“In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment". ~ Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin would love financial advisors today. In October 1838 Charles Darwin thought of a way in which one species could change into another. He noticed that individual members of a species vary. Furthermore, all animals are competing to survive. If the environment changed in some way, say if a new, faster predator appeared then any herbivores that could run slightly faster than other members of its species would be more likely to survive and reproduce. Any herbivores that ran slightly slower than most would be more likely to be eaten. Slowly a new, faster h...

By: Bill Bachrach www.billbachrach.com

There are critical conversations necessary to engage people in ways that predictably turn leads into prospects, prospects into clients, clients into people who take action on your advice, happily pay you for planning and advice, and refer you to their friends, family, and colleagues.

These conversations are easy to understand but hard to master. Many FAs have a basic level of ability with these conversations, but this article is about elevating from basic ability to virtuoso skillfulness. Consider what could happen to the quality of your client service and the value of your business when you can artfully engage anyone, any time, and anywhere.

Critical Conversation #1: Mastery of the first conversation.

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Top advisors manage their capacity by taking more time off. They have the systems and processes in place with their staff to service clients and manage expectations. They have the processes to deliver comprehensive services and do regular feedback to meet and exceed expectations. They are great at delegating and building processes such as client checklists, service checklists and follow up checklists to meet and exceed expectations and have a way of articulating their value that clients understand. They have practised it, over and over and use it consistently to service their ideal clients. They focus their time and energy on the things that bring value to their ideal clients and delegate the rest. Then they take more time off. Remember...

Have you ever been to a meeting that took more time than necessary? How can you make your meetings more productive, while enhancing your client experience? How can you demonstrate value in your progress update meetings? In working with Business Health and their client survey tool, Ray Henderson of Business Health in Australia suggests that clients surveyed in several countries around the world by their financial advisor sometimes do not see value in the review process www.businesshealth.com.au Why is there a disconnect between what the advisor delivers and what the client sees as a valuable use of their time?

It starts with an agenda In my workshops with financial advisors, it all starts by having a solid agenda for your existing ideal ...

Why would financial advisors offer more? More value, more services, more advice? This will take time, effort and will cost more. After all, they are happy with me and appreciate what we do. Why would you want to do more?

Who is your competition? In today's competitive environment, can you confidently make that argument with your top 25 clients? Do you do annual feedback and total transparency with your ideal clients? Unless you do feedback on an annual basis, is your business at risk? I know that 85% of advisors don’t do feedback (Business Health Pty Ltd. Key Value Drivers USA 2016 www.businesshealth.com.au ) so if your one of the 15% who do it annually, congratulations. If you also do total transparency, in other words, show the ...

Every wealthy client usually has a financial advisor. But do these wealthy ( potentially ideal prospects) get comprehensive advice and planning, or just money management. We all know that some of the wealthy are lacking planning and advice, the problem is, they don't know it. Until now. in my workshops with financial advisors, it seems every advisor has a tremendous opportunity to acquire more wealthy clients from their competition. That is because when I ask most advisors these five questions, rarely is anyone doing all five things with their ideal clients.

The five questions to ask a wealthy prospect are:

Organized and planned -Would it be valuable to have your financial life completely organized and planned out in the following six area...

The real risk is not reaching your goals, especially if there is no clear plan to get there. Performance won’t matter, asset allocation won’t matter, and the best products won’t matter if clients don’t reach their goals. Do you do goals-based planning with your ideal clients? A big challenge for people is to clearly define their future on paper. A crucial role of a financial advisor is to help their ideal clients get a deeper sense of clarity around their future. So how do you do that? In my workshops with financial advisors, I ask two questions in relation to their own personal goals. First look at the list below and tell me how many goals you personally have? The answer is usually 5 or more, and about a third o...

Do your ideal clients know all the services that you offer? Imagine walking into a restaurant, and after getting seated, the host rips the menu in half and says” enjoy your meal”. Do you want the whole menu or just half of it? Your ideal clients, which are your best clients want the whole menu. They delegate everything to you and are “all in” when it comes to comprehensive planning and advice. The clients who only want to use part of your services are NEVER going to be your ideal clients, so stop hoping they become one someday. Imagine having two doctors you trust that compete with one another, one doctor for the top half of my body and one doctor for the bottom half. Sounds crazy to most, yet so many advisors acc...

Do you get valuable information that you need when meeting with an ideal prospect?

Financial advisors spend time getting a meeting with a potential ideal prospect, only to find the prospect is very reluctant to share information with them until they prove themselves. It puts the advisor on the hot seat to answer questions that the prospect has. Questions such as, “What can I expect when I work with you? What does it cost? How are you different from my current advisor?”

While these questions are important to a prospect and answered when speaking about your value promise, they don’t help an advisor determine if this is an ideal prospect.

The opposite approachThe client thinks that the advisor has to impress or prove themselv...

How do I acquire more ideal clients starting today?
What is the best process to find them?
What is a simple way to implement immediately to grow my business?

Monday morning when you go to your calendar and you don’t see a lot of potential new ideal clients, what do you do? I would start by setting up appointments with some of your ideal clients, either for a progress update meeting or for a coffee. The goal here is to help people in other areas of their lives and become the quarterback and meet new centers of influence.

How many centers of influence do you work with for favorable introductions or give you referrals? Do they know how to do favorable introductions and have a process? This may be an opportunity! Would you like more? In y...