Getting buy in to your recommendations
I recently chatted with an advisor who complained of difficulty getting clients to buy into his recommendations.
We all know the expression “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
This speaks to the fact that we can talk to existing and prospective clients all we want about our recommendations, but a couple of well chosen graphs and charts can dwarf the impact of any number of words.
That’s why whenever possible, recommendations should be supported by a couple of well chosen charts and graphs.
This is especially true when using structured telephone reviews to supplement face to face meetings. Structured phone meetings may lack some of the personal connection of a face to face meeting so don’t replace meetings entirely, but they tend to be more focused and also avoid having to ask clients to fight traffic and part to come to your office.
To be effective though, you have to establish a visual connection when discussing statements, reviewing portfolios or making recommendations. You can email this beforehand for clients to refer to.
As a better alternative, more and more advisors are payng $15 monthly to subscribe to web meeting sites like gotomeeting.com, Microsoft line or Webex - these allow you to email clients a link, when clients click on it, you control their computer and you can walk them through a powerpoint presentation or other visuals.
As another example of the power of graphics to present date in a compelling fashion, a site called www.gapminder.org does a remarkable job of depicting economic progress going back to 1800 – this may be worth sharing with clients.
It shows how life expectancy and income per person have evolved each year from 1800 to the present and makes for compelling viewing – especially when you see how China and India stagnated initially but have been playing catch up of late.
Click below to see that chart:
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