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Why do most attempts at dieting result in failure? According to Weight Watchers – whose program has outperformed its competition over many years – it’s because of a lack of a good methodology or the right combination of discipline and incentives. The same is true of successful client prospecting, as a recent conversation with an advisor illustrated.
I’ve written about the need for even the most successful advisors to devote three hours a week to reaching out to prospective clients. One advisor recently sent me the following email:
“My business has been stalled for the past five years and I know I need to spend more time on prospecting,” he started. “I’ve tried everything but just can’t seem to get myself to make that happen. I wonder if you have any suggestions.”
In a short follow-up phone call, I asked what he’d done to build more prospecting time into his routine:
“I’ve read lots of books and articles and attended workshops on prospecting,” he said. “I’ve got tons of ideas, in fact almost too many. I’ve tried writing down my goals and reviewing them at the start of each week. I hired a coach for a while. But nothing seems to work – I start down a path, but then don’t see results, get discouraged and run out of steam.”
Let’s look at this advisor’s underlying problems, and the lessons that can be drawn from success in the weight-loss industry.
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Mismatching cost and benefits
This advisor is far from unique in his struggles. From our short chat on the telephone, my guess is that he suffers from the same problem that afflicts many clients.
Every advisor has clients who invest in safe, low-return investments that will sabotage their ability to achieve long-term goals. The reason they do this is the mismatch between the cost and the benefits of what they do. The volatility and pain of investing in stocks and risk of short-term loss is immediate, the benefit long-term. The benefit of being in cash is immediate, the cost long-term.
There’s been lots of research on the extent to which people discount long-term benefits and instead fixate on short term rewards; a classic example are students who go out for a beer with friends when they had planned to work on a paper due in a week’s time. That conflict between short-term benefits and long-term cost is true of many clients and it’s also applies to many advisors. The challenge is how to reframe the choice … and then where to look for guidance on making change happen.
Two kinds of pain in life
I’m personally not a big reader of self-improvement literature (I recognize that it helps many people, just doesn’t work for me). That said, some time ago I was struck by a quote from motivational speaker and author Jim Rohn, who passed away a couple of years back. Here’s the quote:
“There are two kinds of pain in life – the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. The pain of discipline weighs ounces and is fleeting, the pain of regret weights tons and lasts forever.”
Rohn wrote a great deal about the role of discipline in life. Another of his quotes: “Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”
The difficulty for this advisor wasn’t the absence of goals or the desire to make those goals happen – the problem was that, like many of us, he struggled to summon up the discipline to translate that desire into reality.
Lessons from the weight-loss industry
For insights on struggles with discipline and the difficulty of achieving goals, there are few better places to look than the multi-billion dollar diet industry. For all of the effort and dollars invested in losing weight, the weight-loss industry is marked by a litany of failure-after-failure. Critics comment that if the programs actually worked, the industry would be a fraction of its size. But the business caters to serial dieters flitting from program-to-program, operating on the same “triumph of optimism over experience” premise that leads to third and fourth marriages.
Most diet programs resist scientific studies to rigorously measure outcomes, claiming that it’s too hard to accurately track performance. Of course that’s nonsense – the reason they prefer to focus on anecdotal success stories and celebrity endorsers over a systematic study of results is that when it comes to losing weight, it’s easier to sell the promise than the reality. (The same could be said of almost all get quick-rich-quick schemes you see advertised).
Happily, a few weight loss programs do systematically measure outcomes and have proven track records of success. Among them is the pioneer in the weight-loss industry – Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers (WW) was founded in 1963 and, while it clearly doesn’t work for everyone, is said to have helped more people lose more weight than any other diet program.
Here are eight lessons from Weight Watchers that are relevant for financial advisors.
Lesson one: Slow and steady wins the race
Something that marks many popular diet programs is their quick-fix, immediate-result mindset.
By contrast, WW takes the view that sustainable success in weight loss takes time, effort and patience.
That’s true of losing weight and it’s equally true of attracting new clients – slow and steady truly does win the race.
Lesson two: Focus on activity, not outcomes
WW believes that if you do the right things when it comes to diet and exercise, weight loss will follow.
That’s also true when it comes to prospecting – make the right activity your priority and results will come; they may not come as easily or quickly as you’d like, but they will come. In the meantime, by focusing on activity, you’re dealing with something that’s under your control, unlike short-term results.
Lesson three: One small step at a time
When it comes to activity, WW advocates breaking things down into mini-steps – this snack, this meal, this day.
The same applies to prospecting activity. A tactic I’ve seen work very effectively for advisors is time blocking – blocking off two hours on Tuesday morning or Thursday afternoon to dedicate to business development. Time blocking isn’t new – but sometimes old ideas are the best ideas.
Lesson four: Build in rewards
WW doesn’t ban any foods – in fact it allows participants to eat anything in moderation and permits dieters to have a weekly “treat meal” as part of the program
I’ve become a big fan of small rewards when it comes to changing behavior. One advisor books off 10:00 to 11:30 on Wednesdays to call people in his network to see if they’d be interested in receiving his newsletter. In the first half hour, he identifies 10 names to call (recognizing of course that the majority of the time he leaves messages), then starts calling – and doesn’t go for lunch until he’s made those 10 calls.
Another advisor has a date night with his longstanding girlfriend on Friday nights – if he’s achieved his activity goals for prospecting, they go to a nice restaurant, otherwise they order in pizza. (He found that the first conversation explaining why they were ordering in pizza has led to much greater focus on ensuring he hits his activity targets).
Lesson five: Track progress
One of the central principles of WW is that keeping a food and exercise diary helps change habits. Not everyone likes doing that and they lose some participants as a result, but they’ve found a clear correlation between keeping those diaries and seeing results.
The same applies to changing habits when it comes to prospecting. If you want to see results, you need to set goals and then record your progress against those goals.
Lesson six: Establish a support network
A distinguishing feature of WW are their weekly group weigh-ins; they see a clear correlation between attending those sessions and success in losing weight.
Again, there is a parallel for advisors trying to change habits when it comes to business development. Peer-support groups are one of the hottest trends for people looking to make a change. If you really want to see results, recruit two or three colleagues in a similar business stage to yours to participate in a 30-minute coffee first thing on Monday mornings. In that half hour, each participant covers:
- Their goals for the previous week
- Their performance against those goals
- What they learned last week
- Their goals for the week ahead
Perhaps suggest an initial eight-week trial – if your experience is similar to that of other advisors I’ve talked to who’ve done this, chances are the members of your group will want to continue after the trial period.
Lesson seven: Accept failure
We all know that ingrained habits are remarkably difficult to change – whether it relate to diet, exercise, how we interact with our kids or how we run our business.
That’s why any program to change behavior recognizes that there will be setbacks. When dieters fall of the wagon, rather than beating themselves up, WW encourages them to accept that as normal and to get back into their routine.
That’s true of dieting and equally true of changing our prospecting habits. The issue isn’t whether we suffer setbacks; it’s how we respond to those setbacks.
Lesson eight: Make a life-long commitment
The final feature that sets WW apart is its focus on a permanent commitment to changing diet and exercise routines.
The same applies to business development. Truly successful advisors won’t stop prospecting when markets turn up or business gets better; instead they’ll view business development as a regular part of their routine for the remainder of their careers.
One final note: I know that many people have tried Weight Watchers and failed. I’m not suggesting that WW works for everyone – far from it. But for people with the right level of discipline and commitment, research shows it is the weight loss program that gives you the greatest odds of success.
The same applies to attracting new clients. There are no guarantees and no surefire solutions. All you can do is tilt the odds in your favor by adopting practices that have led to success for other advisors. Incorporate those proven practices into your business and you’ll see success as well.
conducts programs to help advisors gain and retain clients and is an award winning faculty member in the MBA program at the University of Toronto. To see more of his written and video commentaries, go to www.clientinsights.ca. Use A555A for the rep and dealer code to register for website access.
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