Financial Advisor Makeover BLOG

Fear of Self Promotion

Connie Kadansky — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:52:24 +0000

Many financial advisors do not prospect consistently, because they experience Sales Call Reluctance — which is fear of self-promotion.

If you are experiencing Sales Call Reluctance, you have choices to solve your prospecting problem.
1) Hire someone else to make your prospecting calls. A small number of financial advisors have done this very successfully. They found the right person to make the calls. However, there are thousands of war stories about hiring one telemarketer after another that never produced any result.

2) Rely on your current clientele and network to refer business to you. A small number of savvy financial advisors have worked hard over the years and have been very successful. However, with the natural attrition of any business, most experienced veterans have found that this model is not enough to keep them ahead of the curve — especially in this current economic climate.

3) Settle for mediocre business and bump along the best you can.

4) Take on your Sales Call Reluctance issues intelligently, which starts with admitting that you are not prospecting. Then recognize that it is not prospecting that causes your anxiety and spins you into self-doubt. It’s your thought about prospecting that causes your anxiety that triggers self-doubt. Start watching your thoughts like a cat watches a mouse. Notice how you are projecting negativity onto the call before you even make it. This can be disconcerting to recognize at first. However, it is the start of disciplining your thoughts and can be absolutely transformational. For example, when you are ready to reach for the phone and you stop and start checking email for the 200th time for the day — immediately tune into what is it that you are choosing to think that is causing you to stop. Then immediately pivot to another thought, i.e. “I have clients who are confident in my abilities.” (you construct your own replacement thought) Sound a little complicated? It is and can be — however, it doesn’t have to be. It is entirely possible for you to overcome your Sales Call Reluctance and start earning what your are worth!

Connie Kadansky, MA, PCC

I help financial advisors get their “ask” in gear.

What Makes Decisions Difficult?

Ray Gauthier — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:46:33 +0000

This is a fundamental question because at the core of every successful business is the need for clients to make decisions to work with us and buy our product or service. That said – decisions are difficult and getting more difficult every day. The chief culprit of this in western civilization is “choice”. If we have no choice, then the decision is easy.

Here’s a generic example first and we’ll apply it to financial services a bit later on. Think about toothpaste. Its basic function is to clean teeth. Pretty boring stuff right? NOT! Through our ever increasing need for choices, toothpaste’s purpose has expanded over the years to: prevent cavities, freshen breath, whiten teeth, desensitize to heat and cold, brighten smiles and even heighten sexual prowess.

You can walk into most department stores and be faced with an entire mind-numbing isle of selection on shapes, sizes, flavors from this list: Aim, Aquafresh, Arm & Hammer, Colgate, Crest, Darlie, Doramad, Elmex, Euthymol, Gleem, Ipana, Kolynos, Lion, Mentadent, Oral-B, Pepsodent, Sensodyne, Signal, Sozodont, Stomatol, Therabreath, Tom’s of Maine, Ultra Brite, Zendium.

That’s just toothpaste. Imaging being sent to the store for toothpaste, salad dressing and cereal. Essentially, you would be faced with more than 2,000 choices. And, the choices are getting bigger every day.

The common misconception is that choices make things better, they free us up and we are more satisfied as a result. In truth, the exact opposite happens.
Here is what selection and choice does: (Start thinking of these in terms of your practice.)

Too many choices can create paralysis to the point of no decision being made at all. Or, more specifically, the decision to make no choice and simply put the decision off. It has been shown repeatedly that when the anxiety and risk of making the wrong decision exceeds possible benefit, then the go-forward decision is simply postponed to tomorrow, then tomorrow, then tomorrow and eventually the decision never happens.
When faced with a variety of choices, after a decision is made, people are more easily dissatisfied with their choice. This is because it is easy to imagine the benefits and rewards we might have achieved had we picked something else. Buyer’s remorse or regret are more prevalent when there are a multitude of choices and the most minor malfunction, or lack of performance is quickly compared to the utopia that would have been provided through a different decision.
Given hundreds or even thousands of choices for a product or service, our expectations increase significantly when it comes to the rewards of our decision. We believe that surely, with so many choices and options, the decision we make will meet our exact need. In reality, that is rarely the case. Our expectations increase in proportion to the number of choices we have and as a result, the product or service rarely meets our excessively high expectations.
We blame ourselves for bad decisions. Surely, with all the choices out there, there is a product or service that is perfect for us. As suppliers push decisions onto consumers, the consumers take ownership for “betting on the wrong horse.” As a result we are even less satisfied with our decisions and even more reluctant to make a decision the next time.

So what does all mean to people in the financial services industry — an industry where clients have access to an almost infinite array of choices?

You need to balance your client’s need to be informed and be part of the decision with their need to feel comfortable with the decision to the point of not even thinking about it again after the decision is made.

There is really only one way to do that. With full disclosure in mind, inform them in the simplest terms possible and help them make the decision. Take ownership for the decision whenever possible and keep them informed as to the results. The more work you do in assisting the decision, the less work they will be compelled to do and the happier they will be in both the short and long term.

Reducing choice to increase satisfaction, retention and even referrals seems counter intuitive. Speaking of choices; simplifying decisions for your clients is a choice only you can make.

The Plight of the Commission Sale

admin — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:03:27 +0000

It’s only a matter of time before commission based investment products cease to exist.

In October of 2009, the Association of British Insurers called on the European Commission to deliver a framework for removing remuneration bias as well as other changes in the way retail investment products are sold. How long will it be before this is a reality in Europe and North America? Or better yet, how prepared will you be to change the way you’ve always done business?

The ABI urged the EC to:

- put the needs of consumers first when thinking about any new regulatory framework for PRIPs at a European level;

- recognise the importance of increasing consumers’ savings and encouraging a competitive environment between different product types and manufacturers;

- focus on the economic purpose of a product, rather than its legal form – equivalent products should have equivalent regulatory treatment;

- recognise that consumers want, need and deserve a regulatory framework for selling practices that focuses on their needs, treats them fairly, enables them to understand the sales process and ensures that financial advice is not biased by remuneration arrangements with product providers.

Read full articles – Article 1 | Article 2.

Download the Packaged Retail Investment Products (PRIPs): New Ways of Thinking

The Delusion of Uniqueness

Ray Gauthier — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:00:42 +0000

The theme of uniqueness keeps bombarding us from all directions in just about all the media and marketing that comes our way. Ironically, the majority of businesses keep making remarkably similar statements that they are different, they are better than their competitor and they are unique.

Obviously it wouldn’t be great marketing to put up a billboard that announced to the world: “Hey – deal with me – I’m the same as everyone else”. Or would it? Imagine a marketing campaign where the audience was told: “You may as well pick me because I’m just as good as the next guy so, why not?”

Okay – hang onto your chair – here’s some news you aren’t going to like. The truth is, most service companies are pretty much exactly the same. We can find a hundred lawyers or accountants or financial advisors in any small city and they all say the same thing.

We’re different and here’s how:
•   With us, it’s not all about the money.
•   We care about our clients.
•   We don’t take shortcuts
•   We are experts
•   We take the time to understand your needs
•   We make sure your needs are taken care of
•   We make the complex simple
•   We take the worry out of your decisions

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it IS familiar.

I did warn you that you wouldn’t like it. Okay, I can hear it now; the denial. It’s like the 5 stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Companies will not and cannot become truly different in the eyes of their clients until they accept the fact that there are hundreds, even thousands of similar service providers in the same market that are ALL telling their clients they are unique – for exactly the same reasons.

So what’s the point? The point is that MOST businesses do indeed possess some degree of uniqueness. The important thing to remember is HOW to position that uniqueness to their best clients and prospects. Businesses can no longer afford to market themselves as unique the same way everyone else does – prospective clients simply won’t believe it. Think about how many times in a day or week you see and hear marketing campaigns built on saving time and money. It’s old, it’s worn out and it isn’t believable, even if it were true.

In general, all similar businesses are, well… similar. All audiences believe that and telling them differently won’t convince them otherwise. The proof of the pudding, as the saying goes, is in the tasting.

What is the answer then? The answer is incredibly simple. So simple in fact that it risks being scoffed at.

Each business has one or two things that will be ever-so-slightly different than their competitors when it comes to their target market. You need to leverage that difference in a way that has both real and potential value to your best clients. The eureka moment comes when you integrate it as part of your brand. Make sure you visit our articles on Branding for ideas on how to do that.

Are you reluctant to make a prospecting call?

Connie Kadansky — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 00:00:36 +0000

You’re sitting in your office after promising yourself yesterday that you would start making prospecting calls today . . . and you reach for the phone and you stop. . . you suddenly remember you need to make a dental appointment, then you remember your dog is overdue for grooming, then it hits you that your spouse’s birthday is in two weeks and you need to buy a present. Yes, you are avoiding making your calls.

Here are some tips to help you right now:

1. Take a deep breath — it will slow down your mental processes that are overactive and chaotic, creating your anxiety. (Yes, it’s not prospecting calling that is causing your anxiety, it’s your thought about prospecting calling.)

2. Make sure that both of your feet are on the floor as you close your eyes and take a second deep breath.

3. Think of a current client who really believes in you and you are part of their inner circle. Keep thinking of them until a smile comes across your face.

4. What is the value you provide for this client? What do they say about your products/services? Be specific. Ease yourself into allowing yourself to recognize your value. Jot down the key points.

5. Pick up the phone with the thought of this client in your mind and that you are simply going to find your next client.
You can re-train your brain to prospect consistently.

Connie Kadansky, Exceptional Sales Performance, Sales Call Reluctance trainer/coach: 602-997-1101 www.exceptionalsales.com — connie@exceptionalsales.com

Makeover Mindset Madness

Kirk Lowe — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:36:23 +0000

STOP trying to patch holes in your practice – there are no magic bullets. START with the end in mind. Step back and envision what your business will look like in 3-5 years then build a plan, find the right partners to make it happen. Makeover your business and never look back!

DO YOU HAVE THE RIGHT MAKEOVER MINDSET?

Making over your business is not for everyone, especially those who are timid or complacent. If you’re okay to continue doing what you’ve always done and getting what you’ve always gotten, you can stop reading right now. This article will not interest you or serve you. But, if you truly want to make a lasting change in your business, this article will be that wake-up-call you’ve been waiting for. It will challenge you and point you in the right direction.

A makeover should mean more than just dusting-off and tweaking what could be. It should mean “If I could do this all over again the right way, what would I do?”

For most people, starting over can be exciting at best and intimidating at worst. It’s all a question of perspective. To achieve greater results, by an order of magnitude, means taking risks and being passionate about the rewards. It also means going through a mental makeover before the physical makeover starts. One thing is very clear, if you want to move forward to bigger and better, getting more of things you want and doing less of the things you don’t want, a positive mental attitude is the only answer that will serve you.

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” -Thomas Jefferson

A Makeover Mindset (MM) is how we describe the frame of mind of someone who knows with clarity and certainty that the thinking that got them to where they are today is not the thinking that is needed to take them to the next level of success and happiness. MM is the “aha” moment when you know for certain that you need to STOP dusting-off and tweaking. MM is only achieved when the understanding is clear that something very different needs to happen. Something big. Something worthy of being called a makeover. Unfortunately, “aha” moments are often fleeting inspirations for most of us unless there is focused and sustainable action.

A MM can only be achieved when there is a realization, a revelation if you will, that there is a third “M” – Madness. Madness is the depletion of energy and expenditure of time and resources on repeating the same thing we’ve always done to just maintain the status quo. Madness is working harder and longer just to maintain your current success – your plateau. Most every successful business owner and entrepreneur has gone through long hours and heavy lifting, working hard and diligently to achieve that success. The Madness is continuing to do those same things just to maintain the current level.

It’s worth spending a moment on inspiration. At some point, most successful business owners have been caught in a moment of inspiration to make a huge change, and yet, nothing came from it? Think about a great book you may have read where you were consumed by the storyline and potential, feeling like change was necessary and paramount. Then what happened? Many entrepreneurs sleep on it, consider it and move on to “more pressing matters”, the “day to day”. The fleeting infatuation with MM ends and the Madness lives on. To escape it, you need to seize the moment and take directed action.

In my career I’ve had many “aha” moments, many of which I’ve not been able to embrace and sustain. It’s a deflating experience when your next “aha” is that you haven’t been able to sustain the greatest “moments” for change in your business and your life. I’m speaking from experience.

But I finally understand it, how to escape the Madness forever and never look back. It’s been one heck of a journey. The quest for magic solutions for achieving extraordinary success is a tiring, expensive journey. It’s a road paved with promises and compromises. Although there have been exhilarating moments, I wish I could have done it differently. Although I’ve gained incredible insights from my failures I’d much rather have know how to do it right many years ago.

I WANT TO SHARE THE FORMULA FOR SUCCESS WITH YOU

Success is about vision, focus, awareness, accountability, starting and quitting. Yes, I said quitting. Quitting the right things will free you to pursue only that which drives you towards achieving your vision.

Here’s my challenge to all of you who are either immersed in the Madness or have flirting relationships with the “aha” moment that will catapult you. Here’s the juice!

Define your Vision. Then, quit anything or everything that doesn’t clearly move you in that direction. Embrace highly focused activities and your greatest leverage points. Seek new thinking. Take action. Begin with the end in mind. Find the right partners to help you focus and hold you accountable. Build momentum every day, every week, every month, and every year until your vision of success becomes your reality.

TAKING ACTION IS A DECISION ONLY YOU CAN MAKE.

Here’s what starting looks like:

Take the free SuQu Mindscan Assessment. Understand your thinking strengths, leverage points and areas for improvement. Take the MindScan at www.freedomarketing.com/MS.
Find a coach and/or mentor to help you find a sustainable mindset and someone to hold you accountable. We’ve worked with some amazing business coaches and tactical referral coaches who we’d be happy to introduce you to.
Create a SuQu Map with your business coach. Begin with the end in mind and work backwards so you know exactly what is needed to move towards success. Focus on sustainable momentum. The coaches we know will guide you through the SuQu process.
Make sure you have the right partners to help you build systems and processes, define your message (brand), identify your ideal client, develop your marketing, and generate an endless flow of ideal prospects through introductions.

If you need helping putting this all into perspective call me at (905) 579-7724. I’d be delighted to talk this through with you. But don’t call until you’ve taken the Mindscan.

Here’s to YOUR LIFE – BEYOND THE MADNESS!

How important is a clear vision for financial advisors?

Kirk Lowe — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:14:28 +0000

How important is a clear vision in helping financial advisors get really focused towards their pursuit of success?

My experience in working with hundreds of financial advisors is that many of them feel that articulating a clear vision is not warranted because it does not drive direct results. It’s unfortunate that many advisors may have experienced some form of a vision initiated business plan early in their careers that did not serve them well. A vision’s role is to provide greater focus and helps advisors align only those activities that move them towards their vision. And we all know focused activity drives results! At Freedomarketing, we’ve found the formula to help advisors truly leverage their potential and uniqueness, it’s called SuQu Mapping. In simpler terms it’s a highly relevant and concise business plan. And it all starts with a clear vision. You can learn more at www.freedomarketing.com.

BELOW ARE SOME THOUGHTS FROM VARIOUS PROFESSIONALS.

———————————————-
Jim Cecil
Nurture Marketing

How do you say….PARAMOUNT? Perhaps even with multiple, clear visions .

Some questions, for example:
1. What is my vision for my personal career in financial advice services?
2. What is my vision for my identifying my ideal niche market?
3. What is my vision for discovering and dealing with my niche member’s chief pains, passions and preferences with regards to their financial issues?
4. What is my vision for actually ‘helping my clients succeed’, rather than just helping them deal with transactions?
5. What is my vision for nurturing relationships with my current clients, prospective ones and especially, my ‘centers of influence’?
6. What is my vision for automating the ‘stay in touch’ process?
7. What is my vision for seeking and cultivating niche mentors?

As does Dr. Tom Stanley, I believe that the affluent, when given a choice, invariably select a specialist over a general practitioner, virtually every time.
Why would it be different when it comes to their money?

Will you care enough for yourself, your practice, your family, your clients and your career, to spend the time to become and become known as an expert in your niche.

I can’t be more clear on this vision.

Good Nurturing
Jim
www.nurtureinstitute.com

———————————————-

Bill Eck
Certified Wealth Consultant

These thoughts on a shared vision from the Book: Fifth Discipline, enlightens what they are missing:

“A shared vision…is …a force in people’s hearts, a force of impressive power. Few, if any, forces in human affairs are as powerful as a shared vision.”

High performance teams have shared vision and purpose.

Maslow observed that in exceptional teams… “the task was no longer separate from self…but rather he identified with this task so strongly that you couldn’t define his real self without including that task.”

Shared vision comes from personal vision and personal mastery.

Visions that are truly shared take time to emerge. They grow as a by-product of interactions of individual visions.

Shared vision requires ongoing conversation where individuals not only express their dreams, but learn how to listen to each others’ dreams. Out of this listening, new insights into what is possible gradually emerge.

It is not what the vision says, it is what the vision does.

Vision becomes a living force only when people truly believe they can shape their future.

Senge, Peter M. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. New York, NY: Doubleday, 1990, 2006. Chapter 10

Bill Eck

——————————————————–

So true Kirk. The problem is threefold:

They don’t know what they want.
They are not willing to do what it takes to get what they want.
They are afraid of being disappointed if they fail (fear of failure).

Wishing you great success!!! in 2010

Michael Fastchi

Financial Advisors Do Important Work

Evelyn Jacks — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:29:32 +0000

Every year I have the privilege of travelling across the country twice–in November and January–to host the Distinguished Advisor Workshops for tax and financial advisors who require continuing education credits and updating for their professional practices.

This teaching tour always ends with a feeling of inspiration about the important work these highly informed and engaged people do. As an education company, we are privileged to spur on their enthusiasm for personal and corporate taxation matters, and then watch the lights go on throughout the room as both tax and financial advisors start thinking about how working together can help them get better results and ultimately, peace of mind, for their clients.

Today, many Canadians still worry about their money and whether they have enough—for now and in the future. Some of that worry certainly comes from poor choices: too much credit, too little savings. But there is much advisors can do
this month to help overcome the financial hurdles. Here is what we heard on the tour:

1 – Many Canadians are behind in filing their tax returns. This means they are likely missing out on tax refunds and refundable credits like the Child Tax Benefit and GST Credit. What to do about it?

Advisors should ask whether prior returns are missing and if so, encourage their clients to file to recover missed refunds or avoid penalties and interest charges.
Advisors should inform clients that they are not building RRSP or TFSA contribution room and that can have a big impact on their ability to build and grow family wealth.
They are likely also missing out on reporting capital losses, which help average income taxes downward by offsetting capital gains of the current year, three years back and indefinitely into the future.

2 – Most Canadians are still underfunding their RRSP contribution room, giving up double-digit tax savings which could be leveraged into TFSAs or used to pay down non-deductible credit card debt. Show your clients the follow of missing these important opportunities.

3 – Many Canadians are not benefiting from pension and investment income splitting opportunities that come from filing tax returns as a family. Tax and financial advisors can show their clients the benefits, working together.

Peace of mind—my definition of “affluence”—occurs when you stop worrying about whether your money will cover the necessities plus emergencies, and focus instead on how to use your money as a tool to build wealth for future generations.

If advisors can continue their important work in February to get more people focused on the twin goals of filing annual tax returns and minimizing their tax bills with fully funded RRSP contribution room, we could be more impactful in helping families build sustainable wealth for the future.

Evelyn Jacks is President of The Knowledge Bureau. A complimentary of The Knowledge Bureau Report can be found at www.knowledgebureau.com.

The Dynamics of Change

Ray Gauthier — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:20:30 +0000

"People will find a thousand ingenious ways to withhold cooperation from a process that they sincerely think is unnecessary or wrongheaded" – John P. Kotter

In Leading Change, Kotter outlines eight necessary steps to effective change. This article deals with the first of these. We’ve all heard some rendition of the saying, if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got. Kotter points out that the very first step to making any significant change is the recognition that change is necessary. He highlights the point by stating unequivocally that change will fail, or not even be attempted, if there is an absence of a visible crisis.

There’s the rub. Recognizing the crisis is not pleasant or easy. It can actually be painful. We plug along, we do what we’ve always done and things just happen. We tweak things, we try this, we try that, we learn along the way and we somehow get a little better and a little stronger.

Real change, the type of change that catapults us to significant success requires a sense of urgency, a sense of crisis. As humans we are pre-wired to look for comfort and to avoid conflict and crisis. By our very nature, we don’t notice subtle changes that happen over time – even though those very changes, if they happened all at once, would accumulate to alert our natural instincts that a crisis had developed.

Here’s an example. Watch this short 12 second video. Be advised up front that there is a change happening. Press the play button now and watch for the change.

Did you spot it? Not likely. Now try it again – this time, Drag the timeline arrow on the bottom of the video to speed it forward and backward quickly and the change will become obvious. If you still can’t see it, try pressing the double arrows to jump to the beginning and the end.

Now play the video one more time at regular speed and look for the change. Wonder how you missed it the first time?

Just like this video, changes are happening around us all the time. They are subtle but they are there. To "create" a crisis, take a look back at how things were just two or three years ago. The unique economic situation aside, what has changed? How has your business reacted to the cumulative changes that have taken place to: client expectations, compliance regulations, subtle product changes, technology, staffing, your personal life.. etc.

In aggregate, had all these changes happened overnight, they would have created a crisis. Because they were gradual, we pretty much rolled with the punches, tweaked and adapted.

What does all this mean? It means that if we want to achieve unsurpassed success, we need to “see the writing on the wall” now! Create your crisis. It’s there, you just need to see it.

The Appointment Stream

Gina Pellegrini — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:02:01 +0000

After training over 150 business teams in the U.S. and Canada, I know that advisors struggle with consistent appointment scheduling. One week their calendar is full, the next week, it’s empty. Why? Because when advisors have a full week, there’s no time to get on the phone to schedule more appointments – which means their following week is frustratingly slow. Or even if they call and leave messages, they miss the return calls because they’re out of the office on appointments. Sound familiar?

Why not break the cycle by having someone else make all of your appointments? Wouldn’t it be great to walk out of the office every Friday afternoon knowing your calendar was full for Monday and the rest of the week?

It can happen by hiring a marketing coordinator or assigning the job to someone already on your staff. I know what you’re thinking. Nobody could ever be as effective as you. But that’s not necessarily true! I worked with an advisor for 17 years and made all of his calls. I began with existing clients, reschedules and prospects, and after 6 months, I called the referrals. The result — a consistent appointment stream with a mixture of new and existing clients. Because I made all the calls, my boss had time to see 5 more people a week. The increase in appointments not only improved revenues, it increased referrals, too.

Now as part of my business, I train marketing coordinators to make calls and fill advisors’ calendars efficiently. A few of my tips:

make calls every day at 9 a.m.
sell the appointment, not a product or service
call every 3 days, leaving a simple message to get people to call back
use specific language to overcome objections successfully

If you want a balanced and consistent appointment stream, trust someone else to make your calls. After all, when you first began making calls, you probably stumbled a bit before you figured out how to fill the calendar. But you learned quickly and got results. An energetic and persistent marketing coordinator can do the same. Happy scheduling.

If you need advice or training, we can help! Our teleconference series, The Revenue Resource, and my book The Appointment Scheduler, have all kinds of strategies to improve your appointment stream. Check them out at www.pellegriniteam.com.