BachrachBlog

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.

Commitment.
Consolidation.
Coordination.
Simplification.
Confidence.

Here’s how you can put these powerful words into action to communicate with your clients and prospective clients the value of having a Trusted Advisor leading a team of Best-in-Class Subject-Matter-Experts for their benefit.

True commitment is the key to any successful program, process, and relationship. When you make a commitment to truly comprehensive financial services and commit to implementing the advice of your team of your Best-in-Class Subject-Matter-Experts led by your Trusted Advisor you will get your entire house in perfect financial order and keep it that way forever.

Regardless of their success or wealth, we estimate that less than 1% of people in the world actually have their entire financial house in perfect order. You can be one of them. This will not happen by accident. It happens by commitment.

Consolidation means that everything is organized together. You no longer have multiple relationships with different institutions that you have to manage and keep track of. Everything is in the hands of one team of experts, led by your Trusted Advisor, so all decisions are made with complete visibility to everything you have with your goals and values in mind.

Coordination means that there is synergy between all areas of your financial life and the expertise necessary to make smart choices about your money in alignment with your goals and values. Your Trusted Advisor is involved in every element of your financial life coordinating with you and the appropriate experts. Every member of your team: financial planner, tax experts, legal experts, insurance experts, money managers, etc. are always aware of your complete picture so you get the best advice possible.

Simplification. Your commitment to all of your financial affairs being consolidated and coordinated makes life for you and your family much simpler. Therefore, you can relax, enjoy your life, and do the things that are much more important in life than worrying about your money.

By making a commitment to consolidation, coordination, and simplification you also gain confidence.  Confidence about your future. Confidence that your team of experts will make certain that nothing falls through the cracks, ever. Confidence that no matter what happens in the market, the economy, or the world that you have the highest probability of achieving your goals because your Trusted Advisor and your team of Best-in-Class Subject-Matter-Experts are giving you the best advice possible under all circumstances. You are confident that you will achieve your goals and fulfill your values.

Continue your journey of implementing the Values-Based Financial Planning® Turn-Key Business Model. If you do not already have the systems and processes to earn commitment from your prospects and clients to hire you to consolidate, coordinate, simplify, and be more confident about their future, contact one of our coaches at (858)558.3200 or email SRMinterview@baivbfp.com for a complimentary consultation.

The headline reads: “Wall Street wins big as Dodd drops fiduciary provision.” And the first line of that article is “Chalk it up as a win for the securities and insurance industries.” How do the securities and insurance industries win when the client loses? It’s a fascinating way to view the world, but not surprising. Here’s my translation: “the lower the standards the easier it is for us to manage our advisors, salespeople, and agents.” It’s the usual product-oriented, fear-based thinking from our industry at-large and it proves, once again, that you have a competitive advantage as an individual Trusted Advisor who chooses to put the client first. Can you believe what you just read; you have a competitive advantage by putting the client first? Yes, you do. Doesn’t everyone put the client first? Apparently not. Amazingly enough, our industry considers it a win when they don’t have to adopt the highest standard of care for their clients. Wow.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about Fiduciary:

“A fiduciary duty is a legal or ethical relationship of confidence or trust between two or more parties, most commonly a fiduciary and a principal. In a fiduciary relation, one person, in a position of vulnerability, justifiably reposes confidence, good faith, reliance and trust in another whose aid, advice or protection is sought in some matter. In such a relation good conscience requires one to act at all times for the sole benefit and interests of another, with loyalty to those interests.

Sounds like the perfect standard for the kind of advisor you are choosing to be. What do you think?

Keeping your head above water. Drowning in paperwork. Trying to stay afloat. Up a creek without a paddle. Smooth sailing. Have you ever noticed how many water-related expressions there are for describing the way you do business? That’s because it’s such a great metaphor, and one you can easily relate to.

Do an interesting little exercise using this metaphor. Take out a piece of paper, draw a horizontal line across the middle, and pretended it was a water line. Above the line, list all the activities that really matter in building a successful business. Below the line, list the distractions that could keep them from being successful financial advisors. Basically, only three activities belong above the line: acquiring clients, serving clients, and building your team.

ABOVE-THE-LINE ACTIVITIES

Nearly everyone agrees that brand-new advisors should spend a huge amount of time on client acquisition. Unfortunately, many established advisors think the rule doesn’t apply to them. They often ignore this crucial above-the-line activity. Instead, they spend their time on all the activities below the line and soon find their businesses starting to go under.

The second above-the-line activity, serving clients, simply means delivering what you’ve promised. Meeting your clients’ expectations is an absolute must for keeping your head above water. This includes ensuring the timely delivery of financial plans, money management services, and advice about insurance, budgeting, debt reduction or elimination, cash management, and emergency reserves.

The third above-the-line activity is building your team. This means organizing your employees and creating successful relationships with outside resources who can provide the services your clients need.

Basically, that’s it. Unless you’re doing things to acquire clients, serve clients, or build your team, you’re spending your time on below-the-line activities that do nothing but distract you from becoming a successful advisor. Here are five common examples.

BELOW-THE-LINE ACTIVITIES

1. Overeducating Yourself: Some advisors think their job is to know everything about insurance, investments, and financial planning. Instead of harnessing the knowledge of experts who can best serve their clients, they spend all their time becoming educated in those areas.

2. Reading Financial Pornography: Watching 24-hour news reports, reading financial newspapers and magazines, tracking the prices of oil and gold, and trying to guess the impact that the next terrorist bombing will have on the market is a waste of time, yet advisors are consumed with that kind of stuff. Your clients really want you to help them achieve their goals—and for the record, beating the market is not a goal.

3. Hanging Around with the Wrong People: If you’re hanging out with people who have average businesses with average client satisfaction and average productivity, then chances are your business will be a lot like that, too. Don’t confuse consensus with wisdom. Just because most of the financial services industry is living below the line doesn’t mean it’s the right place to be. As Jim Rohn says, you can do anything you want. You’re not a tree. Move! Be where you want to be, and do what you want to do. How can you tell whether you’re hanging out with people who are living below the line?

4. Failing to Delegate: Trying to do everything yourself is the last and probably worst example of below-the-line activity.

No one wants to see their businesses sink. To keep your head above water, remember this simple metaphor and spend your time above the line. Focus on the three activities that really matter—acquiring clients, serving clients, and building your team—and don’t get drowned in a sea of distractions.

In the previous blog, I mentioned that I have identified 12 clear choices that are turning points in the careers of virtually every financial professional.  Every producer makes these choices either deliberately or by default. Six of these are best presented as positive choices that consistently lead to greater success (these were mentioned in the previous blog) and six of these choices are best presented as commonly unmade choices that lead to failure, or worse: mediocrity. 

Here are the 6 choices never made or not made soon enough:

1. Failure to recognize that what got you from where you were to where you are today may not be the best way to get from where you are today to where you want to be in the future. (Failure to change.)

Do you believe that the industry legends would do the same things they did in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s today?  Their genius was not in what they did then.  Their genius was their ability to figure out what worked at whatever time they needed it.

2. Failure to implement well.

Will Rogers once said, “Even if you’re on the right track you will still get run over if you just sit there.”  There are no secrets in business. 

3. Failure to master the referral interview. (Training your clients to do all your sales and marketing.)

All prospecting and marketing other than referrals should be temporary.  Prospecting and marketing is what some people who have no clients or no natural market have to do to get started.  Unfortunately, some producers get so good at it that they just keep doing it forever.

4. Failure to master the art of delegation.

My mentor said, “I’m very good at what I do because I only do what I am very good at?”  If you are only going to do what you are very good at then you have to hire people who are very good at the other things.  Hiring well and delegating is a skill that all serious business people must develop. 

5. Failure to align your choices and your target market with your values.

I am not a teacher of target marketing, but I have been a pretty good student.  One of the key decisions that I believe was instrumental to the success I enjoy today was the choice to make the financial services industries my exclusive target market.  It wasn’t an easy decision to be industry-specific, but it was one of my best.

6. Failure to write your book.

Are you currently writing a book?  Have you ever thought it would be a good idea?  Have you ever read a book on money or insurance and said, “I could have written that?”  A book may be the best credibility tool in your entire marketing strategy. You can always write the foreword to a book that you believe in and where you have the same philosophy. This would be much simpler and surely easier.  The Values-Based Financial Planning book is one of those books. If you haven’t read it, you might consider starting here.

Simply rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 in each of the 6 areas above and then begin to make incremental improvements.  Be honest with yourself and make a commitment to make the choices that will propel you to your highest level of success.