BachrachBlog

In her soon to be released book, “Living Life with No Regrets,” my wife, Anne, interviewed Denis Collier. Denis is a registered dietician and certified exercise physiologist. One of the questions she asked Denis is, “What is the impact of choosing not to lead a healthy lifestyle over the short-term and long-term?” His answer can have a profound positive impact on your business health and fitness also. He said, “This question really gets to the root of the cause of why people often choose NOT to do the healthy things. The key is this – there are minimal short-term consequences to making the unhealthy choice. In fact, quite often it is just the opposite: the unhealthy choice is the one that is most pleasurable. This applies to many things in life, not just health and fitness.”

In another part of the interview Denis continues, “Few individuals can honestly say that eating a spinach salad generates the same immediate pleasurable sensation as eating an ice cream sundae. On most nights, it is immediately easier to go home and curl up on the couch instead of going for a workout in the gym. It is only in the long-term, after a lifetime of such choices, do the negative consequences rear their ugly head. My friend, who has lost a great deal of weight, said it best when asked how he, an intelligent, successful man, could have allowed himself to go through life so obese for so long, ‘I knew that it was probably going to kill me, but I also knew that it probably wasn’t going to kill me tomorrow!’”

Denis continues, “The key term we could all benefit from exploring is that of delayed gratification. We need to shift our focus from the pleasure that we will immediately get from the unhealthy choice, to the more fulfilling life of abundant health and energy that will surely come to us if we choose to make the healthy choice.”

And the same is true for making good business decisions, isn’t it? It’s easier to read an article about the market or the economy. It’s easier to do research about the next great technology tool. It’s easier to help your assistant do an administrative task. If you don’t ask for referrals today it isn’t going to kill your business. If you don’t make follow calls today it isn’t going to kill your business. If you don’t improve the value you deliver for your clients today it isn’t going to kill your business. If you don’t get more organized today it isn’t going to kill your business. If you don’t hire a great assistant today it isn’t going to kill your business. Etc, etc, etc. String those days together, however, and after a few years you find yourself smack, dab in the middle of mediocre-land. Mediocre production. Mediocre qualify of life. Mediocre clientele. Mediocre value proposition. My guess is that you didn’t enter this business intending to put down permanent roots in the heart of mediocre land.

So, what can you do about it? Take it one day at a time. The beauty of it being easy not to ask for referrals today is that it’s also easy to start asking for referrals today. Today you can make follow-up calls. Today you can improve your value delivery. Today you can get more organized. Pick one or two things and do them today. Today you can also stop doing one or more of the many things that do not move you toward your goals. And then you can do what you know moves you towards your goals again tomorrow.

And while you’re at it, feel free to do the same with your health and fitness. Make it a great day… today.

3. Tell the Hard Truth

If your clients don’t defer to your authority and expertise, there’s a good reason, and it’s not them. Chances are, it’s because you’re behaving like a salesperson. Instead of communicating with conviction and earning your clients’ respect, you’re following the old “customer is always right” mentality. Even though your clients may have little or no financial expertise, you defer to them rather than take the chance of upsetting them and jeopardizing your insurance or mutual fund sale.

I spend a lot of time coaching my Trusted Advisors to tell the truth and be direct. At first, many argue, “I’m afraid of how clients will respond if I tell the truth.” I understand that. However, if you want to be a Trusted Advisor, you have to tell the truth—even when the consequences are less than desirable. Think about it this way: If you tell people the truth and they respond poorly, do you really want them as clients? Most people appreciate and respond positively to the truth; honest communication is a cornerstone for building trust.

2. Ask Better Questions

Have you ever noticed that most people would rather talk about themselves than listen to you talk about yourself? If you want to build a high-trust relationship, shallow chitchat or talking about your credentials won’t do it. You need to talk about what’s meaningful, important, significant, and compelling to that person. One of the best things you can do to prepare for that kind of conversation is to gather information in advance. Anytime someone refers a potential new client to you, ask the referring person questions that will lead to meaningful, important, significant, and compelling information. Find out as much as you can about your prospects: What are their values, interests, passions, and goals? What do they do for fun? Who do they care about most? When clients or prospects see the connection between the value you bring and what’s most important to them, they tend to respond positively. In the process, you lay the foundation for a long-lasting, high-trust relationship with the people you truly want as clients.

How do you become a Trusted Advisor? You start by earning people’s trust, which you can easily do by following these three steps: Communicate with conviction, ask better questions, and tell the hard truth.

1. Communicate with Conviction

Have you earned the right to expect people to follow your advice and respond to your authority? No one will give you that authority unless you first believe you deserve it. If you show up in the marketplace assuming that you’re not going to be trusted and people aren’t going to respond to your authority or advice, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The result is a collaborative environment where the client directs you instead of following your advice.

I often see clients or prospects who strongly believe that they know what they’re doing. Others think, “It’s my money, so I should be in charge.” There’s certainly some truth in that, but unless they’ve dedicated themselves to becoming financial experts, they should find somebody smarter than themselves and defer to that person’s expertise. Unfortunately, many financial advisors don’t convey the impression that they really are more competent or knowledgeable than their potential clients and prospects. Therefore, people don’t defer to them.

To become a Trusted Advisor and have people defer their financial decisions to you, your clients need to think, “I trust you and I believe you have my best interests at heart. I also trust that you’re competent enough and, between the two of us, you know better.” There’s nothing wrong with a client questioning your authority, but at some point all clients want to find an advisor they can trust. Deep down inside, they want you to tell them what to do. If they can trust you, they’ll do it. If they can’t trust you, they’ll find someone else. That’s why so many people have more than one advisor—they don’t completely trust any of them. Communicate with conviction, and you’ll earn your clients’ trust as well as all of their business.

The smartest and most successful people aren’t the ones who question authority and try to do everything themselves. The smartest, most successful people outsource. They defer to someone with greater expertise—someone like you!

When people trust you, they not only give you their business, they also listen to your advice and defer to your knowledge. Isn’t that the kind of relationship you want to have with your clients? The great industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie understood this philosophy extremely well. The epitaph on his tombstone sums it up perfectly.  It says, “Here lies a man who knew how to enlist the service of better men than himself.”