the market does. You can’t control whether your prospects will show up on time for your booked appointments. You can’t control how many business owners will be in the shop when you do your 20 walk-ins per day. You can’t control how many people will pick up the phone while you make your 50 calls.

When you connect your personal story with a benefit of working with you, you’ll create a lasting impression that is very difficult for a competitor to overcome. See, nobody can match your story. You will have indelibly connected your own unique personality and background with a solution that makes their lives better.

The most obvious benefit of professional education is this: You’ll provide better service to clients. You’ll give better advice. That’s what it’s all about. And, of course, that’s going to come back around to benefit you, in the long run.

Help your clients remember to keep their “eyes on the prize.” To keep them focused on their long-term goals and strategies. Anything that helps them avoid being distracted by today’s market news, or from some talking head on TV.

Hold this story in reserve. You should have a few “I-know-what-you’re-thinking” stories at the ready to deploy when you’re encountering an unspoken objection. One for every common objection.

This is a story about someone like your prospective client who is much better off today because of what you were able to do for them. It should be about someone the client can relate to. They share a similar professional background and values.

It’s easy to say, “buy low and sell high.”

Dividends are tangible evidence that good companies don’t use smoke and mirrors because dividend checks don’t bounce.

For most people, the left side of the brain is associated with logic, reason and analytical processes. The right side of the brain is associated with emotion, excitement, and imagination.

The internet has fundamentally changed clients’ attitudes and behavior. It has emboldened them to become more participatory in the process, and it has elevated their expectation of transparency and objective advice that is responsive to their needs.

Once you really know your clients because you’ve taken the time to do detailed fact finders, and call them regularly to review their portfolios, or just to catch up, you’ve built a huge moat around your business – one that’s very difficult for competitors to overcome.

Do you have a client service calendar? That’s a plan listing every scheduled client support, education or update interaction for the year. Portfolio reviews, birth month reviews, Medicare deadlines (based on birth month) and reminders, kids’ birthdays (great for capturing Coverdell ESA and Section 529 business!), newsletters, phone calls – you name it.

When the Army trains new officers how to defend a piece of ground, they tell them to look at it from the attacker’s point of view. Go out front and see the ground from their perspective. That will tell you a lot about what they are likely to do.

When the markets are going smooth, you can get away with some poor practices. Don’t rely on the markets to bail you out.

In an ideal world every prospect would sign up with you at the first meeting, immediately recognizing they are in need of what you are offering. In the real world however, prospects may not yet realize your value or understand that they can trust you.

Establishing trust when meeting someone for the first time is especially unlikely in this day and age. Probably because of all the negative press. Anybody associated with Wall Street today will suffer a lack of trust simply by association.

You have just opened a new account and you are excited to start working with this new client. Of course, you are more than qualified to provide them with the services they need, but how are you going to ensure that your relationship with them will flourish over time?

It’s crucial to have a niche in this industry otherwise you’ll simply get lost in the ‘white noise’. Given this it’s surprising how few advisors get around to defining their target market.

Clients could begin to regret hiring you when the markets take a dive and their investment loses momentum. Make sure this doesn’t happen by getting the message across early in your relationship that market volatility is a normal and expected aspect of the investment process. Use analogies and stories to communicate market volatility.

When a consumer watches an ad for a discount firm, he or she is led to believe that they know all they need to know about being a wise investor. They think they can pick among various investments without your help.

People tend to overestimate their own competency. This leads to overconfidence, and underestimating the limits of their own understanding. You’ve heard it said, “a little learning is a dangerous thing.” A little learning about investing often causes people to think they’re Warren Buffett.

If you’re constantly running around trying to put out fires, you’ll be distracted from key business priorities. If you’re so wrapped up in the moment, you may be spending unnecessary money on your business without realizing the costing implications, or start falling behind with important paperwork around compliance, etc. All of which will be highly detrimental to your business.

Once you’ve considered your options, identify your ideal client by creating a detailed picture of them, complete with all the characteristics they should possess.

Elite Advisors have a strong sense of their worth and truly believe they have something valuable to offer a prospect. That’s why they don’t fear the competition. They know their work ethic, motivation and superb soft skills set them apart from other Advisors.

Prospecting brings with it a considerable amount of inevitable rejection. It involves speaking to people who are not only strangers but who may also be cynical about being prospected to.

Naturally, clients are entitled to their concerns and objections and overcoming them is a necessary part of the sales process.

Poor time management has killed more careers in this business than just about anything.

As their advisor it’s your job to stop clients from worrying unnecessarily and making bad decisions. You need to find a way to check their behaviors and reassure them that they should follow your lead.

The hard, technical side of a financial advisory business can be increasingly left to algorithms and machine-learning.

If you’re sensing that prospects know they should be investing but can’t take the leap, tell them the story about Chris Shea.

People looking for an Advisor are not looking for more information. They are looking for someone they can trust. They are not looking for you to show them that you possess the skill to do the job. They assume you have those skills.

You already have the talent, or you wouldn’t be in the business. The key is to develop your talent into a skill. Your talent is God-given. Done properly, talents become skills and skills become habits.

There are three stages to a Financial Advisor’s career. The first is building a great business. Your focus needs to be on prospecting. The second occurs when we are satisfied that we have built the business we want. We don’t need to emphasize growth as much as maintenance. Your focus needs to be on client service. The third phase is getting ready to retire. Your focus needs to be on a smooth transition.

Staying focused on what’s important is only possible if you properly manage your time. There is so much you need to get done and there are only so many hours in the day. There are too many fires to put out; so give the important ones your undivided attention. Multi-tasking may feel good, but it kills your productivity.

Trust must be earned. It typically takes a long time to earn someone’s trust, yet that trust can be destroyed with a single word or action.

Over the last forty years, lengthy corrections have been rare. If you want to gather those shells, you better do it right now before the bull market tide comes roaring back in.

Most Financial Advisors are not trying to hit home runs. They focus on hitting singles and doubles. They help people not worry about money. They keep hard-working people from making costly financial mistakes. They keep people from being poor.

If your reason for being in business is to make money, you won’t do very well. If your purpose is to help others, you’ll be unstoppable.

The DJIA has never gone to cash. The biggest investment mistake of all is not starting. The second biggest mistake is not going all the way.

The more uncertain the times, the more certainty clients will demand from you. Explain the division of duty to your clients. You'll focus on the short term while they focus on the long term.

You are not judged on how much you know. You are judged on how well you communicate what you do know.

There are only three people you can do business with in 2020: your existing clients; people you know who are not yet your clients and people you haven’t met yet. What’s it going to be?

We have a whole army of clients who just became prospects. They are open to meeting someone who can get them on stable ground, both emotionally and financially. They are looking for hard opinions.

The behavior of big producers is different because their perception of who they are is different.

Despite the many methods of consultative selling at our fingertips, most training programs in our industry teach the same ideology. Financial Advisors are taught to ask the right questions in the right order to uncover a person’s needs.

For people to choose you as their Financial Advisor, they must like you and trust you. They cannot do either until they know you and they cannot know you until they know your story. They can check you out on LinkedIn and they can ask around about you, but they will ultimately rely on seeing you and hearing you in person. They want to hear your story from you.

We usually don’t recognize a bear market until it's over. Or until it is so deep that it’s obvious and undeniable. That doesn’t seem to afflict the media pundits who apparently are the smartest people in the world. Bad news sells and they are going to be screaming in your clients’ faces.

When you are urging someone to become your client, you are persuading that person to agree with you. You are influencing his or her decision. They must agree that hiring you as their Financial Advisor is the right thing to do.

The decision to do business with you is as much emotional as logical. Being factually correct about the need to invest is not enough. Facts are not as powerful as emotions.

If people are going to choose you as their Advisor, they first must like you and trust you. They can’t do either until they know you. They need to hear about your professional journey.

When we overwhelm people with data, we are pretty much guaranteeing ourselves that we will not have an audience after a minute or two.

Advisors with outstanding social skills are viewed as more competent than Advisors lacking in those skills.

Not urgent/Important tasks are longer-term in nature. They’re important but not urgent. I’ll do them when I get the time. An example of an important task is creating a long-term business plan.

Once you’ve considered your options, identify your ideal client by creating a detailed picture of them, complete with all the characteristics they should possess. Consider their stage of life, age, industry sector, level of education, hobbies, the church they attend or neighborhood they live in.

Stories stir up emotions, stories motivate people to act and storytelling makes us better communicators. No matter how many times you rearrange the data and work the numbers, you end up with a boring presentation. Most people don’t like math and most people don’t like numbers.

You simply cannot do everything yourself. Running the business gets in the way of growing the business.

Every client’s ultimate goal is financial independence. They want to achieve success. They don’t want to lose money. They want to simplify their lives. They want great service, no matter what the fee. They want you to be competent and honest.

Your local market should and will influence how much you charge, but only up to a point. The more you are like your competition, the more your pricing has to be like theirs.

We were brought up to believe that the key to success is hard work. That has proved to be incomplete. Plenty of hard working people don’t succeed. Hard work is a requirement, but it is not the secret sauce. If not hard work, then what?

People don’t come to see you hoping to open a managed account. People come to see you to make sure they can pay for their child’s education. People don't want a financial plan for the sake of having a financial plan. They want to make sure they can live comfortably in retirement and leave something for their heirs.

You are constantly surrounded by distractions and those distractions always demand your attention. You are forced to pay attention to those distractions and before you realize it, you’re back to multi-tasking. Momentum is lost when things don’t go according to plan.

Too few advisors know what a value proposition is or why they need one. Others understand the importance of identifying their unique value, but don’t know how to articulate it.

Clients and prospects need to understand what you contribute – and the more they know about what you do for them, the more important you’ll become in their eyes.

Your presentation is your opportunity to showcase yourself. Prospects will be watching carefully to ascertain whether you meet their expectations, appear trustworthy and are recommending the right path for them.

Ask yourself honestly: would you do business with you? If you don’t feel fully confident about this, you won’t be able to convince prospects either.

People new to investing often don’t realize the implications of not starting an investment plan. If you don’t make them understand the need to take immediate action, they will walk away from your first meeting unconvinced.

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

Next to the family doctor, you, the advisor, are the most important person that family is ever going to meet. What you can do for people is literally nothing short of miraculous.

Your personal likeability and trustworthiness are more important than your professional knowledge when it comes to winning and building enduring client relationships.

Don’t put off asking for referrals because it seems too ‘salesy’ or appears to diminish your client’s opinion of you. If you ask in the right way, you won’t look desperate or need to feel you’re burdening clients or making them uncomfortable.

Friends don’t discuss money. People won’t refer ‘the professional’ you to their friends and family. They will refer the ‘real’ you – the ‘you’ they like.

Referrals are by far and away the best way to gather new clients. And the only way you can earn referrals is by becoming referable – which will only happen once your clients feel you’re delivering them a 5-star service.

Great interpersonal skills are needed to attract clients, gather assets and create and maintain long-term relationships. People choosing Advisors are not looking for information. They are looking for someone they like and trust. They want to know the real you, not the professional you. Who are you? Can I trust you? Do you care? What are your values?

In my opinion, our industry does not pay enough attention to the skill of creating and maintaining long-term relationships. A lot has been written about discovery skills and the need to listen. Not enough has been written about how to enhance our clients’ lives.

Your advice is valuable, but clients expect good advice. They also expect the investments to work. With little variety, all investment firms offer the same products. Every firm offers managed money, financial plans, ETF’s, mutual funds, real assets and the like. I don’t know of a high demand product that hasn’t been cloned. Nothing is proprietary. Even the little tweaks are cloned eventually.

I heard recently that the average discount given clients who receive discounts is thirty-five percent. I have no way to verify that stat, of course, but I have no reason to doubt it.

With change comes fear. I get that. Every negative change brings anxiety, stress and fear of loss of livelihood. Dealing with the fear of loss is right up your alley. You spend all day every day counseling clients about loss aversion.

I find discounting to be almost rampant. The great irony is that clients want great service regardless of what they pay. If you give them a discount, they are not going to agree to less attention paid to them.

The right story will make a difficult subject easy to understand.

One way to know you are adding value is to exceed your client’s expectations. Don’t overpromise. Deliver exceptional results.

Perhaps the best way to expand your vocabulary is to read on a regular basis. In fact, read a lot.

People’s lives and minds are cluttered. Simple explanations and clarifying statements are welcome relief.

It is your job to influence and persuade. You’ve made the recommendation, so you must like it. Let your feelings show through.

We know people are concerned about life becoming too complicated. Clients go to an Advisor in order to simplify their lives and obtain peace of mind that they’ll be able to meet their goals and objectives. These things are terribly important.

Once a person decides to act on the need for financial planning, he or she will now seek information. He might start with someone at his bank or he might ask a friend for help in finding an Advisor. If he has a do-it-yourself mentality, he might respond to an E*TRADE or Schwab commercial. There are lots of ways to get information. After gathering what he considers to be adequate intelligence, they will decide which course of action best fits their needs. Do I like a particular avenue? Do I dislike a particular solution? Do I care enough to investigate several brands and/or methods or are a few enough? How involved do I want to get? How much energy am I willing to expend?

The best way to understand how clients make decisions is to tune in to the client’s decision-making process, which is an explanation of a person’s thought process about how something works in the real world.

Advisors focused on selling are concerned with their closing skills. Advisors focused on adding value are concerned with their listening skills and asking the right questions.

You view stock market volatility as a normal course of events. Your clients view stock market volatility as a warning of a clear and present danger. This means that you have to spend a disproportionate amount of your time covering old ground.

You’ve got to decode the financial services landscape. You’ve got to make the unfamiliar familiar. The more familiar you make something, the better people understand it and the safer they feel.

Advisors are known by their mistakes. Investors are not prone to talk about the good advice they were given. They see little problem in talking about the bad advice they received. I get that. Humans dwell on negative experiences.

It’s only human to feel that if we don’t control the outcome of future events, the results won’t be pretty. We want certainty and we can’t have it. That creates stress. The presence of a competent, caring Advisor committed to helping us deal with an uncertain future brings an air of certainty and relieves stress. Your role is a crucial one.

What one Advisor offers his or her clients is not terribly different from what another Advisor offers to his or her clients. The obvious differentiator among Advisors is client service.

I’m not talking about dishonesty. I’m talking about getting away from the little things that define trustworthiness.

We simply stop doing the things that helped get us where we are. Why do we do that? Your opinion is as good as mine. I think one of the reasons is boredom. It’s hard work to do the same things over and over again. Perhaps we don’t feel we’re playing in an interesting enough game, so we tinker to make the game more interesting.

Advisors know they are paid and paid well to gather assets. The emphasis is on prospecting, not ramping up client service. Of course Advisors know that a client unhappy with the Advisor’s service can and will leave. That motivates Advisors to service the account.

Even great service and great products aren’t always enough. Clients don’t owe you their loyalty. You have to earn it on a regular basis. This is especially true if you plan on doing additional business with these people down the road.

It’s that time of year. Your 2021 business plan is due. You’ve got a blank page and a new chapter to write. As always, we’ll see opportunity and crisis playing leapfrog. You will have successes and you will have failures, hopefully more of the former. You’ll get new clients and you’ll lose a few old clients. You’ll act decisively. You’ll waver. You’ll be up and you’ll be down. You’ll come out the other end a better person.

To get off the fence, prospects have to envisage a long-term relationship with you. It’s never about the numbers or the products.

Stocks will edge higher, sometimes for prolonged periods of time, but this should never give rise to complacency.

The importance of prospecting cannot be overstated because nothing happens without an appointment. Many advisors see prospecting as their least favorite task.

If you’re generating leads and setting appointments, you’ve laid the groundwork for growing your business. Now you need to use your powers of persuasion to turn these ‘hot’ prospects into clients. Use all the soft skills at your command to get people off the fence by creating urgency.

Referrals are by far and away the best way to gather new clients. And the only way you can earn referrals is by becoming referable – which will only happen once your clients feel you’re delivering them a 5-star service.

Self-sabotaging behaviors can create problems, interfere with goals and ultimately put your career at risk. Without even realizing it you could be a victim of self-sabotage. Be honest and identify the traits that are holding you back so you can make the positive changes required to move forward.

By only focusing on working with the right number and type of clients you will build a more profitable business.

Your job is to make sure your clients stick to the plan. You’re accountable for any bad decisions they may make.

When you’re determining your value proposition, base it on what clients want. Here are a few examples how you can do that.

There's a story of a young man who was a potter. He read that in South Africa the Zulu tribe was making great pottery. So he applied for an apprenticeship with them. He got a six-month apprenticeship and off he went.

If you are to enter into a long-term relationship with clients, you need to demonstrate that you can lead them safely through volatility.

To break a prospect’s apathy towards investing, sell them back their needs. If you discover they need to educate the kids, put things into perspective for them. Explain that one year at college is the cost of a good car – so to get the kids through college they’ll need to buy the equivalent of a good car every year for four years.

When you ask for a referral, don’t see it as asking for a favor. By asking for a referral you’re seeking to provide a valuable service to a client’s friend, family member or peer – a service that could change their lives for the better.

Nothing should take precedence over appointments. If you aren’t spending your time in front of people, your business won’t move forward.

If you think you don’t need help in building your business, think again. Over time you will eventually work out how to do things on your own – but why waste time? With help you’ll get there far quicker.

Tell clients you grow your business by word of mouth. You have the right to say that to everyone. It’s certainly the way doctors grow their business.

To run a healthy business, you need a pipeline full of good leads. Referrals will probably not be enough to grow your business – and networking, whilst productive, won’t guarantee that you’ll meet the right people. So, prospecting (i.e. actively recruiting or seeking out new clients) must become your priority.

Nobody wants to hear your entire life story so aim to keep your stories short and to the point. This means you’ll need to edit and practice beforehand. Your stories don’t need to be funny or have a twist at the end, you simply need to develop ways of presenting information in a memorable and personable way.

Some clients feel the need to obsessively check their investments several times a week or even daily. You need to tell them that this is counter-productive. Stocks prices go up and down on a regular basis – what clients should be focusing on is the long-term outcome.

What you say is important, but non-verbal mannerisms are just as important. Everything you do is meaningful – from the first handshake to how far you sit from a client.

If you make clear effective communication with your clients a priority, you’re at far less risk of losing clients. If you haven’t already done it, develop a communication strategy that involves you calling and contacting clients on a regular basis.

The biggest challenge every investor (and, actually, every Advisor) faces is staying fully invested in the face of bad news.

If clients are to remain committed to pursuing their investment goals, they need their financial advisor to demonstrate trustworthy leadership. They need their advisor to lead by example and be passionate and positive. For clients to stay focused on the long term they need someone who will keep their morale high and focus on solutions rather than problems.

There will always be someone ‘better’ or ‘smarter’ than you so don’t spend your time comparing yourself to the competition. If you’re constantly watching what everyone else is doing, you’ll end up just like everyone else.

The biggest challenge every investor (and, actually, every Advisor) faces is staying fully invested in the face of bad news.

Nobody knows everything. If you won't put your hand up and admit that you're not completely sure from time to time, clients will sense you're not telling them the truth. If you make a mistake, don't cover it up, or your relationship with clients will suffer. Don't avoid the hard conversations - tell the truth when it needs to be told.

Breaking up can be hard to do and many advisors hang onto badly fitting clients for far too long. When it comes to letting go of clients, try not to let emotions get in the way. Your business will only survive and prosper if you focus on retaining valuable clients.

This is your opportunity to showcase yourself and connect with prospects. You've worked hard and used your marketing efforts to bring potential clients to the table. Now's the time when they'll decide whether they like you and trust you.

A report by Fidelity a few years ago revealed that when couples interact with a financial advisor the male partner is still more likely to be the primary contact. This could explain in part, why when their husbands die widows often fire their current advisors.

Poor time-management is an all-too common trait and one shared by many financial advisors. But it can cripple your business. It's crucial to take control of your time if you are to work more efficiently, get more work done and see more people.

You know how the stock market works, but your clients may not. They may not understand that the market is by nature volatile. You need to reassure them that the market will rise in the longer term so they should persevere with their investment plan.

A common reason why advisors get fired is because clients feel their advisor doesn't understand their goals well enough - and is therefore not giving them the right advice.

Clients need to understand that investing is a process that has to take place over many years, perhaps decades. They also need to understand that over the short term their investments may go up or down - they may even fall significantly for a certain period of time.

If you don't take the time to analyze your performance, you won't know whether you're on track or not - you'll simply be drifting along. Step back and examine your strengths and weaknesses.

The greatest challenge faced by any financial advisor is that of keeping clients invested for the long term. When the markets are down clients become anxious - they instinctively want to move their money out.

There will be times when your service simply doesn't match a client's needs. As things go on it may transpire that a client is really seeking advice on stocks rather than someone to plan and manage their investments. If so, call it a day and move on to another client who is seeking a more holistic service.

Good advisors manage to keep their emotions on an even keel. They keep things in perspective - understanding that, in the same way one good day won't assure success, neither will one bad day lead to failure.

How much would someone pay to ensure they never have to face financial problems? Surely saving clients from making bad financial decisions is worth a lot.

In this competitive industry most financial advisors remain at a mediocre level because they look and sound the same. Unless you make yourself unique and memorable, you too may as well resign yourself to a life of under-achievement.

The greatest challenge faced by any financial advisor is that of keeping clients invested for the long term. When the markets are down clients become anxious - they instinctively want to move their money out. They're at risk of abandoning their long-term financial plan.

If you talk incessantly about yourself and your practice, and fail to put the focus where it should be - on the client - a red flag will appear. Prospects will wonder, quite rightly, how you are going to offer them a tailored solution if you're not asking about their goals, risk tolerance, history, fears and family.

As both a financial advisor and a business owner you need to focus on profit-generating activities. And you are not generating income unless you are sitting in front of clients, or talking with them on the phone.

Forget the numbers and pie charts. Use your personal stories and experiences to help you establish trust and likeability in the minds of your prospects.

The most important task in establishing an emotional connection with clients is for you to fully understand what it is they want to achieve. Start your meeting with a wide-ranging discussion about their values, family, hobbies and life philosophy - ask open-ended questions.

To provide a five-star service to your clients you need to be totally onboard with their goals. However, there are some people whose goals simply cannot be pinned down. They may even know they don't know what they want but they're still happy to sit down with you and discuss a course of action they're not ready to take

When the market goes down and portfolio values decrease your clients will look to you for advice on what to do. The first reaction they may well have is fear at seeing a drop in the value of their account.

Once upon a time the evening news had a fifteen-minute slot - a limited time-period in which people were given the facts rather than endless analysis. These days we have to listen to endless (mostly negative) interpretations - from 'so called' experts.

Make it your aim to become your clients' trusted confidant; someone they feel they can call on for advice at any time, and for any issue.

What prospects want is a real, genuine relationship with their advisor so always talk to people on their level. Don't be arrogant, or reel off numbers to make yourself look good, because this is guaranteed to turn prospective clients off. Instead, be modest and unassuming. That doesn't mean you can't be professional - you're the expert, that's not in question. But you're also someone with a real personality and real opinions.

Clients are not always clear about their own goals so it's up to you to get them talking by asking the right questions. A good way to get clients thinking about money is to ask them 'why is money important to you?'

Whether your clients continue to pursue their goals depends on their perception of your relationship - is it strong enough?

Prospecting regularly will help you overcome your fear of failure. Once you have made prospecting a habit you'll discover that the rewards of getting on the phone (rather than sitting fearfully by it) far outweighs the risks.

Prospective clients want to know you're free of the pressure to promote your firm's products. They want to know you are acting independently and offering them solutions based on what's right for them.

Identify and accept your good qualities. Are you a great communicator? Are you passionate? Are you a good listener? Do you get on well with people, do they like and trust you? Are you smart? What previous successes no matter how small can you draw on?

The fear of rejection is an inherent human condition. When we're told 'no' by a prospect this often translates to being personally rejected as a person. Prospecting means interrupting another person's life and introducing the significant risk of being rejected (which is why three in four advisors dread prospecting).

To inspire prospects to do business with you they must see the value in your product or service. Once you've uncovered their pain points, illustrate why you are the ideal person to solve their problems for them.

When you're stuck in a rut you may feel that things will never change. But it's actually easy to change once you make a sincere commitment to developing excellence in all that you do.

For the most part clients simply want to beat the bank, educate their children and build a retirement fund. There's no need to overpromise or elevate expectations because if you do you are setting yourself up for failure.

Don't be afraid of losing business to Advisors with lower fees. If you believe that what you have to offer can be gotten elsewhere, you need to improve your self-image.

If you don't ask for the order, your clients may be passing up an opportunity to change their lives for the better without even knowing what they are missing. Everything you get in life comes from asking. So, once you've listened and understood their motivations, and overcome any objections, look people in the eye and ask.

Dedicate your time to prospecting, asking for commitments and managing client relationships.

Non-revenue-generating activities include staff management and compliance, and while important, these tasks should never take priority over activities that bring money in the door.

History shows that the stock market and economy move in cycles that repeat over and over. Understanding that is part of your job. You understand the nuances between a bull and bear market. But when the headlines in the paper's business section turn pessimistic investors lose confidence in the future.

There are some instances where you can establish trust very early in the relationship with a client, but those instances are few and far between. We generally establish trust by virtue of our behavior over time.

When you are talking to clients you need to ensure you are really getting your message across because what you say may not be what the other person hears. Don't let misunderstandings taint your message.

Get your clients to envisage the future they want.

If you want to get people to want to hang out with you, you need to have a certain something the French call 'je ne sais quoi'.

Challenge yourself to introduce yourself to new people every day. The more people you meet the more money you make. Simple as that.

There are so many factors in life outside your control - from the stock market and the economy to interest rates and so on. Your clients' money is constantly at risk - and as you're no doubt painfully aware - it's you that holds the key to its eventual security.

During your initial conversation with prospective clients, you will start to understand how they tick. If you get the impression that a prospect is not going to give you full control to all their assets, it may be time to think about whether they are worth working with.

What your clients do this year and going forward will not be dictated by world events alone. It will be dictated by the strength of their relationship with you. That's why you need to make relationship building one of your top priorities.

It's your job to regulate your clients' behaviors. If you don't, your clients will one day lament that they didn't do the right thing.

Even when you know your role is to be strong for your clients there will be times when your resolve weakens. You know that your clients need to continue with their investment journey during market downturns, but you can't help but feel bad for them when they see their assets tumble.

Only you can choose to be positive so make this decision and love what you are doing. Temporary dips will happen but you must accept that these are woven into the fabric of your job.

There are two things required to be successful at investing: Patience and a belief in the continuing success of the US markets.

You'll notice the advisors opening the most accounts and gathering the most assets are the least distracted among us. They come to work in the morning and they get right to it.

Soft skills can take years to learn and to become truly proficient you need to practice them every single day!

When you are talking to clients you need to ensure you are really getting your message across because what you say may not be what the other person hears. Don't let misunderstandings taint your message.

Cultivate your relationship with clients by telling them a story about yourself. Before they will make the decision to invest with you prospects need to like you, trust you and feel your recommendations are right for them. So, if they're hesitant perhaps they haven't decided whether they trust you or not.

Clients want to do business with the real you, not the Mr. or Ms. Financial Advisor you. They are not looking for additional information. They are looking for someone they can trust.

The essence of your job as an advisor is to help people and ensure they adapt their behaviors so that they no longer have the prospect of an uncertain financial future.

Prospects' faces will glaze over if you start talking about Portfolio Rebalancing or asset allocation and they will fail to understand your message. So, bypass the numbers for the time being. Instead tell simple stories and break down topics into small, illustrative 'word pictures' so that you develop an emotional connection with them.

As an advisor, how high you go is dependent on your ability to maintain long-term relationships. There's no activity more crucial for the success of an advisor than relationship building.

If you want to try something different, something your peers are most likely not doing, give cold calling a try. Cold calling can still be a useful way of building up a clientele, especially for newer advisors.

To succeed at cold calling you will need perseverance and a positive attitude.

When they first meet with you clients will be curious about you, so make it easy for them to form an early judgement. Rather than bombarding them with excessive financial information let them find out whether they like you and whether they think they can put their trust in you.

Because we're a nation of consumers, I sometimes find it difficult to imagine why it seems everybody wants the cheapest price, the score, the home run. When clients ask me who manages the cheapest mutual fund, who sells the cheapest life insurance, I like to tell them the Springfield story.

Decide what you want to accomplish and write it down. Set a date by which you will accomplish each goal. If you were charged with running a twelve-minute mile and nobody posted a finish line, you would have no way of knowing if you succeeded. It's no different with business goals.

Whether you are an independent Advisor, a bank Advisor or an Advisor with Merrill Lynch, bring an owner's mentality to work each and every day.

It's your job to tell potential clients to get off the fence and act when it comes to planning their financial futures. You need to get across to them that putting off important decisions will delay the achievement of their financial stability and success; and that initiating even the simplest of plans will mitigate the snowballing costs of inflation. By not acting - by procrastinating - they will be confronted with hardships later through declining income or increased expenditures.

Build a strong relationship that goes beyond the client/advisor dynamic. People do business with people they like and trust so you need to develop a personal relationship with your clients. A great deal of managing expectations relies on this.

Spend a day introducing yourself to strangers. This is a fun exercise that can really help you overcome your fears! When you're out and about, in a shop, in the elevator or in line at a store and see someone you don't know - say hello.

Ask clients how they rate your service. Could there be anything that you should be doing differently to improve your service offering? Don't be put off asking them questions in case you might not like the answers.

Your job doesn't end once you've opened a new account. After a client has committed to investing he or she will compare their decision with their expectations. If their expectations don't match up with reality, then your ongoing business with them, along with referrals, will hang in the balance.

It can be a difficult balancing act when it comes to keeping your existing clients happy whilst attempting to grow your business. Time is a precious commodity so you need to ensure you apportion adequate resources into managing your existing clients - as well as prospecting.

Advisors often complain that prospects constantly tell them they're not ready to commit. And it can be difficult to break this apathy towards investing. The problem is, it's far more fun to spend than save. People tend to care more about buying clothes and cars than saving for their future.

Trusting someone is an irrational risk. It may surprise you to find that, rather than discussing the state of the market, clients are more interested in finding out if you are married, have children or play golf. They want to understand what you stand for and what your values are. They want to know what motivates you.

Wherever I go, I find Advisors who rate themselves above average, but charge below average fees. I don't want that to be you.

If you don't set concrete goals, you will meander. For example, if you don't set targets around prospecting, you won't get to see enough people to grow your business. Write down your goals, make sure they are realistic and attainable, and keep them on your desk so you can refer to them constantly.

If like a lot of other advisors, you often find it difficult to ask for referrals, it's because asking for referrals is essentially like asking for help to grow your business. And having to ask for someone's help feels like admitting that your business is deficient in some way.

If you don't know where you want to go, you can't identify what's keeping you from getting there, or motivate yourself to do anything about it. Isn't that incredible?

If your prospecting approach isn't successful, consider how you can change it.

It's natural to fear rejection - to fear not being good enough or not being likeable enough. However, to succeed as a financial advisor you need to realize that rejection is an occupational hazard. Distance yourself from the task of prospecting and become more objective. When someone says 'no' understand that it's not you personally that's being rejected, it's your idea.

When times get tough you need to be a rock to your clients. In uncertain times, your clients need you more than ever, they need someone to be there for them with answers and words of encouragement.

When people come to see an advisor, it's only a job interview with them for the first meeting. They're talking to you; they're talking to an independent advisor; they're talking to someone at their bank. Eventually, they're going to make a decision.

When you're new to the industry, it's all too common to chase after million-dollar assets without even considering smaller less wealthy investors. However, these clients need high quality financial advice too, and when you're first starting out smaller investors can offer you a chance to hone your client relationship skills.

Focus on becoming the best conversationalist you can be. Make complex topics easy for prospects and clients to understand. Never be afraid of being simple, it's actually a sign of intelligence.

Too few advisors are great at following up. There's a certain proper way to follow up. The thing to keep in mind is that following up is not nagging. It's reminding.

You can't delegate prospecting, but you can delegate other tasks. Delegate whenever and wherever possible.

Your formula for success in prospecting lies between calling everyone and being too discerning (spending endless amount of time sourcing leads that are a 'perfect fit' is unlikely to be productive either).

When you sit down with a prospect, it's a job interview. So what will get you the job? Put simply, it's down to whether clients like you, trust you and feel you're offering them a great solution. If you can articulate who you are, and what you do you will win clients.

Clients expect their investments to work - but just as importantly they expect you to care. They expect good performance as a bare minimum. They expect their investment plan to deliver what was agreed - whether it's to get the kids through college or pay out sufficiently when they retire.

Don't let a bad day, week, month or even year tempt you to give up. Stay enthusiastic and persevere and you will succeed. Don't develop a ' fear of failure'. Failure is inevitable at times. All those successful advisors faced setbacks and came out the other side and so can you.

If someone told you they can get the same service elsewhere and cheaper, they are really saying they are not interested in doing business with you. If you get the common objection, "I want to think it over", what your prospect really means is they don't trust you, and thus - they are not interested in investing with you.

Once you determine your client's risk tolerance level you will know whether he or she is aggressive or conservative. In reality it has to be said that the vast majority of clients are relatively risk averse - they are not looking to amass a fortune - they simply want to see their kids through college, or save for retirement.

Making a plan and sticking to it sets the scene for your future successful career. If you don't undertake this basic strategy you will kill your chances of success. Once you have a plan, list your goals and don't let anything stop you hitting them.

New advisors often struggle with opening accounts. But getting appointments is a hurdle which must be considered a priority.

Average advisors tend to have a scattergun approach to finding new clients. Successful advisors on the other hand know exactly who their ideal clients are and concentrate on finding and serving that niche expertly. Don't try to be all things to all clients. Find a niche and embrace it.

As a financial advisor it's your job to help clients secure their financial futures. Whether their goals are saving for retirement or getting the kids through college, they won't achieve these aims without having a sound financial plan in place. That is where you come in.

Life is all about confronting fears. More people are scared of success than of failing. Not prospecting is a symptom of this.

Drill down to the details when it comes to identifying your ideal client. Include their stage of life - e.g. working or retired, their profession, marital status, and level of education. Do they tend to live in a certain neighborhood? What are their likely assets? Interests and hobbies?

If you want to be the best rather than just good at what you do, you need to develop the habit of excellence. By practicing your soft skills until they become second nature you will be able to develop processes you can repeat so you can effortlessly hit the mark every time.

To get your clients to stick to their long-term goals, you need vision. You need to demonstrate a strong belief that the goals you set can be achieved, regardless of the obstacles.

Nobody's perfect. None of us have the power to see into the future, we can only give it our best shot. No matter how good you are, you will sometimes make decisions on behalf of your clients that don't work out. But if it's clear you have taken a wrong turn - don't brush it under the carpet. Admit you're wrong. Hold yourself accountable before your clients do. Otherwise you will be deemed untrustworthy.

I think the answer really depends upon the trust you've established with a client.

Don't use worn out sales techniques. Instead focus on getting referrals by putting your customers and their friends at the heart of your referral strategy. Don't see it as helping yourself - think about how you can help others.

Focus all your attention on your clients. Listen more than you talk. By listening to your clients you will discover their motivations and fears. Once you are on the same wavelength you can make your services 'all about them'. By personalizing your services you have established yourself in your clients' minds as someone they trust and as someone who cares - someone who is genuinely interested in them.

Nothing can beat connecting in person but let's be real. It's impossible to meet and talk on the phone with hundreds of people who have your business card and might open an account with you one day. Here's when email comes in handy.

When the going is good take the time to write down what exactly it is that's making you so successful. Keep this written evidence somewhere safe so that when things falter you can review your notes and use them to help you get back on top.

You must begin to see prospecting as your only real priority. It's the only way you will get more appointments and win more business. You may not like prospecting - many advisors see this as the least favorite part of the job - but don't let fear of failure prevent you from undertaking this core task.

When people don't do what they say they will do we naturally feel let down. And the same goes for your clients. If you say you will call them back then do so right away, otherwise you will be deemed undependable.

Make sure you block out structured time for prospecting. Never make it just something 'you'll get around to' at some point in the day. Put these hours on a calendar.

At the outset of your relationship things are rosy. Your clients chose you because they felt you were both on the same page regarding their expectations and dreams. If later down the line they decide that 'it's over' it's usually due to a lack of trust and a feeling that you have left their expectations unmanaged and unfulfilled.

Whenever I do a seminar, at least one couple approaches me after the seminar. It's always the same thing. The husband, who is approximately 45 years old, will say "Hi, I'm Joe, I'm 45 years old. This is Susie, Susie's 42 years old. We have two kids, one's in school, one's out of school. I want to retire at age 65. I currently make $40,000 a year. What do you think I should do?" I say, "Joe, let me ask you a question, how much money do you want to live on annually when you retire?" "Oh, we want the whole $40,000. We want to be able to travel and do things we've never done."

Clients will leave you if they don't believe your customer service is up to snuff. If they believe that someone else will provide them with more personal attention and service they will move on without hesitation. Always be upbeat and enthusiastic when speaking to clients about their goals and explain how you can help them achieve them.

If you are guilty of talking too much (and we all are from time to time) it's time to redress the balance and learn the art of remaining silent. When you are with a client no one should be more important at that particular moment than them. And here it pays to remember that listening is not a passive activity.

Visualization activates the subconscious mind alerting it to new and creative ways of achieving your goals, and then motivates you to take the necessary action to make those dreams real. It works by strengthening the paths for a skill in the brain, and is effective because your mind doesn't know you're imagining the skill. It acts as though you are practicing the skill in real life.

Understand the values that govern your behavior. Maybe these are honesty, passion or having a good work ethic. Then learn to maximize your true abilities as both a person and advisor.

Find a quality you want your clients to understand about you. Write down this quality. Think back to the one time in your life you really felt this quality and developed it into a story. If you want to get across the fact that you always believe in doing what's right by your clients, incorporate this message into your story. Introduce goals, obstacles you've overcome, the codes you live by.

From a client's point of view their financial exposure to risk is enormous, so you need to manage their expectations. To them, losses hurt a lot more than gains can satisfy. They also have the means to measure their gains and losses and can check prices constantly. This makes the horizon shorter - with the potential for them to become even more risk averse. So how do you keep clients invested?

There will be ups and downs, good months and bad months, so develop the habit of staying on track and becoming more predictable. Too many advisors react to bad markets by re-inventing the wheel. Great advisors stick to the plan. They don't feel the need to scramble for a way out, because they have already planned for contingencies. Be prepared. Write your bull market plan in a bear market and your bear market plan in a bull market.

What we have to realize is volatility is not risk. Volatility is volatility. It's not a loss, we don't lose something until we sell. But the fact is, stock markets are volatile, short and medium-term. We know that. But the longer time horizon we have, the more comfortable we become with the ups and downs.

To the outside world all financial advisors tend to look the same: We offer similar solutions, we speak the same language and appear to get similar results. To an outsider, Merrill Lynch looks pretty much like UBS. As financial advisors we also have essentially the same resources or tools to work with. Plus, our fee structures are more or less similar across the board.

Do you prospect every day? And don't kid me, don't kid yourself, be honest. Do you know that every time you open a new account you lost your best prospect? Do you ask for referrals, every single time you give a presentation? Do you give a presentation every time you make a recommendation to a client?

Trust needs to be earned. Clients need to believe in you. They need to believe that you will do what you say you will do. Like a family doctor you will be playing a big part in your clients' lives, so be sincere, be friendly, and be totally up front with them. They don't need you to have a PhD in economics, they need to feel you are the best person to look after their interests.

When the market goes down and portfolio values decrease your clients will look to you for advice on what to do. The first reaction they may well have is fear at seeing a drop in the value of their account. It's surprising to hear how many advisors perform a disappearing act in the face of bad markets - possibly because they don't know what to say, or haven't considered how their clients might feel.

To get referrals you need the soft skills that illustrate you can get along with people as well as a self-awareness. You also need to show you are caring. If you care more than people expect you to care, clients will flock to you.

Prospective clients generally are not looking for more information. Rather, they are looking for someone they can trust. We're selling financial solutions and they are buying peace of mind. There is a big difference. They're not judging us on what we know. They are judging us on who we are.

One sure-fire way to ensure your business gets stuck is to blame yourself when things go wrong. If you want to keep your business on track, don't feel guilty when something doesn't work out. Don't fear being wrong. You are not paid to get it right all the time.

The decision to invest is not a logical decision, it's an emotional one. To get people to act you need to give them compelling emotional reasons to do so.

In order to become successful you must decide to be successful, and you're the only person that can do this.

If you want to keep your clients on track, it's essential to maintain the integrity of the relationship, hold their hands, and emphasize that you're there with them for the long run. But you must also ensure they envision for themselves the ultimate reward if they stick to the plan.

Advisors approach me about coaching. Rarely are the requests about improving their selling skills. Being better organized, being more efficient and going to the next level are popular goals. But I cannot recall one instance where an Advisor said to me, "I want to be better at selling."

Throughout the world, the money is in the small business market. Small business owners are generally very busy and most have their money tied up in their businesses. Therefore they will not go out of their way to meet you.

Have a clear plan on how to grow your business and set appropriate metrics to track your progress.

Accountability allows you to put your focus where it's needed.

When a hot prospect walks away it's usually because they didn't 'get' what it was you were selling them. And no one buys what they don't understand.

Formulating a comprehensive wealth-building and financial management plan not only demands maturity in decisions, long-term vision, planning, motivation and leadership skills; it also requires encouraging a client to talk and reveal the entire picture to help you get an in-depth understanding of their financial and personal aspirations and concerns. Asking the right questions to initiate the right dialogue is imperative.

You have to convince clients that sacrificing today is a small price to pay for the reward of fulfilling their dreams. You have to turn them into believers. The belief must be so strong, the reward so great, that nothing gets in the way of achieving the goals; not down markets, not paper losses and not the crisis du jour. How do you do that?

Consistency is the purview of the pros. Professionals get great at what they do slowly, over time. They tinker with a repeatable process until it's just right, until it does the job for them.

Perhaps the most underappreciated thing in your world is the success of long-term investing. Clients know long-term investing works. They just don't believe it. If they did, no investor would ever consider going to the sidelines. The fact is that fear trumps greed.

According to many of our clients, the stock market is overbought. They're going to invest, but not until the pullback takes place.

The question isn't, "do we value an advisor's advice?" Of course we do. The question is "how much should I pay for that advice?" The most important thing we can bring to the table in this discussion is our enthusiasm for how we help people manage their money and achieve their goals. Everybody wants an enthusiastic financial advisor.

Objections to getting started are commonplace. Delaying taking action is a knee-jerk reaction, especially when undertaking a new venture.

When you ask for referrals, don't think about yourself, think about the people you can help.

I think it's a bad thing to promote yourself. I don't think it's a bad thing to promote the value you can and do add to peoples' lives. I think it's a bad thing to inflate your ego. I don't think it's a bad thing to explain that you are helping families succeed financially.

Starting today, make prospecting and having appointments structured time. These are things you plan for, not things you do when you get around to it. Set aside time for both. Don't wait to call that referral until you get around to it. You'll never get around to it.

Identity-based trust is where a Financial Advisor makes his or her living. This is simply not trusting you to show up on time or trusting that you will obey the law. This is the trust that we give only to the most important people in our lives.

Getting ahead in the business world has a lot more to do with who you know than what you know. While networking is pretty straight forward, there are specific skills involved. It involves a lot more than simply handing out business cards.

When you rid yourself of a bad client, you are losing nothing and you are gaining a lot.

Watching over other peoples' money is a constant vigil, fraught with the possibility of loss. Tumultuous markets, emotional clients and unexpected occurrences are standard fare. The only constant is change.

Use stories to develop strong relationships based on trust and likeability.

A favorite question to ask prospects is what do they expect of their Advisor. The answers are pretty straight forward. They want their Advisor to 'get it.' They watch for telltale signs to make sure that'd the case.

A couple of years ago my dentist had a problem. He said his calendar was full, he was seeing as many patients as he could possibly see. He was charging as much as he could possibly charge, meaning as much as anybody in town. To charge higher fees for his services would price himself out of the business. He said 'I have no way to make more money, what do you think?' I saw him sometime later and he said he'd solved his problem.

You don't need product knowledge if you can't get an appointment. You don't need practice management skills if you can't grow your business. Revenue is generated by bringing in assets; and bringing in assets meaning influencing and persuading others to do business with you.

Building self-confidence is simply getting in the right habits. It's a series of building blocks. We're talking baby steps.

There are many possible reasons why we are misunderstood. We are misunderstood because our subject matter is hard to explain. We are misunderstood because we don't enunciate clearly. We speak too quickly. Our vocabulary is complex. Our thoughts are not organized. We don't think out what we want to say. Our speech is not rhythmic.

When effectively dealing with stress, attitude is not optional. Those Advisors who do a better job of containing stress simply have better methods of self-control. They react how they want. As you go about your daily business, keep a positive attitude and focus on your own performance. Don't focus on how well the other guy might be doing.

It's both easy and normal to talk over someone's head. Every trained professional faces that problem. When you know a subject well, it's hard to imagine that the person to whom you're talking knows nothing about that subject.

The fuel of persistence is patience, the ability to tolerate delays while persisting.

The difference between the very successful financial advisor and the average financial advisor has very little to do with how smart the financial advisor is or how outside factors influence the business. I believe success has everything to do with how the financial advisor plans and executes the plan. This is a business that demands a commitment to doing the right activities, paying attention to detail and having a passion for the business by all who are involved.

The time will surely arise in your career when a client wants to move his or her account to another Advisor. The time will surely arise in your career when a client feels she deserves a lower fee. The time will surely arise in your career when a client balks at a suggested course of action. The time may very well arise when a client decides to manage his account himself. All these issues must be resolved tactfully.

The market is too high, the market is too low, we need a new kitchen first and a million other reasons are readily available. The toughest investment decision every prospective investor faces is the decision to do it. This is where you must play bad cop.

People will only do business with you if they like you. Civility is the backbone of likeability. With good manners, you will be a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stressed out world. Good manners come through in little ways. Holding the door for the next person; saying please and thank you; talking quietly on a cell phone; letting the person with a few items cut in front of you at the supermarket. A little act like holding a door or not interrupting can have a ripple effect beyond all expectations.

Like leadership skills, some people are born with social skills and others acquire them over time. Naturally sociable people are outgoing, friendly and positive by nature. They put people at ease. They are fun to be around.

Every goal is a beacon and every breaking news story is white noise. You stay focused on your clients' goals and you keep them focused on those goals. Times will change. The reasons they invested will not.

Effective communication is an acquired skill, not an innate skill. You can become an excellent communicator. How effective a communicator you become depends upon how badly you want to accomplish that particular skill. Like all good things in life, it comes with a price.

We all face rejection and denial on a daily basis. Burnout is a very real possibility. To be able to see humor in one's plight is essential for one's mental well-being. Our business is engaging people and influencing their behavior.

It's a rare person who can build a successful business. It's a rarer still person who can build a business that demands the owner experience rejection on a continual basis. Negative people have no staying power. Optimistic people persist.

We know for sure that we can't control the market. All we can control is our reaction to the market. It's up to us to set the rules. This world is full of nice people who want what they can't have.

Let's say you have a problem opening enough new accounts. It's your problem, not someone else's. You've got to find the root cause. Try the '5 why's' technique in my Action Plan, popularized by Toyota. The name comes from the number of iterations typically required to resolve a problem. I am not opening enough new accounts.

The best Advisors have always been great storytellers, and there are fewer storytellers now than ever. We've lost the story. Only the great ones continue to tell stories to their prospects and clients. All the others show charts, graphs and research reports. They let the numbers do the talking.

Steve Jobs would go on retreat with his top one hundred people. One thing Jobs always wanted to know was what had to be done and when.

As an Advisor, you have too much ambiguity in your life; the stock market, the economy and interest rates among other things. You live with stress continually because you are making decisions continually. And very few, if any, of those decisions are black and white. You are always worrying, hoping you are right.

Successfully managing money takes years of experience, a great deal of skill and more than a fair amount of luck. It's a rare client who qualifies. Yes, some clients can do it. Most cannot.

With our normal tendencies of a wandering mind and the burden of being bombarded with financial data, we are pretty much guaranteed not to have an audience after sixty seconds.

You're in this business because you have an aptitude for it and because you want to help people. The best way a Financial Advisor can help people is to make them financially independent. They can't become financially independent until they embark on a plan and see it through to completion. When you get someone started in that direction, it's not a question of asking someone to do the wrong thing. When you are truly trying to help people do what's best for them, they get it.

For the most part, clients simply want to beat the bank, especially in low interest rate environments. They want to educate their children and build a retirement fund. That's it. They aren't trying to hit home runs.

Too many companies are wrapping their cheap advice in slick and misleading advertising. They do a very good job of convincing the consumer that having the information is enough. Information is not enough.

You know a great Financial Advisor when you see one, especially when you see one among average or poor Advisors. But what is it that makes a great Advisor stand out? The answer is not always obvious.

You know a great Financial Advisor when you see one, especially when you see one among average or poor Advisors. But what is it that makes a great Advisor stand out? The answer is not always obvious.

I have found over the years that a lot of clients are not thrilled with their Advisors.

Being successful is a full-time endeavor, come rain or come shine. You can't wait for things to settle down. Volatility is now a way of life; stock market, bond market and interest rates.

Being successful is a full-time endeavor, come rain or come shine.  You can't wait for things to settle down.  Volatility is now a way of life; stock market, bond market and interest rates.

It's very important that you know what you are doing right, so that you can do more of it.

Ask clients to tell you why they hired you.

You can't manage someone's money until you've earned the right to do so. People do business with people they trust and they can't trust you until they know you. Lots of Advisors wash out here.

The inability to properly ask for an order is perhaps the number one reason for failure in the Financial Services industry.

All Advisors have high IQ's and are all well trained. So if we all work hard, if we all chase the same business, and if a prospect must choose one among us, IQ can't possibly be the sole, determining factor in a prospect's mind.

Explain to your clients that you like doing business with people just like them. You feel you could possibly do a better job of marketing yourself and you would like some advice.

Investors feel bound to watch over the portfolio the way a nervous mother hen watches over her brood. Investing is a long, often arduous process.  With no apparent end in sight, clients focus on what's happening right now.

Clients don't expect you to be right all the time, unless you give them reason to believe otherwise.  Not every iPad works right out of the box.

Prospects are not going to talk to you until you talk to them.

"Generate so much loving energy that people just want to come and hang out with you."

That wise advice comes from Stuart Wilde.  As you well know, I believe that the development of soft skills is far more important to the success of a Financial Advisor than the development of hard skills.  That's what Don Connelly 24/7 is all about.

There is not a top Advisor in the world who became a top Advisor because of product knowledge.  Top Advisors don't have more product knowledge than other Advisors.  They became great Advisors because they are remarkably likeable and people want to do business with them.

There is a phrase we use when trying to define something that lacks clearly defined parameters: I know it when I see it.

I have a friend who is an executive with a famous discount broker.  Of course he defends his turf.  He defends it to the point of throwing out a challenge.  Name one thing a full service Advisor can do that we can't do.  The immediate response is to react harshly.  One thing?  I'll name a million things.  Then you start to think about it.  He just might have the typical Financial Advisor over a barrel.

"I am a Financial Advisor looking to work in an environment where the stock market always goes up, interest rates never fluctuate, the economy is robust and people go out of their way to seek out those Financial Advisors with the highest fees."

Daniel Goleman's book, Emotional Intelligence, is chock full of wonderful insights and information.  He makes the argument that IQ has a lot to do with where we end up in life, but it is far from being the sole determinant.  There are lots of very bright people with poor careers and broken relationships.  But it's still very important, up to a point.

I'm guessing that the average Financial Advisor has under management somewhere between thirty and forty million dollars.  It's not easy to get there.  Yet some Advisors manage $500 million and even $1 billion in assets.  How does someone do that?

The median annual family income in America is approximately $50,000.  The median annual income for a Financial Advisor in America is nearly $100,000. If you, the Advisor, make $100,000 a year, are you ordinary or are you extraordinary?

A few years ago J. D. Powers released the results of an investor satisfaction survey.  Not surprising, it showed that client satisfaction had improved substantially from the market bottom in 2009. However some firms still scored poorly.

Seemingly every day brings a new disaster.  A few years ago, it was the Wall Street Crisis. Then it was the government shutdown.  Now it's Isil and Syria.  Change is always in the air. Well, that's not entirely true.  Let me remind you again of two things that will never change.

Make it your goal in the next twelve months to become a raconteur.  I assure you your life will change.  Why should you?  Your popularity will soar.  Can you?  Yes.

I don't think I've ever heard an Advisor talk about his or her presentation and I think I know why that is.  Our presentation is easy to take for granted.  After all, how hard can it be?  It's just a matter of relaying the facts.

How upset would you be if your dry cleaner went out of business tomorrow?  Would you and all the other customers gather tomorrow night to light candles and place wreaths on the doorstep?  No.  You'd find another dry cleaner and life would go on.  Maybe your guy's location was great.  Maybe he folded your shirts in a way you really liked.  But, in the final analysis, one dry cleaner is pretty much like any other dry cleaner.  With few exceptions, they all do the same thing and most of them make a decent living.  But how many stand out? 

The financial services industry refers to the high end of the mass market as the mass affluent.  This segment of American society is made up of individuals with $100,000 to $1,000,000 of liquid financial assets.  These people spend less than they make and they invest the difference.  They may pay for all of their children's educational costs, and, if not, they will certainly pay part.

Don't tell me what to do.  I just got an industry newsletter telling me to take advantage of what will turn out to be, in retrospect, one of the greatest buying opportunities ever.  I was told to call my clients right away.  I got one the other day telling me that this time things were not different and I should act accordingly.  I was told to call my clients right away.  I got yet another one last week warning me to beware of what will turn out to be a trap for the bulls.  I was told to call my clients right away.

Referrals are integral to growing your business. You can only acquire new assets from three people going forward: existing clients, people you know who are not yet clients and people you don't yet know.

You are a Financial Services professional.  My friend Teddy is a golf professional.  You and Teddy have a lot in common. 

The similarities.  For instance, most golf professionals possess similar knowledge.  The highest paid and most successful ones are the better communicators.  The same is true of Financial Advisors. 

Deserving and earning our clients' trust is still the surest path to introductions.  The burden is on the Advisor to make sure he or she is referable.  I refer my friends to my doctor because I like my doctor and I trust him.  I have complete confidence that my friends will be better off knowing him.  I know they will have a rewarding and beneficial experience just by sitting with him.  He is eminently referable.  I want them to meet him.

I have a hyperactive gag reflex when I get around corporate-speak.  A few years ago, I sat in a meeting during which a senior executive of a very large firm told the attendees that we were all in a new paradigm.

The beginning of a given year is the time to rewrite our goals, our mission statement and our business plan. For some of us that will involve a major overhaul and for some of us it will involve a tweak. For all of us, it will be a thought-provoking experience.

I urge you to learn how to make good decisions. The path to success is a deliberate one.  It involves a lot of hard work and a lot of hard decisions. Nobody gets successful by accident.

I see an out-of-control train heading right at us.  The name of the train is Poor Customer Service.

As I listen to the debate raging about the Affordable Care Act, I keep hearing it said that more part-time workers will be hired in order to keep the number of full-time workers at a certain level.  If that comes to pass, today's not-so-great customer service environment will be the good old days.  Part-time workers will be of lesser experience, lesser training and lesser emotional commitment.  We'll be lucky to experience mediocrity.

There is never a convenient time to invest.  People need more information, have a conflicting need or are nervous about current events.   You will be confronted with this indecision throughout your career.  I urge you to learn to deal with it sooner rather than later.  Decisions are emotional.

Prospecting is the backbone of our business, but you don't need to chase an individual ad infinitum. How much is enough?  That's up to you to decide.  But I will remind you that you are in a position to change someone's life forever.

We tend to get the same objections over and over: "The timing just isn't right for me", "I already have an Advisor" and "I'm not interested".  It is difficult to answer a comment.  Turn the comment into a question and answer the question.

As I've told you often, I have never met a successful pessimist.  I unequivocally believe that attitude is everything. There is no more powerful Advisor than the one who loves this business.  When you are in love, you are passionate. 

In his book, The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac wrote these words: "One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple."

This is a quest all Financial Advisors undertake, the search for the simple words which best explain what we are trying to say.  After all, if everyone understood everything you said, you would be the most successful Financial Advisor ever. 

There are many obvious reasons for staying in touch with clients.  But one reason for staying in touch is not so obvious.  Too many clients, at some point, forget why they invested.

I recall reading David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed, a wonderful discussion of the origins of colonial American culture.  His premise is that we had four distinct migrations by four distinct folkways, the Puritans to New England, the English cavaliers to the Chesapeake Bay, the Quakers to the Delaware valley and the Irish and Scottish to Appalachia.

If you were given sample tastes of four different fine, expensive merlot wines, could you tell the differences? Probably not. If you could, you know a lot about fine wines. Perhaps, even, you're a connoisseur. It takes a connoisseur to detect nuance. The less we know about a subject, the more we see similarities.

I don't think that many people would argue the premise that Advisors who are typically happy make more money than Advisors who are typically unhappy. Prospecting is easier.  People naturally want to be around happy people and naturally want to stay away from unhappy people.  Dealing with the ups and downs is easier.  Circumstances are less overwhelming in the bad times.  The job is more enjoyable.  An Advisor who doesn't like going to work is going to have a very long day.  Success is easier to attain.  Unhappy people are negative people and negative people tend to quit when things don't go well.

Failure and rejection hurt and bouncing back is never easy.  Yet the career you have chosen necessitates failure the majority of the time.  Why would you do that to yourself?

Are mutual funds better than stocks?  Are stocks better than ETF's? Are Treasury Bills better than CD's? Well, is a hammer better than a saw?  Is a belt sander better than a pair of pliers?  Is a screwdriver better than a wrench? 

You are not going to become successful by accident.  The fact that you're reading this is proof to me that you know that.  The first step in being successful is deciding to be successful; deciding where you want to end up.  Make that decision yourself.  Don't let anyone else make that decision for you.

You'll know when you are on the right path.  It's uphill.  And that's precisely why so few excel, be it in our business or any other vocation.  Most people want the easiest path, the one that doesn't involve hard work.

The most important coin of our realm is relationship building.  The amount of money you earn and the ultimate value of your business are based upon your ability to create and maintain long term-relationships.  Build those relationships with great care.

The stock market is still one of the most, if not the most, attractive places for a client's money, despite a seemingly endless spate of controversy.   It is, after all, the last place an individual can properly diversify.  The media sells a lot of time, space and articles by implying that disaster lurks just below the surface, waiting to drag down the unsuspecting investor.  That may make for good copy, but it is simply not true.

I have a good friend and business coach, Rick Yeattes.   I am constantly learning from Rick and one thing he taught me is that it is necessary to end something before we can begin something new.

Prospecting is the backbone of our business.  In fact, I will argue that it's the most important duty one has to do well in order to go to the top.  The biggest producers in our business are without doubt the best prospectors.
 

Ed runs his own account.  He pays no Advisor fees or commissions.  His neighbor, George, has a Financial Advisor and pays commissions and fees comparable to a few pennies for each dollar invested.  Ed reads a lot and spends a lot of time doing what he feels is extensive research.  George doesn't do those things.  His Advisor does. 

You're expected to be good, really good. But, you're not expected to be perfect.

Apple has a program called 'early field failure analysis.'The day after a product launch, the engineers wait for the inevitable defective units to be returned. The failures are analyzed and the problems are fixed.  The sooner the problems are identified, the less costly the mistakes.

Pay close attention to how you market yourself.  There is a temptation to lay out all we can do at a reasonable price.  To demonstrate our value, we bundle all we have to offer.  I caution you that people see bundled products and services as less valuable than one good thing.  When you bundle everything together and offer an extensive menu of all you can do for someone, you undermine the value of everything.  People will pay more for a single expensive item than they will for everything you can do lumped together.  Bundling undermines value.

There are a number of pitfalls that advisors need to be aware of so they can guide clients.  For instance, clients tend to make simple mathematical mistakes that lead to bad investment decisions.

I read with interest a recent FA Magazine article by Karen Demasters.  The article was entitled Evensky Explains Clients' Irrational Behavior in Detail.  She explained that during a recent webinar, Financial Advisor and executive Harold Evensky pointed out that clients are 'resoundingly' not rational.

If I could give you one gift, it would be the gift of confidence.  Successful people have all sorts of shared traits, but the one trait that is especially obvious is confidence.  They are so confident that you want to begrudge them, but you admire the ease with which they move through life.  And the confidence has a life of its own. 

On May 1, 1991, 34 year-old Ricky Henderson set a major league record with his 939th stolen base, breaking Lou Brock's record.  In a post-game interview, he said, "I'm the greatest of all time."

That same day, 44 year-old Nolan Ryan set a major league record with his 7th no hitter.

Was Henderson right in his self-appraisal?  Had he earned the right to call himself the greatest of all time?  Should have he qualified his evaluation, saying he was the greatest base stealer of all time?

One way to make your life really simple is to have a repeatable process of prospecting and acquiring assets.  A repeatable process will produce repeatable results.  Your goal is consistency, not perfection.

I urge you to draw compelling word pictures for three reasons. The first is that the more words you use to get your point across, the less people listen. The second is that people zone you out the instant you start talking numbers. The third is that everyone loves and remembers a great story or analogy. There is a Native American proverb that says, 'Tell me a fact and I'll learn. Tell me a truth and I'll believe. Tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.'

There is not a top Advisor in the world who became a top Advisor because of product knowledge.  Top Advisors don't have more product knowledge than other Advisors.  They became great Advisors because they are remarkably likeable and people want to do business with them.