Start the New Year Right

I realize that discussing New Year's resolutions is so passe that it seems a waste of time. Everyone does it and no one follows through. However, this can be the year you decide to take your business to the next level. Whether you are a financial advisor, team leader or manager you can make some decisions now that can guarantee significantly better growth in the coming year.

1. If you haven't already done so, begin by reviewing your account activity for 2010. Who were your best accounts? Who gave the best and most referrals? Who took a lot of your time but gave nothing in return? In short, analyze your business.

2. Determine what you want to achieve in 2011 and create a plan to achieve it. Remember to set no more than three goals and make them realistic [no one knows you better than you do]. Then establish milestones to measure your progress along the way.

3. Determine what obstacles you will face and the resources you will need to overcome those obstacles and achieve your goals [e.g., your best clients from last year can often be your most important resource to help achieve this year's goals].

4. Discuss your goals with your manager, team members or a friendly rival in the office who will hold you accountable for following your plan.

Now, follow your plan to a more successful you. If you need help, consider hiring a business development coach. If you decide to work with a coach, get their help in setting your goals and get your manager to sign off on them. In addition, if you do a fair amount of business with any given money manager, get them to sign off on the goals as well. More and more money managers are willing to reimburse you for up to half of the cost of your coach if you achieve or exceed goals to which they and your manager have agreed [Note: many firms will reimburse the other half]. Good luck and have a great year. Thanks. kfg

Valuing Your Teammates

With both the season of giving and the end of the year upon us, this seems like a good time to discuss ways in which we value our teammates. Whether your team consists of only yourself and your sales assistant / secretary [ignoring, of course all of the other support people who make your success possible], or includes partner(s) and other associates, this is a great time to really examine the many ways they have contributed to your success in the past year and to communicate genuine appreciation for all their hard work.

Today seems more than ever to reflect the "ME" generation. As if each of us is solely responsible for our successes and someone else is solely responsible for our failures. A brief review of all the things others do to help free our time and attention so that we can focus our strengths on what's most important now, might help us to recognize where we would be if all of our successes really did depend solely upon our personal efforts.

So, with Christmas right around the corner, take a moment to thank each person who has affected your business this year [e.g., referral sources, administrative staff, the bond specialist on the other side of the country who helped you solve a client's problem, the compliance staff who's timely intervention helped you avoid a costly mistake, etc.]. A card, a small gift, in some cases a check or even just a few minutes of your time won't cost much but can have a real impact on their work and motivation in the coming year. Remember, communicating to someone that you value them is the single most important message you ever send. Have a Merry Christmas and a very successful 2011. Thanks. kfg

Coaching / Counseling Employees

Whether you manage a single team or an entire office of employees, you need to meet at least yearly with each of them to counsel about their performance. How you approach this task as well as how you communicate your observations and judgments of the employee's performance / behavior will have a major impact upon how they respond. This problem occurs most often when the manager focuses more on the specifics of the performance than on the employee.

Although most employees have enough survival instinct to respond positively on the surface to negative feedback, they may be defensive and resentful underneath and express that reaction once the interview is completed. That kind of response rarely leads to positive change and can result in poorer rather than improved performance following the interview. Worse, since people tend to complain to at least a dozen people when they are unhappy, it can even poison the atmosphere within the team or office. In fact, research completed by the Gallup organization demonstrated that if negative employees have actual contact with clients or prospects their negative feelings can result in the loss of those clients [see, Rath & Clifton, How Full is Your Bucket?].

To improve positive results when coaching or counseling an employee, consider using three effective tools as part of the process:

1. Determine first the reason for any substandard performance. Was it a matter of their not knowing how to complete the work properly? If so, get them the needed training. Was their performance substandard because of obstacles they couldn't overcome? If so, consider the possibility that removing those obstacles might be your job. Finally, was the problem a lack of motivation? If so, discuss it with them and try to determine the cause. Then develop an effective process to help the employee maintain motivation. Remember, one size DOES NOT fit all. What motivates you may not motivate them.

2. Negotiate expectations with the employee instead of just dictating demands. Demands almost always result in defensiveness and resistance. A negotiated settlement requires the employee to own the outcome and take responsibility for all future results.

3. Follow a few simple rules-of-thumb for giving feedback. For example, praise in public but rebuke in private.

As managers, when we focus primarily on performance rather than the individual we can actually hurt rather than help future results. Focus first on the individual and then on the specifics of the performance. For a free PDF copy of my article, "Tips for Coaching and Counseling Employees", go to my website at www.GretzConsultingGroup.com and register as a member.

Holiday Prospecting

The holidays are upon us. While many advisors find themselves busy helping clients make last minute adjustments for tax purposes, others seem to find themselves with too much time on their hands. This is a tremendous time of year to expand your prospecting pipeline in a powerful way.

Attend as many holiday gatherings as possible that will also be attended by some of your best clients. While there, socialize with them and ask them to introduce you to people you don't know. Note: this should be low key. Don't shove your card at anyone unless they ask. Obtain names and information you can use later, but be sociable rather than business oriented. If the opportunity arises, introduce your clients to each other and to individuals who might be able to help them in some way. This can create a tremendous amount of good will on both sides.

Successful financial advisors tell me that some of their best contacts have been made at this time of year and in just this way. Good luck. kfg

Working With Large Clients

Research by several major financial firms has demonstrated that a single financial advisor is able to provide Ritz Carlton level service to only about 100 client households and still spend 20 percent of their time prospecting to build their business. If you're focusing on client households with $1 million or more to invest, you already know that they expect only the best service and will go somewhere else if they don't get it. Despite this, a remarkable number of financial advisors fail to create a formal, consistent client service program to meet the needs of these clients.

If your / your team's client service is less consistent that it should be,there are several easy steps you can take to improve it:
1. Discuss the "best" service you are currently providing to one or more of your clients and write down everything you do for them, the frequency with which you do it, and its cost in time and effort for your team.
2. Once you've written it all down, organize it in terms of when and how you provide the various services and specifically whom on the team provides each service.
3. Is there a specific schedule for each service (e.g., quarterly review of their financial plan or portfolio performance)? If so, be sure to include that when describing the service.
4. How does each client respond to each service [what thrills one client might only elicit a yawn from another]? If you don't know, ASK!
5. Are there services your clients would like that you don't currently provide? If you don't know, ASK! Can you provide these services? Will it be worth your time and effort to do so?
6. Now that you have a complete list of services and their cost in time, effort and money, do an analysis to determine if you can really afford them. If you can't [e.g., they take too much time], you may wish to consider adding another advisor and/or sales assistant to your team, cut back on some of the services or reduce the number of your clients.
7. Now that you have a list of all the services you're prepared to provide, create an SOP [standard operating procedure]for those services to guarantee that they're provided in a consistent manner. Remember, inconsistent quality of service can be worse than mediocre service.

In #6, above, we suggested the possibility that you might wish to reduce the number of your clients (i.e., give up a million dollar client). Sounds crazy, doesn't it. However, at one time or another, we've all had at least one large client who was more trouble than he was worth. Super demanding of our time and effort, often unappreciative of our efforts and sometimes not very friendly at all these clients can be a great source of stress for the team. If you are managing one hundred or more large client households the odds are near 100 percent that you have at least one or more of these clients. Discuss it with your team and then seriously consider offering them to another advisor. The time and effort you save will enable you to quickly replace these individuals while making it easier to provide better and more consistent service to your other clients. Don't risk losing good clients by wasting time on bad clients. Thanks and good luck. kfg

Its All a Matter of Rapport

What is "rapport" and why should you care? Have you ever had two meetings with a prospect or client and one of the meetings went very well and the other failed? If so, the odds are that you were in rapport with your client in the good meeting and out of rapport during the bad meeting. Of all the definitions of rapport, I think the easiest to understand is simply being "in sync" with the other person. When we're in sync, we feel that we have a lot in common with the other person -- they're just like us. It lets us both be comfortable and open up to each other.

Most people respond somewhat negatively to sales situations. For example, when you go to a store and a clerk offers to help you, do you ever find yourself saying, "No thank you. I'm just looking," even though you entered the store with every intention of making a purchase? We all have. Its called natural sales resistance.

The key to overcoming that resistance when working with a client or prospect is to focus on helping them to identify, define and achieve their financial goals. Then, rather than trying selling yourself or a product, just LISTEN. Whenever you give someone your undivided attention, your unconscious will naturally work to place you in rapport with the way they think, speak and make decisions. That rapport will open doors and reduce resistance to the solutions you offer to their needs. In the end, any successful relationship is just a matter of rapport. Thanks and good luck. kfg

Why You Should Ask for Referrals

Many of the financial advisors I meet with each week hate to ask for referrals. Some feel that it makes them look like they're begging while others fear rejection, and still others think it might make them look as though they are intrusive. This is particularly unfortunate because the most successful advisors in the industry use referrals as their primary source of new QUALIFIED prospects.

When you receive a referral from an existing, qualified client, the chances that the referral is also qualified are close to 100 percent. Think about that. No risk. In addition, there is no better form of advertising than a third party endorsement, especially from a satisfied client. If you call someone to whom your current client has spoken to about you, you are already through the most difficult part of the prospecting process. They already know you're competent, honest, trustworthy, loyal, etc., etc., etc. Now its just a matter of establishing rapport and demonstrating that you can solve their specific needs.

Of course, we're still back to the question, "But, will my clients give me a referral?" Too many FAs are afraid that asking for a referral will appear an imposition to their clients and offend them. Yet, firms such as UBS Financial Services, Hilliard Lyons and Merrill Lynch conduct client satisfaction surveys on a regular basis and report that, on average, over 80 percent of clients surveyed reported that they would be happy to provide a referral, if asked. I repeat, over 80 PERCENT of clients said they would be happy to provide a referral if, asked. Its up to you. So, ASK! Thanks and good luck. kfg