You may be doing it wrong.
Think about your last presentation to an important prospect, such as a retirement plan, foundation, endowment or personal trustee. What was your message? Chances are you may have used fear, uncertainty or doubt to influence them (three factors sometimes taken together as “FUD.”) You’d know if you said things like this:
“Do you know that you may be held personally liable for shortfalls and omissions to your fiduciary process?”
That’s fear.
“I’m not sure your decision-making process will measure up to fiduciary standards.”
That’s uncertainty.
“Your current advisor has not acknowledged fiduciary responsibility, and may not be putting your interests first.”
That’s doubt.
I recently read the book Selling to the C-suite by Nicholas A.C. Read and Stephen J. Bistritz (published by McGraw-Hill).
The title, referring to a company’s chief officers, attracted my attention because I’ve been looking at ways advisors should broaden and deepen the relationships they have with their key institutional clients. They need to be a trusted advisor to the highest-level executives, not just members of the investment committee. The book also talks about using fear, uncertainty and doubt as the “old-school” style of marketing, an approach no longer welcomed nor effective with key decision-makers. They want you to bring solutions, not additional problems.
The authors conducted three studies between 1999 and 2005 with key executives from both the U.S. and Asia, asking each to identify the factors critical for building credibility with the executive suite. They found 13 factors, but I can reduce the number to nine, since four factors could simply be categorized as “understanding the executive’s business.”
The nine necessary factors I’ve identified, in order of importance, are the advisor’s:
1. Ability to marshal resources.
2. Understanding of the client’s business.
3. Responsiveness to client requests.
4. Willingness to be held accountable.
5. Ability to solve problems.
6. Ability to work well with client’s staff.
7. Industry knowledge.
8. Track record of accomplishments.
9. Length of time on the job.
If you’ve been following my articles lately, you might have seen me focus more on leadership and effective decision-making than on fiduciary responsibility. I believe that the only way we’re going to restore the public’s trust in the financial services industry is through a greater emphasis on leadership and stewardship. More rules and regulations, even if they are tied to fiduciary standards, will have minimal impact.
When you take the nine factors identified in the studies and superimpose them on a graph in which “Leadership” is the x-axis, and “Decision-making” is the y-axis, the result is what you see in Figure 1.
The Wages Of Fear
February 6, 2013
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