Posts Tagged ‘Telephone Call’

The Start Fresh Meeting

Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

by Bob Simpson, Synchronicity Performance Consulting

When I was a branch manager, a new advisor came into my office with a sad look on her face. I asked if there was a problem and was told that she had acquired a rather large account about nine months ago and that she had just received notice that the client was transferring out.

I asked her what she had done with the account and she replied that when she looked at the account, she felt that all the investments were good, high quality investments that were appropriate, so she recommended that no changes be made to the portfolio.

The client said that he was looking for a fresh start and when no changes were made, he decided to move to somebody who would help facilitate the changes he was looking for.

Here’s an interesting way to include Fresh Start Meetings in your process:

To start, let me assume that you have regular meetings with your Ideal Clients. Hopefully at a minimum, every client has a next meeting or telephone call pre-booked. Ideally, you have pre-booked meetings and calls for the next 12 to 24 months.

One of the meetings each year is an in-depth annual review. Let’s call this meeting your Formal Annual Meeting. During this meeting, you update any personal changes that have taken place over the past twelve months; you review your investment policy, portfolios, performance, wealth plans, progress, etc.

If we were helping you set up this process in your practice, we would call this “setting up your client roadmap”.

Part of this process should be to set up a three-year plan for every client. Three years is a great planning horizon. It is short enough so that you can visualize the end date but long enough that progress can be made.

Every three years, you should have a Start Over Meeting tied to your three-year planning horizon This includes a complete review of the past three years, new Discovery session, setting new three-year goals and developing a plan to achieve these goals. This may require significant changes to a portfolio, but usually only if personal or financial market circumstances have changed and possibly changes to the investment policy statement. Note: I am discussing a fee-based account and am not using this as a way to generate commissions and am aware of tax implications.

A Start Over Meeting has similar effects to spring. The snow melting and crocuses and tulips motivate you to do some work in the yard. You spend a couple of weekends raking your lawn and preparing your gardens. You are motivated by a fresh start to a new season.

Similarly, your clients will look forward to Start Over Meetings. People have short attention spans and this will help rejuvenate their interest. They will look at it as making minor or major changes, if necessary, to keep them moving towards their long-term goals.

It helps you, as their advisor, as you have a chance to update yourself on what is happening in the lives of your clients and an opportunity to strengthen client relationships.

Bob Simpson is President of Synchronicity Performance Consultants. Bob can be reached on his direct line at 905−502−0100, toll free at 866−646−6002 or by e-mail at bob.simpson@synchronicity.ca.

About Bob Simpson

Synchronicity Performance Consulting has been coaching financial advisors since 1998.

Bob Simpson, president and founder of Synchronicity has been involved, directly or indirectly in the financial services industry since 1981. He has been a very successful financial advisor with Nesbitt Thomson Inc., a major Canadian financial institution. Between 1981 and 1989, he built a business with more than $120 million in assets under management, was branch manager and SVP National Sales for Midland Walwyn and has been coaching financial advisors since 1998.

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