Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here. 
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Dear Bev,
Do you have any tips for knowing when a prospect is ready to buy versus when someone is going to drag their feet and potentially not commit? We have too many situations where we prepare the paperwork and it remains unsigned but we don’t know why.
Paul P.
Dear Paul,
This is an issue I address all too often with coaching clients of mine. It’s a common problem – the meetings seem to go well, the buying signals (“yes, we need to do this”) are there, the chemistry seems right but then you are left in endless follow up mode trying to get a response. Is it a no? Is it a maybe? Is it a not yet? Hard to know when you can’t even elicit a response from someone!
There are a few things that go wrong in these types of scenarios and it’s not always about recognizing who will drag their feet and who won’t – it’s missing opportunities on your end too:
- Understand their process – you probably have a step-by-step approach you use to help prospects make decisions. You can, and should, outline this for them. It’s critical for the next step I’ll list. But, you also want insight into their process. When do they expect to make a decision? What information do they need? How do they prioritize what’s most important? Be sure to gather this information at the outset. It’s not enough to know they are interested, you need to know how they think and how they’ll make a decision.
- Confirm commitment – this means at each and every step of the process you are outlining expectations for what will come next, and then confirming what’s happening. It’s important that you don’t move totally into delivery mode where you are sharing information and expecting the prospect is tracking with you. You need to confirm they are committed and ready to move. If you have done a good job in step 1 of understanding their process you can confirm next steps against what they’ve already told you they need to do and by when.
- Acknowledge the elephant in the room – everyone is busy. When sitting in a meeting with a smart professional (like you!) the prospect might be excited and know they need your help. Then, they leave. Life intervenes. Other issues rise to the surface as being most important. They might want to move forward, and mean to move forward, but they can’t see their way clearly to do so. Pre-empt this by letting them know this often happens and that you want to avoid it for them. You have an ethical responsibility to help them make a decision – one way or another.
- Provide documents for signature only when you have received a commitment – this is a very important piece. Unless the person has said, “Yes, we are ready to sign and this is the date we will be ready to move forward,” or words to that effect, don’t send any documents! It seems to be the logical step once you have covered all other bases, but it’s the last card you hold. If it seems you are ready to ask for the business, let them know the next step is to send documents but that you never do that unless you hear a positive “Yes!” for moving forward.
If you incorporate these four things into all of your conversations with prospects, I can absolutely promise you that you’ll minimize the number of times (by a large percentage) you find yourself chasing after someone again!
Dear Bev,
We brought a very high performing advisor into our practice early last year. He has a number of very close relationships but many of his clients have relocated to other states and some to Europe and Asia. We watch expenses very closely here and did not anticipate we would be paying for the cost of travel every single month to all of these locations. We do prioritize face-to-face meetings but the partners agree this was not planned and is more than we would have agreed to pay. Is there anything we can do at this point?
T.A.
Dear T.A.,
Your question brings up one of my favorite topics which is spending the time and energy before someone is hired to clearly outline specific expectations and “rules of the road” for your firm. In this case, it sounds like a major transformation took place within the last year where a huge percentage of his client base has relocated en masse over 12 months? I find it hard to believe it happened that way. It would have been prudent to explore more about how he works with his clients, your philosophy on cost containment, etc. All too often many assumptions are made in the interview and hiring process and firms pay a big price for overlooking issues.
However, lesson learned so you won’t commit that crime again, right? But, you have an existing situation you have to deal with and it sounds like a meeting to set expectations and understand one another’s viewpoint is in order.
First step you should have someone run the costs of these client visits so you have facts and data to work from. In particular if possible, I’d show the cost of visiting these clients versus what other advisors in your firm spend to visit with their client base. I’m assuming most other clients are local or more contained so this differential should be fairly large.
Second step, after showing him the numbers, you should validate the commitment to face-to-face but explain that, in fairness, you can’t afford to support this level of expenditure for one person. Perhaps he could pay for some of these trips – a shared expense approach. Perhaps he could reach out to the clients to ask if they would be willing to meet less frequently. Maybe he could find out when these clients are coming closer to your office and schedule meetings there (many people who move away keep friends and family local and do come back for visits). You don’t want to appear cheap to these clients, particularly if they are large accounts, but you might have to have him get a bit creative to find some other options to achieve the same goals with less investment on your part.
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995. In 2008, she co-founded Advisors Trusted Advisor to offer dedicated practice management resources to advisors, planners and wealth managers. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate students Leadership & Social Responsibility. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).
She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.
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