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Fast forward one year
Imagine you are meeting with one
of your top clients a year from now in 2024 for a progress update. Markets
are always volatile and bumpy, and their portfolio continues to be up or
down. What questions will they be asking you at this meeting? Am I going to
be OK? How am I on or off track in reaching my goals? How is my performance
giving me a high probability of success? Answering these questions clearly
for ideal clients is critical to your success better each year. Deliver
more value through more valuable and deeper more meaningful conversations.
I truly believe that this will separate successful advisors of the past,
from successful advisors of the future. This is where you can discuss the
probability of success in reaching ALL of your goals with your
comprehensive plans. You can show them on one page that they will be ok,
and the plans and strategies you put in place have not only kept them on
track, but your goals-based plan will continue to guide them to make better
decisions for their future. Here’s the problem. Most advisors don’t have a
goals-based plan to follow up on, which is why they wing the conversation.
Deliver more value by uncovering more goals. Wealthy people have changed
some of their major goals in life. You need to have deeper conversations to
help them.
Think back ten years ago
What was the value you delivered
10 years ago as a financial advisor? Now, what value add have you delivered
in the last few years? What about the future? Help ideal clients and
prospects accomplish more in their life, and life planning as well as goal
planning. How have your conversations changed to deliver more value? Do you
have legacy planning conversations, family conversations, clarity and goals
conversations, charitable conversations, and future family planning and
goals conversations? What are the names and types of conversations you have
with your ideal clients? Are you helping them get organized in all 7 areas
of their financial life? Do you coordinate their other professionals in
meetings and have powerful conversations with their accountant lawyer or
other professionals? Are you holding family legacy conversations? What is
your process to deliver more value this year and how will you articulate
and deliver that value this year?
Your words are powerful
You know your words are
powerful. You manage millions of dollars and have a deep level of trust.
Your words and communications are powerful. I recently practiced with
several advisors I coach on how to respond, what they were saying, and how
clients were reacting. Several advisors had a choppy response, they winged
it on the top of their heads, and when I asked them to repeat it they
couldn’t. Your conversations must be perfected.
You cannot wing it on Shark Tank (ABC TV Show) or Dragon’s Den (CBC TV)
What happens to people who wing
their answers on reality TV shows such as shark tank or dragons den? We
laugh and they exit the building, with a terrible experience. You cannot
wing it with your ideal clients and prospects. Have you communicated your
value-added conversations with your best clients and prospects? By email,
phone call, or both? Is it a proven script that shows confidence,
leadership, and direction? Have you communicated with both spouses or
partners? This was a big mistake I made in the past, and I don't want you
to make it. Clients and prospects will repeat your words, or stories to
family and friends, making you the most referable advisor. Think about it.
The easiest time to grow your business is when your competition is assuming
everything is fine. Your biggest benefit is managing human behavior, for it
is one of the biggest factors in managing wealth.
Communication plans
After reading this article, fast
forward to one year. You have delivered deeper conversations of value, with
a proven scripted process. You practice your script so you can articulate
it with belief and conviction. You can look back knowing you gave your
clients confidence, leadership, and direction and you acted continuously on
a comprehensive goals-based plan. You delivered valuable planning and
lifestyle conversations, estate and legacy conversations, and deeper family
conversations. Plan out who and when you are going to deliver more value.
Without a plan, who knows where your business will be in one year? Who
leads you as an advisor during these challenging times? Elite financial
professionals always turn to their coach or mentor to manage their
behavior.
What is Your Path to Success?
For financial advisors struggling to grow, they are on the path to
frustration and as one advisor told me, chaotic. How can you go from $500k
in revenue to over 1 million? What are the keys to your path to success?
Let’s examine your current path?
Ideal Clients Defined
Do you have a clear definition of what an ideal client is? How much revenue
do you want to generate for every ideal client, family or household? Is it
$5000 or $10,000 or $20,000 or more? Defining what your ideal revenue is
first. Then plan on delivering more value to those clients that pay you the
most, and you will gain confidence by delivering more to your best clients.
What Value Add Did You Deliver Last Year?
What are the value-added items did you deliver to your best clients last
year? Did you deliver a comprehensive estate plan in writing? Did you build
a legacy binder for them, or do a beneficiary audit? Did you give more
comprehensive planning and advice, or was it all about performance? What
are you going to deliver of great value this year? “Doing the same thing
over and over and expecting different results is Albert Einstein’s
definition of insanity. Deliver more value, means you are worth more. This
is how you are going to go from generating $5000 per client to eventually $10,000
to $20,000 or more revenue to you. ( Note I am not saying charging fees,
depending on your compensation, it is the revenue generated by assets,
fee-based commissions or other methods. This is up to you and your
firm.)
Measure Your Revenue
The number on thing advisors measure is their overall revenue. Divide your
total revenue by the number of clients, and you have your average revenue
per client. Now measure your top 10 revenue per client. This will help you
determine your ideal revenue per ideal client.
Measure the Number of Ideal Clients
How many ideal clients do you have now generating your ideal revenue per
client? If your ideal revenue per client is $30,000 and you have 20 clients
paying that, how many could you manage in a calendar year, if that is all
you did? If eventually all of your time was spent on ideal clients and
prospects, how many could you manage in a calendar year delivering more
value to each year? Usually, the number is 100 or less. Is this the path
you are currently on? Or are you just getting more and more clients and
less and less time?
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