|
Do Your Ideal Clients
Know All of the Services that You Offer?
Ideal clients and prospects trust you like you and are
all in on your services and advice. They are people who want more
than just performance and money management. They simplify their life
by having a majority of their financial lives with you and your firm.
They want goals-based planning and advice in all 7 areas including
tax, estate, risk, investment, insurance, debts, and cash flow. The
key is do they know about all of the services you deliver?
Your Ideal Clients Want
All of Your Services
Imagine walking into a restaurant, and after getting
seated, the host rips the menu in half and says” enjoy your meal”. Do
you want the whole menu or just half of it? Your ideal clients, which
are your best clients want the whole menu. They delegate everything
to you and are “all in” when it comes to comprehensive planning and
advice. The clients who only want to use part of your services are
NEVER going to be your ideal clients, so stop hoping they become one
someday. Imagine having two doctors you trust that compete with one
another, one doctor for the top half of my body and one doctor for
the bottom half. Sounds crazy to most, yet so many advisors accept
the fact people have two financial advisors. People want to find
someone they ultimately trust, and if they cannot ultimately trust
you, they never will be ideal. When they trust you, they want to know
all your services. So, do you have a checklist of comprehensive
services in the seven key areas of planning? The seven areas are tax,
estate, risk management, insurance, investment, debt, and cash flow.
Are you doing comprehensive planning and comprehensive advice in all
six areas, with an internal or external team or network? It is
difficult to know all seven areas and stay on top of it, that is why
you need to put a comprehensive team around your best clients to
deliver. Once you have the process, then plan on articulating it with
a checklist of all the services you deliver and what I get in each of
the six areas to achieve my goals as an ideal client of yours. I have
several great samples of a comprehensive checklist of services. Check
out what a family office does for comprehensive planning and advice
services and consider creating a “mini- family office of services”.
Do a Fee Audit
Do investors understand the total cost of investing and
advice? Consider completing a fee audit on a prospects portfolio and
financial plan. Over the last five years, look at the total amount of
fees they paid and look at the tangible (dollar gains, tax planning
gains, estate planning gains, advice gains) benefits they received.
Then list the intangible benefits they received, such as peace of
mind, comfort, simplicity, and trust. This can be part of your
detailed process to outline your measurable and immeasurable client
benefits to prospects. I always ask advisors “Tell me how much income
tax you potentially saved last year with your top client?” In my
workshops with financial advisors, I rarely get an answer to that
question. Are you telling me that you cannot quantify your value in dollar
terms? Build a process that gives your clients and prospects a
forward-based, five years estimated cost and potential benefits to
help you quantify the value of your advice. Use a checklist of
benefits to compare what they are currently getting and not getting,
to help the prospect understand what they are paying for. Make sure
they understand the total cost, in dollar terms and percentages by
highlighting it on the bottom of the fee audit checklist page.
Build Your Process with
Feedback, Value, and Transparency to Get an Edge on the Client
Experience.
Now when you sit down with prospects consider this
exercise and discussion. Ask “Can I do a fee audit for you to help
you understand how fees impact your planning and the total cost in
dollars and percentages? Would it be valuable for you to understand
the total cost of what you are paying, what you get for those fees,
and what you do not get? “Look at the estimated total fees over the
last five years that they have paid and quantify them in a dollar-cost
as well as a percentage. With a prospect, look at the starting
investment amount five years ago and the ending investment amount
today, including withdrawals. Then ask about the planning processes
they have completed, including tax planning, estate planning, and
financial planning and ask to see the documents. This exercise will
help you with your value discussion, but more importantly, showing
prospects the total cost, in dollars and percentages, and help them
understand the total that they are paying. It will also show complete
transparency with benefits and will show your prospect instant and
tangible benefits of working with you, especially if their current
advisor has no process for showing their planning processes, total
fees and total transparency if they show any fees for advice. It will
also allow you to discuss your value of your planning processes and
your progress update meetings to keep them on track.
Key Prospecting
Discussion
Get in a habit of people you come across every day if
they understand the fees they are paying. Ask them to explain the
fees as they understand it. Then ask” would you be open for me to do
a fee audit for the last five years to help you understand the cost
(or fees) and benefits? I ask because we do this for our clients, so
they understand the measurable benefits of our advice along with our
immeasurable benefits that our planning offers such as peace of mind
and simplicity of their financial life. Our clients appreciate more
comprehensive planning advice through our comprehensive checklist of
services. Would you like to see a copy of our checklist? Our clients
have comfort knowing we have a comprehensive process that ensures you
are taken care of, so they can go on and enjoy the things that are
important to them”. Now you have the start of a process to discuss
your differences with prospects.
Practice Makes Perfect
Do you have scripts that you use with prospects and
practice them with someone to give you feedback? Do you have a clear
detailed process for making your client’s fee ready? If not, who is
helping you who has a proven process to help you get there? Find someone
who has a proven process and has the time to help you get there. It
is not just about content, but it is about practice. Who is helping
you practice your scripts? Do you record your practice sessions?
Imagine if the “Rolling Stones” band never practiced and only
recorded once? Do you record your meetings with your client’s
permission? Find a coach, mentor or manager who can help you build
your process and help you practice your communication skills to
articulate your value. Now go out and practice your fee audit
conversation, build your process for converting prospects and
providing measurable and immeasurable value to your new clients.
What is a Comprehensive
Financial and Investment Plan?
One final comment. In my workshops with financial
advisors, I always ask a veteran advisor, “in twenty plus years, how
many comprehensive financial and investment plans in writing have you
seen from your competitors?” The answer is usually less than 5 quality
plans in 20 years. My mission is simple, “Coaching financial advisors
to create 10,000 comprehensive financial and investment plans for
their ideal clients”. Ask your clients and prospects this question "What does a
comprehensive financial and investment plan mean to you?" .
|
No comments:
Post a Comment