Do You Ask For Referrals? Would You Hire A Plumber That Randomly Showed Up At Your Door?

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

I am opposed to ask­ing for refer­rals. For all kinds of reasons.

I do not believe in ask­ing pri­mar­ily because it attempts to hijack the nat­ural way refer­rals hap­pen. But also because we are an event dri­ven busi­ness. And when we ask for refer­rals, we won’t meet the prospects when they need us.

Clients typ­i­cally seek out and advi­sor because some­thing hap­pened or some­thing changed. Very few peo­ple wake up in the morn­ing think­ing “I think I will find a new finan­cial advi­sor today.” It hap­pens, and some­times a change of atti­tude can be the trig­ger. But most often it is because a sit­u­a­tion arises that requires a client find advice.

I was reminded of this the other day as I was work­ing with the client on his value propo­si­tion. Like so many advi­sors, he told me he works with clients who are in “tran­si­tion.” We may be an event dri­ven busi­ness partly because we have designed it that way. Money in motion, chang­ing life cir­cum­stances, retire­ment dis­tri­b­u­tions, sud­den money. So many of the things we tell peo­ple we spe­cial­ize in involve an event.

Regard­less of where it comes from, it is clear that good refer­rals are defined partly by being intro­duced at the right time for the prospect. And the prob­a­bil­ity that when you ask your client for a refer­ral will turn out to be just the right time for the prospect is minis­cule. Odds are that if you ask for refer­rals you will be call­ing those prospects at time when they are just not recep­tive to your mes­sage. I think of it this way: from the prospect’s per­spec­tive you are like a great plumber that shows up unan­nounced and unex­pected on someone’s doorstep. If a plumber came to visit you out of the blue, would you hire him? Right then?

I recently hired a plumb­ing com­pany to come pump out my sep­tic tank. Not some­thing I do very often. In fact, I have been in this house for almost 20 years and have not had it pumped once. (I know, bad idea.  Like many peo­ple, I pro­cras­ti­nate on the pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance stuff.) But, I had a remod­el­ing project going on and needed an inspec­tion. The inspec­tion required that the tank be pumped. I men­tioned it to peo­ple. I asked around. A friend sug­gested a com­pany, and they turned out to be great.

And that’s how refer­rals hap­pen. If that com­pany had called me a year ago and told me they were experts at pump­ing sep­tic tanks, I would have replied “not now, thanks.” (Even though I should have thought about it.  But I was, I don’t know, pack­ing for vaca­tion or cut­ting the lawn or some­thing.) But, now I needed one.  And because my friend knew this com­pany was good at clean­ing sep­tic sys­tems he men­tioned them to me when I described my predicament.

What we must focus on is mak­ing sure our clients under­stand what par­tic­u­lar solu­tions we can deliver or what expe­ri­ences we can pro­vide. If we can make that easy to recall, they will remem­ber us when they hear some­one describe a need for what we do. In the end, we don’t really want our clients to share with us the names of their friends. We want our clients to share our names with their friends at the right time.

Get help design­ing your own refer­ral mar­ket­ing strat­egy with our Refer­ral Mar­ket­ing Plan Tem­plate.  Find out about it here.

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Tags: Asking For Referrals, Bad Idea, Change Of Attitude, Doorstep, Driven Business, Life Circumstances, Money In Motion, Odds, Out Of The Blue, Perspective, Plumber, Plumbing Company, Probability, Prospects, Referral, Retirement Distributions, Right Time, Septic Tank, Sudden Money, Value Proposition
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Five Steps to Add the Right Person to Your Team

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

Moti­vated and com­pe­tent staff is key to the suc­cess of any busi­ness, large or small.

Yet when I talk to advi­sors about the things that frus­trate them and are hold­ing them back, attract­ing and retain­ing the right staff is often at the top of the list.

That’s why I was inter­ested in a recent guest arti­cle for Hors­es­mouth, the lead­ing prac­tice man­age­ment site for finan­cial advi­sors. Co-authored by Helen Modly and Tom­mie Monez, two mem­bers of the man­age­ment team of a suc­cess­ful finan­cial advi­sory firm in Arling­ton, Vir­ginia it out­lines five prac­ti­cal tips to get the right staff on board.

And to see more arti­cles like this one and to sign up for a free trial sub­scrip­tion, go to www​.hors​es​mouth​.com. (Note as well that some Hors­es­mouth arti­cles can be found on the web­site for Dynamic Funds.)

By Helen Modly and Tom­mie Monez

Hir­ing team mem­bers is one of the most impor­tant and also the most dif­fi­cult parts of man­ag­ing and build­ing a prac­tice. Build your hir­ing process around these five steps, and you won’t have to kiss so many frogs along the way.

One of the great things about work­ing in a small firm is being able to express and imple­ment new ideas and the flex­i­bil­ity to change direc­tion on a whim. We call it “man­age­ment by shiny object.”

How­ever, when it comes to hir­ing, this method has been more of a curse than an advan­tage. Twice we have found indi­vid­u­als that so impressed us we con­sid­ered hir­ing them on the spot. Not that they fit into our long-range plans, but just so we could have these great folks on our team. Twice we have dis­cov­ered that hir­ing with­out a plan or a real job descrip­tion is a really bad idea.

Here are the five lessons we’ve learned as we’ve devel­oped from impul­sively hir­ing shiny objects to method­i­cally recruit­ing and build­ing a great team.

Les­son #1: Don’t stray

Know what posi­tion you are try­ing to fill and stick to it.

Before adding advi­sors or other team mem­bers, take the time for an in-depth look at the way your firm works. Solicit input from all employ­ees for sug­ges­tions on how to make the work flow more effi­cient, more accu­rate, and more suited to the indi­vid­u­als assigned to per­form­ing each job.

Some­times rear­rang­ing the work flow, adding appro­pri­ate tech­nol­ogy, or chang­ing roles within the firm will elim­i­nate the need for new peo­ple. If you can­not cre­ate more inter­nal effi­ciency, take the time to eval­u­ate what roles you need filled short, mid-, and long-term. Develop a detailed job descrip­tion for the most sen­si­ble posi­tion to fill next-and stick to it.

Les­son #2: Get formal

Cre­ate a for­mal search and selec­tion process.

Iden­tify in advance how you will use it to eval­u­ate appli­cants. Deter­mine spe­cific cri­te­ria, answer­ing these questions:

• Will a credit report or back­ground check be required?
• How will you check references?
• Will you use any assess­ment tools, and who will admin­is­ter these assess­ments to the candidates?
• What level of pro­fi­ciency is required?

You will also need to deter­mine in advance exactly what you are pre­pared to offer a new hire in terms of salary and ben­e­fits, sched­ule flex­i­bil­ity, time off, dress expec­ta­tions, and so on.

Always begin the selec­tion process with a per­sonal phone call to the appli­cant. For most posi­tions, good tele­phone skills are essen­tial. The appli­cant should have a voice that is eas­ily heard and under­stand­able; he or she should have no dis­tract­ing man­ner­isms and make no gram­mat­i­cal errors. A well-written résumé and impres­sive prior expe­ri­ence don’t always trans­late into a good ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­tor, but a quick phone call will tell you a whole lot about this crit­i­cal skill set.

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Tags: Arlington Virginia, Bad Idea, Competent Staff, Dynamic Funds, Financial Advisors, Financial Advisory Firm, Five Steps, Free Trial Subscription, Frogs, Guest Article, Hiring Process, Hiring Team, Job Description, Lesson 1, Management Team, Practice Management, Shiny Object, Shiny Objects, Team Members, Whim
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