With all the extra hand-wringing that comes with a bear market, advisors are easily distracted from keeping their eye on how to grow their business. It might seem counterintuitive, but times of crisis prove to be “fraught with opportunity” for advisors who know how to stay focused on the long game.

First of all, you need to buckle down on your existing clients. Even if you’ve counseled them well and they’re not panic-calling you, you need to keep them top of mind. Make sure you know exactly what’s happening to their portfolios. Stay up to date on what’s happening in their lives. Be even more proactive than usual and reach out. Give them answers to questions they might have, but also give them new information that aligns with their goals. That will show them that you’re not only being optimistic, but that you’re thinking about their best interests over the long-term.

A bear market is the time to focus on “wealth repair” strategies. Are you up to date on the latest solutions? Do you need a refresher course… does your team? Have you been reaching out to fellow advisors for opportunities to collaborate on ways to better serve your clients? Now is the time when clients are sure to notice an extra effort and they’ll appreciate it.

In times of trouble, it’s the weaker cohort of advisors who will hide and avoid the tough questions. You should be seen and heard—and not just by your clients, but by the community where your business thrives, and perhaps by the industry at large. Remember: advisors are hired primarily to resolve problems and to handle situations too complex for clients themselves. Now is the time to stand up—and stand apart.

When the market normalizes, it will be the proactive, visible advisor who will be rewarded—with  deeper loyalty, longer relationships and more referrals.

Ultimately, it’s your ability to demonstrate sustainable organic growth that will attract a premium for your practice. So anything you do during a bear market to keep your clients close – and at least happy that you’re there for them—this is all an investment in maximizing the value of your business.

So, what can you do specifically to make lemonade during a bear market?

One recommendation is to embrace video as a preferred means of communicating with your clients, and beyond (think: community prospecting; think: industry recognition). Just a few years ago, video was a bit of a novelty, but the pandemic and the shutdown accelerated the acceptance of video as a platform for audiences and as a medium for advisors. Now there’s a proliferation of video content in the wealth management industry—but not everyone’s doing it yet, and not everyone’s doing it well.

When it comes to video communications, your job is the content. In a bear market, with clients asking more questions than ever, it’s easy to develop short, insightful and instructive messages that will truly resonate with your clients. In this market, you must have an opinion—and based on that, you must have a strategy. Develop that into a communication, as if you were writing a letter to a cherished client. Now turn that into a video script. (Yes, all wealth services should be customized to the individual, but there’s always significant broad-based information that clients can learn from.)

When it comes to shooting the video, leave it to your platform partners or outsourced marketing resources to create the entire package. Being independent never means you need to do everything yourself; it means you have the freedom to work with the best in the business. Your video production is no exception.

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