Advisor Products Inc.

Confidence and Client Engagement: Keys to Advisor Success

Hugh Massie — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 08:25:00 -0400

This week I attended the Financial Behavior in Retirement Summit in Chicago and presented “Really Knowing Who Your Client Are”. The presentation guides advisors to understand the importance of knowing the natural behavior of clients and uncovering their life and financial motivations in order to tailor services to them.

By customizing their services, advisors will gain confidence and engage clients. In the planning process, helping clients understand who they really are can improve their financial results.

Financial Planning Magazine has published an article highlighting the presentation. To read the article on the Financial Planning Magazine website, click here: “Confidence and Client Engagement: Keys to Advisor Success“.

Practicing Performance

Hugh Massie — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 08:23:00 -0400

In many cases the difference between success and failure is small. One action or one decision or one more attempt can be the difference in the outcome. Usually, we are in the way of our own performance and so it is critical to keep out of our own way.

Have you noticed some people find success easily but fail to keep the results up? Then have you seen that others have the talent but need guidance to get on the right track? There is really no such thing as an overnight success even though that is what we may think. When you get into the story of how the great performers in any field have done it there will always be highs and lows, leaps forward and set backs or challenges. The reality is whether or not you are a natural at something, sustainable performance does not just happen. It takes a desire to succeed and consistent practice of the right behaviors. So, listed below is a list of some performance practices which I hope will motivate and guide you to sustaining performance in your life and whatever endeavors you pursue.

1. Take responsibility for your performance.

2. Competence starts with being confident but realistic about your abilities.

3. Do not sacrifice your goals by being average or allowing others around you to be average.

4. Recognize different personalities are assets to your productivity.

5. Write down your plans and goals so that you keep the right direction.

6. Gaining experience will help you prepare.

7. Have the confidence to never give up negotiating what you are worth.

8. Build high self esteem starting with self respect.

9. Have unquestioned self belief to ride through events.

10. Learn from your losses and do not make the same mistake twice.

11. Regularly exercise and eat right.

12. Be clear about your role in the outcome so you know why the result happened.

13. Actively listen to what others have to say to learn.

14. Do not think negatively as you will attract what you are afraid of.

15. Act and think like who you ought to be.

16. You must find a way for your work and home lives to fit together.

17. Look for positives in set backs and do not respond in fear.

18. Set realistic but challenging goals and be prepared to re-evaluate them.

19. Limit making costly decisions by emotionally reacting to events.

20. A healthy family life is crucial to a productive business life.

21. Greater fulfillment and results will come from showing you care about others.

22. Maintain your persistence by knowing yourself and what you want can be done.

23. Make your team feel wanted so they want to work harder.

24. Use a decision-making matrix to see how a decision fits in with your overall life and values.

25. Create a living and working environment that keeps your confidence high.

26. Be prepared to embrace innovation to stay on top.

27. Recognize there may be more risk in doing nothing .

28. Do not be afraid to take conflicts head on so disagreements can be addressed.

29. If you get a gut feeling about something then follow it.

30. Seek out wise people to talk with about your ideas and plans.

The Key Ingredients for Relationship Performance

Hugh Massie — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 08:22:00 -0400

Research is showing that many advisory firms talk about the importance of building relationships with clients. However, the clients do not believe there is a quality relationship. So what is the key ingredient to build your relationship performance?

In our work, we talk about the need for advisors to build relationships which emotionally engage the client. Gallup Research has shown the significant impact this can have on financial performance of an advisor’s business. Emotionally engaging the client requires the advisor to demonstrate empathy for the client. The clients motivations and needs need to be understood, they need to feel listened to, they need to believe the advisor and the firm cares about them not their money, the advisor needs to be approachable and friendly and the advisor needs to openly communicate on the clients terms.

The next issue to address is whether the culture of financial services allows for an empathetic service to be delivered. Recent SEI research in the UK is showing that the clients believe that financial services is “too me” first from the advisor perspective. The advisors and their firms have made success about what is earned and not how clients are helped. Therefore, significant cultural and financial re-alignment is needed not only by advisors but also by the firms and the industry as a whole before there can be true relationship performance based on empathy. The firms and industry need to show that they stand for client care.

In many cases the advisor is left alone by their firm to build the relationships. However, in the future the organization will have to equip the advisors to build client centered relationships. This will include providing them with the right tools, including client profiling.

So what are you doing for high quality client engagement?

Preventing Client Disloyalty

Hugh Massie — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:16:00 -0400

I recently read with great interest an article published in the Harvard Business Review called “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers”. The article addresses a recent research study of 75000 people conducted by the Customer Contact Council a division of the Corporate Executive Board which showed that a major contributor to client disloyalty across a range of industries was poor service. Whereas client loyalty was more based on brand and product.

So, a key factor in not losing clients is to improve the management of the service process. How can than this be done?

The article suggests that your service center reps need to address the emotional side of customer interactions.

The research shows Twenty-four percent of the repeat calls in our study stemmed from emotional disconnects between customers and reps—situations in which, for instance, the customer didn’t trust the rep’s information or didn’t like the answer given and had the impression that the rep was just hiding behind general company policy. With some basic instruction, reps can eliminate many interpersonal issues and thereby reduce repeat calls.

One UK-based mortgage company teaches its reps how to listen for clues to a customer’s personality type. They quickly assess whether they are talking to a “controller,” a “thinker,” a “feeler,” or an “entertainer,” and tailor their responses accordingly, offering the customer the balance of detail and speed appropriate for the personality type diagnosed. This strategy has reduced repeat calls by a remarkable 40%.

I believe this research gives executives a lot to think about. What is your strategy for understanding the emotions of your clients?

Behavioral Segmentation of Your Clients

Hugh Massie — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:44:00 -0400

Traditionally many advisors segment their clients based on tangible factors such as the type of service they will provide to clients (eg executives, family business, life planning etc) and assets under management minimums. There is business sense in this as it focuses the business to some degree. However, segmenting your clients based on their DNA Behavioral style will further increase your marketing and service delivery performance.

Behavioral segmentation will enable you to direct your communication and marketing to specific types of clients based on who they are. For instance, a Stability Need person needs to have communication which reflects safety and security. A Lifestyle Desire client needs to hear about how your solution will grow the fun side of life for them. When you segment your clients the emotional engagement with them will increase which leads to a longer term relationship with a greater share of the wallet.

Recently I was helping one of our Wealth Mentors with his client segmentation. He had all of his clients complete their Communication DNA profile. This enabled us to divide the client base into 4 quadrants of DNA style. Interestingly, because he is a Lifestyle Desire advisor this was the largest segment category. The Wealth Mentor knows having clients of a similar style to his makes relating to them easier.

However, the other key part about segmenting clients is addressing their values and life interests. The more that the clients values and life interests are similar to the Wealth Mentor’s the greater the chance of a sustained connection. The values are foundational as they will be at the core of every discussion and will be important when key decisions are being made. Having similar life interests eg sports or arts gives you something in common to relate to. In the case of our Wealth Mentor, he wanted clients who shared similar spiritual beliefs and also his interest in tennis. In his practice, other advisors wanted clients who were interested in environmental issues and football. What they found was that their relationships were much stronger with clients in these zones.

Once there are common values and interests, then whether you keep the relationship with the client will depend on natural DNA behavior. This gets back to segmentation based on behavioral style.

To learn more and to get started with implementing DNA Behavior Solutions to segment your clients, click here.