In a previous issue of Financial Advisor, I wrote an article explaining something called the “Everyone Wins Process” that could allow many financial advisors and wealth managers to double their revenues within two years. This is possible even as the pandemic rages on.
The article generated a considerable amount of attention. But one of the concerns advisors repeatedly brought to my attention was a dearth of information on how to put the process into action. In this article I’ll explain one of a number of approaches.
You First
While you want to make sure that it’s all about the clients, you must also keep your own goals in mind when you’re thinking about what you need from clients (and prospective clients and other professionals).
Consider five people who are potentially very important to the success of your practice. They might be your clients or professionals who refer clients to you. Or they might be people on your team, such as a branch manager.
Start thinking about what you want from each of these people. Write it down.
When I ask advisors to do this exercise, their answers are usually not all that insightful. For example, when I ask them what they want from an accountant, the answer is usually along the lines of “more referrals.” It’s a start, but you have to go deeper. How many more referrals? Is one enough? What about two or 10 or 20?
Since your aim is to double your revenue in two years, it’s useful if you specify how much more revenue you’re looking for. Wouldn’t it be better to ask for a more specific target revenue number? It can be anything you deem viable and realistic. For instance, if it’s in your self-interest to generate $250,000 more in revenue from referrals provided by the accountant, that might end up bringing in one client or more. But it’s the revenues that you’re focusing on.
Now, It’s All About Them
Once you’re clear about your self-interest, you must ascertain the concerns of the people you’ve chosen to work with. Here, too, when you ask them what they want, their first answers tend to be superficial: They want “good investment performance.” Or “great service.” Or “the latest thinking about the markets.”
That might all be true, but they’re not really the most important things, especially to wealthier clients. There are many things going on in people’s lives—things more pressing than making more money.
Clients’ concerns about their health, for example, almost always overshadow their financial concerns (especially during a pandemic). Also, if they’re entrepreneurs, the state of their businesses is usually superseding worries about their personal investment portfolios. The more you’re attuned to these concerns, hopes, anxieties and dreams, the more you’re able to build strong relationships—and these are unquestionably the primary driver of successful high-end advisory practices.
To find out what the five people you’ve chosen really want, you must dig deeper. Do other professionals (like accountants), really just want more referrals? Yes, but that only goes so far. Generally speaking, if they want to build their practices, they’re also looking for more revenues, which might not actually correlate with more clients. And there are many ways to help them generate more revenues without ever having to refer clients to them.