Tapping into a key hot button with prospective clients
Experienced advisors know the importance of identifying and responding to the emotions that drive client behavior – of tailoring the way they interact to each client’s hot buttons.
I recently interviewed an investor who talked to three different advisors before selecting one to work with.
”I asked all three of them about the most important thing they focused on and what set them apart” he said.
”The first two gave me the standard bumpff about understanding and responding to client needs” he said.
The third advisor – and the one he went – gave an entirely different response.
Here ’s how the investor put it: “The third advisor I talked to said that he organized his whole practice and everything he did with the single goal of simplifying his clients’ lives.
“And that really resonated with me – I realized as soon as he said it that this was what I was looking for.”
This investor is far from unique in seeking to simplify his life – many Canadians feel overwhelmed by all the competing demands on our time and energy. As a result, in choosing the professionals we work with, we often seek out those who will reduce stress and complexity, not add to it.
I talked about simplifying clients’ lives in a post last year, based on a new book called “The Paradox of Choice” which argued that consumers are drowning in choice, often leading to stress, frustration and paralysis of decision making.
I emphasized the importance of things like simple point form agendas and short executive summaries at the front of financial plans to help address this. You can read the full post here: http://www.strategicimperatives.ca/blog/?p=50
It’s also important to simplify clients’ lives when it comes to communication.
When I interview investors today, I often see a contradiction – in light of the market events of last year, they almost always want more communication.
At the same time, they want better communication – they often talk about wanting less communication that’s not directly relevant to their needs and more that’s tailored to their specific situation.
One US advisor has all her clients sorted by the investments they own. If there’s ever something about a specific investment she wants to send, a change, an important development, a new piece of communication on that investment, she can quickly and easily email it to the relevant clients and only the relevant clients.
You also need to be able to tailor communication on personal information that’s a hot button for clients – for example hobbies and interests. favourite charities or the age of children and grandchildren
I recently received an email from an advisor looking for help on this – she and her team had extensive notes on each client buried in their CRM, but were frustrated by the difficulty of extracting this information to act on it.
If you share this frustration, I suggest a three step process.
First pick one type of information – say hobbies and interests.
Having done that, break hobbies and interests down into the most common types – examples could include cooking and gardening, playing golf or tennis, running, biking, working out. Other categories could include travelling, playing bridge or poker or spectator sports like football, basketball, baseball, hockey.
You then set up a spot in your contact management system where you tick off which hobbies pertain to each client, so that you can easily retrieve the list of clients that like to travel or play tennis for example. Note that you don’t need an expensive CRM system to do this – you could do this in an inexpensive off the shelf program like ACT or Maximizer or in the Access program that comes with Office.
Finally, make it the focus for you and your team for the next quarter, say from September to November, to capture information on this one issue about all your meaningful clients.
The goal is quite simple: At the end of ninety days, you will have the capability to email clients information about information that’s relevant to their needs.
That’s step one – to collect the relevant information on one key dimension on all important clients.
Of course, that information is only useful if you do something for it.
Step two is to start proactively thinking whenever they read an article about whether this is this something you could send to some of your clients? In fact you could set a goal of finding one article a month that could go to relevant clients.
Finally come step three: At the end of November, you now pick a second area to focus on for the next quarter – say favourite charity.
By selecting one area per quarter, you focus, avoid being overwhelmed and increase the odds of it happening.
And in the process, you increase your capability to simplify clients’ lives by tailoring the information they receive to their specific situation.
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