BachrachBlog

As with the Rule of 168, there are Natural Laws and Universal Truths about what is necessary to be a successful Financial Advisor. I did not invent these truths any more than I had input into how many hours there are in a day or week. I have just been a diligent observer taking good notes. This may not be a complete list, but I doubt you will disagree with anything on it. What you do with this information is your choice. Remember, don’t shoot the messenger.

- Must have the skill and confidence to engage people in conversations that could lead to the next step of them potentially doing business with you. These can be with people you already know, people you meet in the course of your everyday life, or referrals. The result of these conversations must be enough appointments on your calendar to yield enough clients to make your business successful.
- Must have the skill and confidence to conduct an initial client interview where you establish a bond of trust and the outcome is that a high enough percentage of these people hire you so your business is successful.
- Must have the skill and confidence to answer any question any prospect, or client, could ever ask at any time.
- Must have the skill, confidence, and resources to create a plan of action that gives your clients the highest probability to achieve their goals.
- Must have the skill and confidence to articulate how much you charge, what they get, and that it’s a good value for them.
- Must have the skill and confidence to set the right price for your services so your business is successful and your life works.
- Must have the skill and confidence to give advice to clients about the necessary action required for them to achieve their financial goals in a way that inspires them to act.
- Must have the skill and confidence to conduct regular, productive progress meetings with your clients so they stay on track to achieving their goals.
- Must have the skill and confidence to have crucial conversations with your clients when they become “their own worst enemy” and want to do things that are not consistent with them achieving their goals.
- Must have the skill and confidence to build and lead your team of the Technical and Administrative Subject Matter Experts necessary to deliver on your promise to your clients. (The Rule of 168 mandates that there is not enough time to do it all yourself.)
- Must have the skill and confidence to conduct referral conversations that generate referrals.
- Must have the skill and confidence to make follow-up phone calls and engage the people, to whom you have been referred, in constructive conversations that could lead to the next step of them potentially doing business with you.
- Must develop the skill and confidence to recognize high pay-off activities, fill your calendar with high pay-off activities, do the high pay-off activities, and delegate or drop lower pay-off activities.
- Must develop the emotional fortitude and discipline to develop these skills and confidence.
- Must be willing to learn these skills from others if you were not born with them.
- Must develop the emotional fortitude and discipline to consistently and repeatedly implement the skills and confidence that produce results both on the days when you feel like it and the days when you don’t feel like it, regardless of events out of your control such as what’s happening in the market, the economy, or the world.
- Must document the processes and systems that will be repeatedly used to acquire clients, serve clients, and lead the business.
- Must generate enough business revenue, so after paying your business expenses and taxes, there is enough money left to pay for you to live a good lifestyle now and enough money for you to fund your future goals, such as your own financial independence. In other words, you have enough money to get and keep your own financial house in order.
- Must develop the ability to produce these business results in a reasonable amount of time per day, week, month, and year in order for other important aspects of your life to get the attention they need and to be enjoyed. Ie: family and friends, health and fitness, fun and recreation, spiritual growth, mental health, philanthropy, etc.

Perhaps you can think of a few other “musts” in order to have a successful financial services business. This list truths will at least get you started.

You have probably heard the saying that success leaves clues. These “clues” are Universal Truths or Laws of Nature that we observe successful people following that provide a good example of what to do if we would like to be successful also. These are things we accept as being true and unchangeable. Some of the more obvious Universal Truths or Natural Laws are that humans need to breathe air to survive, gravity, and that water is wet.

Another such Natural Law is what I call The Rule of 168. There are only 168 hours in the week and your success and happiness in life are determined by how you choose to invest your 168 hours. This was not my idea. God did not confer with me when he or she decided how long it would take the Earth to make a complete spin on its axis or the time required for the Earth to revolve around the sun. It is what it is. Resistance is futile. Please don’t shoot the messenger.

Jack Nicholson’s character (Colonel Nathan R. Jessep) in the movie A Few Good Men delivered one of the most famous lines in the modern movie era, “The Truth! You can’t handle the truth!” I propose that life is better when you choose to handle the truth. Success is leaving clues about the truths required to be successful. Are you listening? Do you see them? Will you choose to handle the truth?

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?

Over the years, 20+ now, I’ve studied a lot, taught a lot, and written a lot about building high-trust client relationships. Lately I’ve found myself saying to our core group of committed advisors who implement the Values-Based Financial Planning™ turn-key business model that, “trust is not the objective, trust is a by-product of the other things that you do, like your behavior, your communication, and the quality of your work.”

 I’ve come to believe that if gaining your clients trust is your objective then the focus is on the wrong place: you. When, of course, the focus should be on them. When your goal is to establish trust it might be to further your agenda, like, “I have to get them to trust me… so they hire me… so they give me assets… so they buy my product or idea, etc, etc. etc.”

Consider this point of view instead:  “I am going to show up relaxed, be authentic, behave with an extremely high level of professionalism, skillfully execute my process for creating a great client interview experience or progress meeting experience, ask great questions, listen with empathy, be well-organized , be respectful of their time by not bragging about myself or my company or boring them with over-explanations of financial concepts and ideas, and be selective about only letting the truly right-fit people join my community of Ideal Clients. And if, in the process of behaving this way, they trust me and hire me, fine. If not, that’s okay too.”

Some advisors try to force things to happen with everyone they meet by using sales, influence, or persuasion tactics to “close the deal.” This is akin to a woman desperately seeking a husband because her “biological clock is ticking” instead of  looking for the right partner with similar goals and values who is best suited for the two them to create a life together of happiness and fulfillment.

I’m in the business of helping successful advisors double-quadruple their business revenue in 4 years or less, so what I’m writing about here is not purely altruistic. You may be concerned that “relaxing” or abandoning a more intense sales focus will diminish your results. Actually, the contrary is true. Which “way of being” do you think is more likely to attract successful people to want to become your clients, the relaxed Trusted Advisor or the intense salesperson? Relaxed doesn’t mean wishy-washy or lacking in passion for helping people make smart choices about their money. It means that you don’t show up with what we used to call “commission breath.”

Think of each client relationship more like a professional marriage. The objectives are for them to have the best possible experience, whether they become a client or not, and for only the “right-fits” to become clients.

Here are a few time-tested ideas for behaving in ways that create the by-product of trust and a few thoughts about not-to-do behaviors that erode trust.

1         Look for “right fit” people to join your client community versus a “they have money therefore I want them” mentality. Create an Ideal Client Profile where the personality element of the people you meet is equally important to the money element in order for them to earn an invitation to join your client community. Notice the difference in how it feels to think of inviting people to do business with you versus “closing the deal.”

2          Ask good questions.

1. Values (What’s important about money to you?)
2. Goals (What are your tangible goals that require money and planning to achieve? How much do you want to have for that goal? By when? What are two or three words that describe what you are thinking and feeling once you have achieved that goal?)
3. Does the idea of having a comprehensive financial plan which gives you a higher probability of achieving your goals and fulfilling your values appeal to you?
4. Would you like to join our client community and have us do this work for you?

3         Listen with empathy. The tendency, especially during an initial client interview with people you may have never met face-to-face, is to think more about what you are going to say next while they are answering your questions. When you do this you don’t really hear what they said, therefore it’s hard to be empathetic to things you weren’t fully present, mentally, to hear. The solution is to have your questions memorized so you don’t have to think about what you are going to ask next, thus allowing you to be fully present and a much more empathic listener.

4         Record your client meetings, especially the initial client interview. I’ve written in this magazine before about recording client meetings and to save you the trouble of searching back issues here’s a script for introducing the recorder.  “I appreciate the investment of time and effort you made to be here today. The fact that you have done so tells me that you must be serious about your money, is that true? (pause for answer) You’ll notice that I’ll ask many relevant questions, take copious notes, and I also record the meeting. (refer to the recorder and pause) The reason I record is because I’m very thorough. (pause) Do you know how you can watch a movie a second or third time and see things you missed the first time?” (Nice long pause for them to respond.) “Well giving you advice about your money so you can achieve your goals is obviously much more important than a movie, so I want to make sure our advice is right for you. If we choose to work together, I’ll listen to this recording at least one more time to make sure to get it right. ” (pause) Ask your first question. (See “ask good questions” above)

5         Give advice with conviction. Salespeople tend to offer alternatives and let the prospect or client choose. Trusted Advisors gather all the information they need, consult with other experts where appropriate, and give the best advice for the client… with conviction. There may be more than one way to achieve a goal, but there is only one best way. Find the best way and give advice with conviction.

6         Tell the truth even if doing so jeopardizes the relationship.  Serious and successful people don’t want to pay good money for a rubber-stamp, yes-person kissing their butts and telling them only what they want to hear. It’s your job to tell the truth, especially when it’s what they need to hear and not what they want to hear.

7         Avoid direct statements or indirect implications that you can do the impossible. Ie: beat the market. The primary determinant of a person achieving their goals is their own behavior. Your job is much more about managing your clients’ choices and actions than it is about managing their money. The bottom line is that there is no guarantee of anything. The best you can do is to help people get their entire financial house in order, make the best choices possible at the time, and be in the strongest position possible to adapt to whatever non-controllable events occur.  The less you play the predict-the-future game the more credible you are.

8         Be inspiring. Focus on helping clients and prospective clients create a compelling vision for their future and become their bridge to make it happen. Being a future vision creator is much more trust-building than being a problem-solver.

9         Avoid the use of the old-school greed appeal: “work with me and you’ll get a better return because our guru has a better beat the market black box.”

10     Avoid the use of the old-school fear tactic: “buy gold (or whatever) now because the big deficits and weak dollar mean inevitable inflation coming to erode your buying power! You could outlive your money and end up a burden to your family, living off community hand-outs, or on the government dole. How would that make you feel?”

11     Be a comprehensive financial professional. It’s interesting that most financial advisors claim to be comprehensive. But what does that really mean? What is “comprehensive financial services?” At the very least, comprehensive implies “everything.” Do you really help your clients take care of everything related to their money? How many things is that? I know of one advisor who has done such a great job of defining comprehensive financial services that many advisors look to him for leadership on this subject. Check out www.trustedadvisortoolkit.com for the best information I know of about delivering truly comprehensive financial services.

12     Put the client first.  Duh. I know. It sounds almost silly and certainly cliché. And yet there is a lot of discussion and controversy by the regulators and industry leaders about the fiduciary standard. Am I the only one who finds it absurd that legislation is necessary for our industry to step up and adopt a fiduciary standard? Isn’t that simply always, in all situations, and under all circumstances putting your client’s needs ahead of your own? Isn’t that what you already do? Do you really need a law about that? Apparently the industry does. The good news is that your competition needs somebody else to define integrity for them. And speaking of integrity…

13     Have no conflicts of interest. Notice I didn’t say “disclose conflicts of interest.” Run your business without any conflicts of interest. Why should there be any conflicts of interest to disclose?

Keep in mind that these are not “tactics” to build trust. These are the powerful behaviors of  financial professionals who are very good at what they do and who genuinely care about helping people get their financial house in order, achieve their goals, and fulfill their values.  By behaving at this very high level of professionalism trust is the by-product of that behavior.

The bottom line is that you can’t “technique” your way to trust. You earn it by who you are and what you do.