Add Value. These days, clients want to know what exactly they are getting for their fees, especially if their portfolio has been going south. Advisors who stay hired make sure that their clients perceive they are adding value to their financial welfare and more broadly to their life. Perhaps this comes in the form of a referral to an excellent accountant or lawyer. Maybe it is with assistance for refinancing a loan or securing a loan. It could also be providing information for an assisted living home for the client’s parents or a lead for a summer internship for their college kids. The point: Continually think of different ways you can be helpful to your clients. The more you help them, the more attractive you become and the more they want to stay with you.
Know The Family. Take a few minutes to think about how much client family knowledge you have. Stay hired advisors know a lot about their client’s family business, and it helps them in several ways. First, knowing how many kids are going to camp, how many need braces, how many family vacations the family plans, when college tuition is due helps you assess the clients financial needs that if to be realized, require adjusting a financial strategy or expectations.
Second, knowing about the family and periodically asking about them shows care and concern to your client and thus deepens your relationship, making it that much harder for the client to terminate. It also shows you listened to them in earlier conversations.
Third, many advisors lose clients when the next generation takes control because the son or daughter does not know you, let alone trust you. He or she is more apt to use the advisor their friends recommend. Stay hired advisors prevent this from happening by developing relationships with the client’s family members who will eventually need financial services. When was the last time you asked a client to bring his or her recent college graduate so you could give them some tips on investing some of their money early on?
Seek Client Criticism. Most advisors shun criticism from their clients and when they can’t, typically respond defensively. Their reaction is prompted by their perception that a client’s criticism threatens their job security. Stay hired advisors appraise criticism differently: as information that can help them do better, and thus become more valuable to their client. Acting on this perception, they often ask their clients: "Besides making you more money, how can I be a better financial advisor?" If you're lucky, their responses will tell you ways of how you can increase your value and increase their value of your stock. If they are void of ideas, be sure to tell them to let you know when something crosses their mind. Your solicitation of criticism will facilitate authentic communication between you and your client resulting in greater trust.
Enthusiastic Commitment. Stay hired advisors do not need to see the research that indicates being enthusiastic in client interactions makes you more attractive to your clients. Being enthusiastic in your client interactions energizes the relationship and demonstrates that you are interested in helping your client. In turn, your clients will perceive you as being more committed to their welfare and more likely to use your services.
Training yourself to speak with enthusiasm, increasing your smiles, and animating your behavior are some of the strategies you can use to increase your feelings of enthusiasm during a client encounter.
For self-help, you might want to rate yourself from 1 (low) to 10 (high) on how well you perform each behavior. If you are objective, your ratings will tell you what behaviors need improvement.
Applying all of these simultaneously is how to get your clients to yell: “Stay hired!”
Hank Weisinger, Ph.D., is trained in clinical, counseling and organizational psychology. Weisinger is the author of several successful books and has conducted executive development workshops for dozens of Fortune 500 companies. To find out more about his workshops, click here: https://courses.hendrieweisingerphd.com/courses/demo-performing-under-pressure-the-eworkshop-experience/