The following was adapted from a Focus Session at this year’s 2022 Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) Annual Meeting, a four-day immersive experience where MDRT members heard and shared innovative strategies to enhance their client service and take their practice to the next-level.
BY TODD FITHIAN
As regulatory pressures have made traditional sales/transactional advising obsolete, planning is more critical than ever when it comes to engaging and serving clients. Behavioral planning is the model of the future for advising, as it not only takes client behavior into consideration but also the behaviors of you and your team. By implementing a behavioral-based planning methodology, you can stand out amongst the crowd of financial advisors.
To best meet the needs of the client, I implement the Legacy Advice Model designed by my company www.think-legacy.com. Within this model, there are three components you can use when engaging with clients:
1. Lead With Empathy
Empathy involves leading with a high level of deep responsibility and respect for the clients and the vision they have for their future. This calls for the need to slow down and truly listen with intent to learn. While some of us are naturally empathetic, many of us must be intentional about the way we interact with others to show we care. Not to say empathy doesn’t already exist in all of us, but you should revise how you value it, pull from it, and leverage its impact to build powerful client relationships.
Empathy allows you to learn what matters to clients and identify the experiences that shape their feelings. Introductory meetings are not the ideal time to be selling or explaining financial solutions; instead focus on an emotional understanding and building a baseline knowledge of the person’s needs. Learning to lead with empathy differentiates you from your competitors, although you must commit to enhancing your skills until this approach becomes habit.
2. Seek to Understand
Understanding means gaining awareness and appreciation for circumstances that impact a client through a qualitative discovery process — going beyond traditional fact finding. Gathering data is critical, and it’s where advisors can think beyond the norm. Your client-facing moments should center around what they want, rather than viewing the meetings as transactional. You can take time after listening to their story to decide what is needed to achieve it.
Leading with empathy and seeking to understand client motivations are powerful ways to develop strong relationships with clients. By developing a strong awareness of the client’s needs and circumstances, clients will learn to trust you as a reliable source for their needs.
3. Planning with Combined Data
Planning is about bringing quantitative and qualitative analysis, assessments, modeling and forecasting together. This is where things get interesting. Much of the qualitative knowledge comes from the empathy and understanding phases of the model, and it becomes extremely powerful when combined with quantitative analysis. However, most planning today is often highly quantitatively focused. It’s important not to lose focus on the qualitative data when beginning to investigate which products meet the needs of your client. Instead, combine the financial history research and the emotional ties of your client when developing a plan.
These three components allow advisors to deliver actionable advice that leads to appropriate product selection. Sometimes, we can get ahead of ourselves and only focus on the data presented to us. This can be off-putting to clients and lead to lost connections. The Legacy Advice Model is designed to lower consumer tension and allow time and space for clarity on the client’s desires before finding a solution.
At first, this may seem like a time-consuming addition to your process. But as this approach becomes habitual, the overall time spent with each client will be reduced. You’ll have a holistic understanding of the client’s needs from the beginning, making them more receptive to your recommendations. When clients don’t trust their advisor, advice is less likely to be effective, as clients don’t feel confident in the advisor’s decisions.
I frequently think back to a quote by Carl Buehner, “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” Financial advising is a relationship business, so creating a relational experience as you sell and serve is the factor that can set you apart from your competitors.
Leading with empathy and seeking to understand client motivations are powerful ways to develop strong relationships with clients. By developing a strong awareness of the client’s needs and circumstances, clients will learn to trust you as a reliable source for their needs.
TODD FITHIAN is an author, speaker, and industry thought leader on advisor growth. The kind of growth is predicated on the delivery of world-class advice, the most powerful client relationship, and the highest levels of trust.
Contact: think-legacy.com
888.649.4591
Email: todd@think-legacy.com
Listen to a podcast with Todd: “The Difference Between Advice and Planning”
www.becomingreferable.com/todd-fithian-difference-advice-planning/