Make Yourself Relatable

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012

by Matthew Asser, The Covenant Group

It’s a com­mon theme in sales indus­tries: No one likes to be sold, but every­one likes to buy. As a finan­cial advi­sor, how can you be suc­cess­ful in acquir­ing clients with­out mak­ing meet­ings feel like a sales pitch? Make your­self relat­able, lis­ten to the prospect and strive to be gen­uine in every interaction.I recently came across a con­ver­sa­tion on LinkedIn dis­cussing the best prac­tices of sales, and I think a lot of what was dis­cussed can also apply to client rela­tion­ship man­age­ment. The dis­cus­sion kicked off with a note about the impor­tance of lis­ten­ing care­fully and ask­ing lots of ques­tions, two tac­tics that are cen­tral to what we teach finan­cial advi­sors at The Covenant Group.

Essen­tially, the con­ver­sants agreed that it was a salesperson’s duty to help their clients, not sim­ply sell to them. Keep­ing the client’s inter­est in mind and show­ing that you want the best for them will trans­form their per­cep­tion of you from that of another sales­per­son into a trusted advi­sor. Shar­ing details about your­self in con­ver­sa­tions can also allow clients to get to know you as a per­son, which can deepen the level of trust.

Whether you’re sit­ting in the ini­tial inter­view or catch­ing up with a long-time client, give your­self enough time so you can lis­ten and ask thought­ful ques­tions rather than jump­ing right into the busi­ness pur­pose of the meet­ing. Build con­nec­tions with the client, be they shared hob­bies or mutual inter­ests in a cer­tain sport.

While it’s impor­tant to main­tain a pro­fes­sional tone in your rela­tion­ship with clients, strive to be their friend and a source of help. Show them that you care about their over­all well-being, not just their finan­cial health. Be approach­able. Empha­size the fact that clients should not hes­i­tate to call you, and fol­low up on that promise by being avail­able when they need you most.

Facil­i­tat­ing that close­ness and trust can be a dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing fac­tor. The major­ity of clients want an advi­sor who will con­tinue to give them just as much (if not more) atten­tion in the years fol­low­ing a sale as they did in the mar­ket­ing stage.

Anthony Lam has spent more than 20 years hon­ing his cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment skills. He has demon­strated his com­mit­ment to high-quality cus­tomer ser­vice in the retail, bank­ing and air­line indus­tries. Anthony is the Man­ager of Pro­gram Deliv­ery and Client Rela­tion­ships at The Covenant Group and coaches finan­cial advi­sors on client ser­vices through The Covenant Group’s finan­cial ser­vices train­ing.

Fol­low The Covenant Group

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Tags: Asser, Best Practices, Business Purpose, Client Relationship Management, Closeness, Conversations, Covenant Group, Financial Advisors, Financial Health, Hobbies, Initial Interview, Interaction, Linkedin, Mutual Interests, Perception, Professional Tone, Relationship With Clients, Salesperson, Thoughtful Questions, Time Client
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From One Generation to the Next

Wednesday, September 14th, 2011

The fol­low­ing is based on one of Norm Trainor’s clients, Norm Carroll.

I first met Norm Car­roll in May, 2002. I was launch­ing our Prac­tice Devel­op­ment Pro­gram spon­sored by Great West Life. Norm was one of 32 President’s Coun­cil qual­i­fiers who signed up for the pro­gram. In our ini­tial inter­view, Norm explained that his pri­mary moti­va­tion was to keep his pro­duc­tion level in the top ten of the President’s Coun­cil. Like most top advi­sors, Norm is very com­pet­i­tive. How­ever, main­tain­ing a top ten posi­tion was becom­ing more dif­fi­cult. Norm was the only pro­ducer in his office. The chal­lenge of sell­ing, man­ag­ing staff and run­ning his busi­ness was becom­ing overwhelming.

As Norm would tell you, it took a while in the Covenant pro­gram to grasp the com­plex­i­ties of build­ing his busi­ness. After a num­ber of years, it all came together. Norm learned how to work more effec­tively with his employ­ees. This led to increased pro­duc­tion that allowed him to hire another pro­ducer. By free­ing him­self up to do what he does best, the busi­ness just took off. As he learned to bet­ter man­age him­self and his busi­ness, he was freed up to focus on what was really important.

A new and more pow­er­ful pur­pose emerged in his work and busi­ness. His son, Neil, came into the busi­ness and suc­ces­sion became the focus. Prior to Neil join­ing, Norm had restruc­tured the prac­tice. Ini­tially, Norm had a spe­cial­ist and two assis­tants. One of the assis­tants wanted to get into sales. Over the last few years, she has become an impor­tant con­trib­u­tor to the growth of the busi­ness. This gave Norm expe­ri­ence in man­ag­ing a pro­ducer and pre­pared him to work with his son. Norm wanted Neil to suc­ceed on his own merit. Neil started on com­mis­sion and has con­tributed from day one to the prof­itabil­ity of the firm.

When a son or daugh­ter enters the busi­ness, there is an over­whelm­ing sense of pride. It val­i­dates your work and your life. Neil learned at the din­ing room table about the busi­ness. When Neil joined, it was a state­ment that he saw the value of what Norm was doing.

Norm has built a strong team that sup­ports and chal­lenges each other to grow. They feed off each other. The involve­ment of oth­ers has breathed new life into the busi­ness. The com­bi­na­tion of diverse lev­els of expe­ri­ence has taken the busi­ness to new lev­els. It is allow­ing every­one in the busi­ness to visu­al­ize a much big­ger future. It is an excit­ing place to work.

The firm now has a Busi­ness Plan to tran­si­tion the com­pany to the next gen­er­a­tion. Norm has moved from suc­cess to sig­nif­i­cance in his work and to suc­ces­sion in his business.

Norm Trainor is the founder of The Covenant Group, a com­pany spe­cial­iz­ing in prac­tice devel­op­ment for advi­sors. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, visit his Web site at www​.covenant​group​.com.

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Tags: Complexities, Contributor, Covenant, Dining Room Table, Dining Table, Focus, Initial Interview, Led, Managing Staff, Motivation, Norm Trainor, Overwhelming Sense, Pride, Profitability, S Council, Succession
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