Where is the gap?
What strategies need to be employed?
What are your priorities?
What tactics do you act on?
Do you want to develop a wealth management practice?
Do you want to transition yourself to a fee-based practice?
Start thinking and talking in terms of "value goals." What is a value goal? Start with growth and retention of key clients. Develop your ideal client list with an emphasis on lifetime value. Assess what they value about you. Discover the gaps and fill them. Deliver more value. Grow the relationships you covet, then go after more ideal clients.
L: Listen aggressively to your clients. The word "aggressive" by dictionary definition is "bold, combative and forceful," not exactly a respectful or consultative image. Listening aggressively, to us, means listening passionately and intently. We use the word aggressive to invoke the sense that listening is active, takes effort and is not a passive thing. Listening is key to connecting emotionally. Do you listen to your clients about the issues they value? Be honest. Do you use advanced acknowledgement, advanced clarification, advanced confirmation skills? Try it for yourself. It works. Listening skills at their highest levels will differentiate you.
T: Total commitment to the initiative. Here you have to lead. You have to be like the Los Angeles Lakers coach, Phil Jackson-you have to get on the horse and lead your team to battle. What can you, as the leader of your team, be doing? Help your team and staff by giving them the proper training. Have your value messages spread across all communications, marketing materials and other client pieces. Preach the message. Like a good branding strategy, include it on everything. It just makes good business sense.
U: Utilize all the requisite skills. Cultures are created through consistent, reinforcing patterns of behavior. Skills reinforced daily become behavior. Here are some thoughts on skills that you can use to create a value culture. Revisit your Value Ladder message. Stop people in the hall and ask them how many steps are in their process, or to walk you through your team's business beliefs. Challenge your team to articulate what is their individual value to your team. Ask them what is their value to clients. Be prepared yourself to answer these same questions, though! Begin meetings with short role-play scenarios where one team member plays a prospect and someone else the financial professional. Use such key consultative sales skills in working with your team as acknowledging, clarifying and confirming. Mack Hanan said it best throughout the chapters of his book, Competing on Value, "A business committed to value improvement for customers operates with a unique mindset." The key concept here is "operates." You must put the value mindset into actions.