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High-achieving female advisors can be found in every state of our country. Recently Forbes recognized the 1,000 Top Women Wealth Advisors in 2020 with a collective asset management total of nearly $920 billion. Nearly one in five of these women manages $1 billion. That is quite impressive.
In my coaching practice, I focus on serving female advisors. My client base is 80% women and 20% men. I even co-authored an Amazon best-selling book for women advisors, A Woman’s Way: Empowering Female Financial Advisors to Authentically Lead and Flourish in a Man’s World. For many female advisors, success is measured in far more ways than assets under management. Women want a thriving, robust practice. Many of them know what they want, but they don’t quite know how to get there or have anyone to help who also truly understands them.
High-achieving female advisors have five things that they focus on daily.
Staying visible to others
When you stay visible, you significantly increase the opportunity to be referred. Staying visible with intention means that you purposefully show up where you need to be. Post value, engaging content in LinkedIn or Facebook groups that support your ideal client, scheduling time with a COI, participating in or hosting webinars, contributing to publications, speaking on podcasts or other media outlets as well. When the traditional networking venues open back up to us, staying visible at strategic events, luncheons and dinners are also important. High achieving female advisors won’t allow themselves to become invisible.
Leading their relationships
High-achieving female advisors are leaders in many ways. Leading your relationships means being able to influence and leverage your entire network to help grow your practice or firm. It also means accepting responsibility to act as the leader in all of your relationships, including clients, COIs and prospects. This leadership skill takes focus and effort. It involves recognizing and seizing opportunities to embrace reciprocity by effortlessly leading by example.
Treating COIs like their best client
Think of your absolute best client that you wish you could duplicate over and over. Now think of how you treat that special client. You’ll do just about anything for them. You’ll make yourself available and return their calls immediately. You’ll do extra things for them just because you can. You’ll be early for an appointment and respond to their emails without hesitation. You’ll meet them wherever and whenever they need you. High achieving female advisors give this same white glove treatment to their COIs. COIs who are treated with such respect are proven to be more giving in return.
Keeping their messages clear and concise
Clarity enhances referability. When your referral network is not clear about who they should send to you, the results are doubt, confusion and very few referrals. No one wants to look bad if they refer you to the wrong people. So if there is doubt, to save face, they choose not to refer you. One client of mine experienced this the hard way. Her firm was not happy with how many referrals they were getting from their COIs so she put out a survey to try to figure out the problem. What she discovered was that their COIs were confused about who they wanted as clients. They were putting out mixed messages. Not good. Once we clarified their message and made some tough decisions on who they really preferred as prospects, COIs began to refer ideal prospects. High achieving female advisors keep their messages very clear and concise so that people understand exactly what they want.
Teaching people how to refer
High-achieving female advisors regularly teach their clients and other people how to refer them effectively. This ensures that people know exactly who you’re looking for and actively engages them in your referral process. Time proactively spent with clients and others for this purpose is time well spent on a specific marketing strategy that comes with a high return on your investment. My clients regularly see a 20-40% increase in client referrals from applying our methods for teaching others how to refer you.
These five referral secrets of high-achieving female advisors are all things that can work for you, too. The real test lies with you. Are you willing to do the work to stay visible, clarify your messages and teach others how to refer you? Will you accept the leadership role in your relationships or end up a follower? How much effort are you willing to give towards your COI relationships? The biggest question to ask is how badly you want it.
Michelle R. Donovan is a coach, speaker and co-owner of Productivity Uncorked LLC, a coaching firm that helps female financial advisors increase their referrals and get more done in their day. Michelle has written a Wall Street Journal Best Selling book, The 29% Solution (published in seven languages) and an Amazon Best Selling book, A Woman’s Way: Empowering Female Financial Advisors to Authentically Lead and Flourish in a Man’s World. To schedule a free 30-minute call with Michelle, reach out to her at [email protected].
Read more articles by Michelle R. Donovan
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
