Three Things Great Advisors Do
There are three big differences between good advisors and great advisors. And these three things are important to remind yourself every day so that you can continue to incrementally get better. That's what I'm trying to do. I know that focusing on the right things and making small improvements each day compound over time to really produce amazing results.
I’m going to share the three things that truly great advisors do that cause them to achieve high levels of success in their business. But before I do, it's important to realize the table stakes that every advisor must have: that is the knowledge and the capability to provide real financial advice to clients.
Put the Client First
This first difference that makes a great advisor may seem like another fundamental expectation that all advisors should have, but from what I've seen in the industry, it's not. And if you can do this right, many other parts of your business, things like marketing and sales and operations, all that can become easier. And it's simply caring first for your client, putting your client first and highly prioritizing their need.
Doing so makes marketing easier because marketing and sales are simply communicating in a way that attracts your ideal prospects to you and then offers your service to them. So, if you can care for your clients and really understand them, speak their language, they'll become more interested in talking with you. Truly caring for your clients is also going to give you more purpose in your work. Recently, I heard that fulfillment is using your unique strengths in service of other people. So, if you can come to work with a sense of serving others, it might bring more life satisfaction too.
Focus on What the Client Needs, Not What You Can Do
Great advisors focus on their client's problems, not on themselves. I've heard a lot of first meetings with advisors, and it's amazing to see the number of advisors who open the meeting by saying, let me tell you a little bit about me and my firm before we get started.
I understand it because you want the prospective client to feel comfortable. You want to be reputable. You want to have some credibility before you start possibly giving advice. But it's not needed. They're already comfortable enough to show up to either an introductory call or an intro meeting. Rather than focus on you and what your credentials are, focus on them and really discover what their problems are.
Successful advisors take the time to truly understand the client. By doing so, they enter into the conversation that the clients are already having in their own mind. That's pretty powerful. After working with retirees for so long, we know a lot of the things that they care about and a lot of the problems that they're facing. Before they even start to tell us, we probably know what their problems are and we probably know how to solve them. I could actually start the meeting by listing out the problems and how to solve them. But it's more powerful if we can be a part of that self-discovery process with the prospective client. That really builds rapport and helps them feel understood, which is essential.
Communicate Effectively
Now you might be wondering, how do I communicate our solutions or my expertise so that they know that I can solve their problem? It’s not by credentials and it's not in unveiling the product, systems, or services. It's actually through stories and anecdotes. And this is the third thing that successful advisors do: they know how to communicate effectively. I’m going to give you a specific way to improve this in your business at the end of this post.
The unfortunate thing is that prospects don't pick the best advisor or the smartest advisor. They go with the one who can communicate the best, the one who they can understand the best or the fastest. The best advisors are able to communicate in a way that their clients understand. Let's make it so that more of the best advisors––that's you, the ones who have the technical chops, the ones who care about their clients––are also the best communicators so that more people want to work with you. What you and I don't want is the sales guy or gal to win just because they're an amazing communicator, but they care more about the money than about helping people. We need more great advisors out there.
If you're interested in how to become a better communicator and how to create, and then increase, your value in the mind of your prospect, not by changing anything, but just how you communicate what you're doing, check out the Advisor Value Formula. It's a free video training that I put together and gives you a lot of specific ways to increase the perceived value in your prospect's mind.
