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,
What ways are new and innovative to connect more deeply with clients? We have done a number of events and haven’t yielded anything from them. We have a writer on our team – an advisor who is very good at capturing what is happening in the market and providing insight to our clients. We meet with clients on an annual basis to explore more than just portfolio performance, but what else is happening in their lives, how they are feeling about working with us, what else we can be doing and so on.
We’ve toyed with the idea of providing resources for clients – if they want to buy a new car, could we help locate their dream vehicle, or if they are ready to move into assisted living, could we help by developing a checklist of things they might look for?
We know we need to get into a more personalized level of service. But there are so many ideas and it is hard to know which ones are the right ones. We have 23 people on our team – not a huge firm, but enough that we can allocate the resources we need. Deciding where those resources should go is challenging. Any ideas for us?
S.A.
Dear S.A,
Have you asked your clients what additional support they might like to receive from you? Do you know how much (or whether) they value the events you are holding, or the information you are distributing? Do the new ideas – such as car shopping and helping them develop criteria for decision-making – come from requests clients have made or are they internal ideas?
Those questions are important because there is no clear answer to the issue. It depends a lot on the type of firm you run, and the type of clients you serve. It sounds to me like you are focused on your clients and offering a broad array of information and educational options. But are they the right ones? And if they are, why question what else you should be doing?
You talked about events but then said you haven’t really yielded anything from them. Is the objective of the events to get closer to clients, or to build a referral network or something else? What would you expect to yield – what desired outcome were you hoping for?
I applaud your desire to enhance client communications, but before you put more time and money into your efforts, go to the source. Do a client survey to ask what clients need and want from you. This could be done using Survey Monkey with a number of multiple choice questions.
Then I would enhance it by having qualitative dialogue with a handful of your most important clients. Create a list of what you are doing and ask them how they find each idea – how useful it is for them and why. Then create a list of what you could be doing and ask whether these things would be useful to them and why. Then leave a blank-slate option and ask, if they were in charge of programming for your firm, what they would put in place?
If you engage the clients in this exercise, you are going to get much more specific and detailed information than if I make suggestions that may or may not be suitable for your audience.
Dear Bev,
We want to revamp our messaging, redo our website and generally enhance our materials. We have four partners who never agree on anything. We hired a pretty expensive firm who came in with some storyboards and designs and presented them.
Each of the partners liked something that none of the others liked. We quickly got to a stalemate. The firm left the materials and asked us to caucus internally and get back to them with next steps.
Do you have advice for me on how to best do this? I am the office manager and don’t hold a vote per se. But I am expected to consolidate ideas and input and create a set of next steps.
N.K.
Dear N.K.,
Well, you could shut them all in a room and tell them they aren’t allowed to come out until they have reached some sort of decision! But that might not be the best career-enhancing move. Maybe facilitating a discussion with them is a better first step.
Get them together to go through an exercise I call “so what?” Have them first identify their desired outcome for this effort. Why are they doing this? What are they hoping to achieve or accomplish with the process? Make sure they are on the same page about goals and objectives.
Then, without looking at “look and feel” options or storyboards, ask them to talk about the firm. What they believe differentiates it and helps to stand out in a crowded market. Capture some of their ideas on a whiteboard and then write a column next to their ideas entitled “so what?” Have them talk about the things they believe are important and then why they believe they are important. For example, if they say, “Having four partners with differing viewpoints helps us make better investment decisions,” discuss why this is valuable to clients. The different viewpoints do what, exactly? Different viewpoints could prevent assumptions; they could force better decisions because discussions ensue to truly hash out ideas; they could push decision-makers out of their comfort zones, and so on. Then talk about why this is important to clients – what value does this bring to clients and why does it make your process better than other firms?
The more you connect an idea about what you do and why it matters to a client’s viewpoint and needs, the better your story will be.
Once you have established the desired outcome, the “so what?” about what you do and how you do it, create a story where the partners will have the chance to form a consensus. If you can get them to agree upon the story and the way it is told, you will be closer to having them agree on look and feel for the story.
Often firms move directly to the storyboard, or graphic design stage without making sure there is a strong underlying story shared by all stakeholders. If you can guide them through this process and gain agreement, you will find the process of decision-making goes a lot more smoothly.
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995. The firm also founded and manages the Advisors Sales Academy. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate students Entrepreneurship. 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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Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here. 
