Five steps to high impact client meetings
Given last year’s markets, today’s number one priority for most advisors is to have as many face to face and phone meetings with clients as possible.Just talking to clients isn’t good enough, however. To get maximum return on your time, every conversation with clients has to achieve two goals.
First, conversations have to be seen by clients as advancing their needs and being a good use of their time.
And second, conversations have to advance your agenda with investors, taking advantage of the best business opportunities with each client.
Here are five steps to make meetings a good use of times for both you and your clients.Step One: Use a written agenda
In conversations with investors and advisors, there’s one activity that has a high correlation with achieving both of these goals – and that’s the use of a written agenda.
Advisors who consistently make use of written agendas report that they make meetings more productive and help them stay on track.
Just slapping an agenda down in front of the meeting isn’t enough, though – to get full value, there are a few key steps that need to be put in place around that agenda.
Start with the end in mind
In “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, Stephen Covey talked about “starting with the end in mind” – looking at every activity in the context of the outcome that’s ultimately desired.
When it comes to crafting agendas, advisors need to start with the end in mind as well. Before calling a key client to set up a meeting, you need to identify the one or two most significant business opportunities that are available to you with that client – and then identify a primary and secondary goal for that meeting to capitalize on them.
Once you’ve identified your primary and secondary business goal and in advance of picking up the phone to talk to the client about the meeting you’re proposing, write down the specific issues you’re going to suggest covering in the meeting that will help you achieve your primary and secondary goal.
Step Two: Get client buy in to the agenda
The next step is to discuss the agenda with the client, so that they see this as their agenda rather than yours.
When the client has agreed to meet, you could say something like: “There are a number of issues I’d like to cover in our meeting. Before I talk about those, what are the questions and issues you’d like to talk about when we meet?”
At the end of the conversation, you should have an agenda that reflects the issues that both you and your client want to cover. Email that agenda to your client as a follow up to your conversation – and consider emailing it again as a reminder in the days immediately before you meet.
Step Three: Deal with soft issues before hard issues
As a general rule, your agenda will focus on hard issues related to a client’s investment, tax or insurance situation or their financial plan.
It’s obviously important to deal with these. Very often, however, in order to get clients to focus on the hard issues on the agenda, you have to deal with their soft issues first – these days, those soft issues often focus around their fears, anxieties and apprehensions.
Here’s one way to consider starting a meeting to get at a client’s soft issues:
“Here’s the agenda that we’re going to be covering today.
Before we get into this, however, some people report that last year’s markets caused them to lose some sleep. Tell me, how did you find yourself affected by last year’s markets?”
If the client responds that they lost some sleep and experienced some anxiety as well, resist the temptation to leap in with an immediate response. Instead, sit back and say the five words that, more than any others, will help clients talk further: “Tell me more about that.”
Asking the question in this fashion gives clients permission to talk about their own anxiety and opens the door to a discussion about how they really feel.
Step Four: Practice the 50 – 50 rule
One of the most important steps to productive client meetings is consistent use of the 50 – 50 rule.
Quite simply, for every 50 words you say in a client meeting, your client should say 50. Research on this subject is absolutely definitive – the one factor, more than any other, that gets clients saying that a meeting was a good use of time, was the amount of time they spend talking.
If you don’t believe this, consider this simple fact. Over the years, I’ve talked to many investors who say that one of the things they like best about their advisor is that he or she is a “great listener.” I have yet to run into an investor who says that the reason they like their advisor is because he or she is a “great talker.”
The best way to get clients engaged and participating in a meeting is to be sure to ask lots of good questions.
And the best way to ensure you ask good questions?
Take five minutes before a meeting to go through the agenda and beside each point write down questions you’re going to ask. Do that and that alone and your chances of having the 50 – 50 rule work for you goes up dramatically.
Step Five: Translate the agenda into client outcomes
At the end of the conversation, the agenda has helped guide you through the meeting.
At this point, take the time to verbally summarize what you’ve talked about and next steps from the meeting.
For larger clients with whom you’re meeting two or three times a year, you could also say something along the lines of “I found today’s meeting very productive and hope you did also. I’d like to suggest that we plan to meet again in about six months. Tell me, what specific issues would you like to devote more time to at that meeting?”
You have one final opportunity to remind clients that the meeting was a good use of time. Most advisors systematically create meeting notes, summarizing what was talked about and outlining next steps arising from each meeting. Consider creating a “client friendly” version of this summary – and sending it along to clients as a reminder of the things you talked about and the value they obtained from taking the time to meet.
Consider building a systematic process around written agendas into your meeting planning routine. If you’re like most advisors I’ve talked to, once you’ve tried this for a while, chances are you’ll be pleasantly surprised about the positive impact this has on the value and productivity of client meetings.
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