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I speak to a lot of financial advisors in any given month in my role as a referral/business coach. Imagine the list of things I’ve heard over the years. Occasionally a trend emerges that that warrants attention and, in this case, sharing with others.
The trend is that many investors have become unsatisfied with how their advisor chose to respond to the pandemic. The lack of communication from advisors during the pandemic has pushed a large group of clients to seek a new advisor. Consequently, advisors who have done a great job of staying in touch with their clients and genuinely expressed their concern for the client’s health and safety are seeing a spike in client referrals. These are the same advisors who have done an exceptional job of teaching their clients how to refer new clients to them. One client of mine had a total of 12 client referrals in all of 2019 and is currently juggling over 52 new client introductions since the pandemic because of this scenario.
What can you do to position yourself to acquire new clients during this pandemic? You can start by not WIMPing out on referrals.
Don’t WAIT for people to refer you.
I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard an advisor say, “All I have to do is provide great service and my clients will refer me.” That amounts to an advisor sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring. If that were working, there wouldn’t be a desire from so many advisors to find the secrets to getting more referrals.
Providing great service will go a long way towards giving people something good to say about you. The alternative will put you on the list of advisors losing clients.
Great service has become the expectation.
Great service needs to be supported by a well-rounded referral process to drive client referrals consistently. Help your clients to learn how to respond when they hear someone complaining about their financial advisor. Give them words to say that are comfortable and naturally fit into a conversation. When a client is prepared to succeed, that’s exactly what they’ll do.
Don’t IMPEDE your referral mindset.
Have you told yourself that it’s not a good time to talk to your clients about referrals? If you’ve done so enough times and with conviction, your brain believes you and it won’t let you move forward. I’ve learned through my coaching research that our brains are charged with keeping you safe. If it believes a situation to be not “safe” for you for one reason or another, it will feed you what it needs to keep you safe. This means your brain needs to be re-wired.
In this case, your referral mindset needs to change so that your brain gets on board. One way to re-wire your brain is to replace the negative thought pattern with a positive one instead. Telling yourself that now is not a good time to talk to clients about referrals is a negative thought pattern. Instead, tell yourself that now is a great time to discuss referrals. Tell yourself that if other advisors are getting referred by their clients then you can too. Repeating those positive statements daily will create a new referral mindset and that will allow your brain to treat referral activities as a positive opportunity.
Don’t MISS opportunities.
Referral activities can be passive or proactive. Passive activities require the action of someone else. Proactive activities require your action. Both are valuable to a well-rounded referral process. And both can be implemented by you as well as your team members so as not to miss referral opportunities.
Let’s say that you’re checking in with a client to see how they are faring during the pandemic. You ask about their family members, health, and holiday plans. Before getting off the line, make a simple statement to let your clients know that you’re available to help the people they care about most. Say something like, “Before I let you go, if you hear someone complaining about their advisor, please tell them a little about me and how I’ve helped you. I would be happy to help them too.” This is a proactive referral activity.
A passive activity might involve changing your email signature to include a simple referral statement or question such as, “What friend of yours needs someone they can trust?” In addition, you can add a similar message to your voicemail. People will hear or see these messages that can be changed on occasion and it will plant a referral seed in their minds.
Don’t PROCRASTINATE.
Procrastination will put you behind your competition. Procrastination seeps in when you lack confidence or time to do the things you know you need to do. All three of the things I mentioned above need to happen to position you for more referrals right in the middle of the pandemic so that you too can see growth like some of your colleagues are experiencing right now. Will you procrastinate and WIMP out and allow 2021 to begin in the same manner that 2020 ended? If so, ask yourself the hard questions. What’s holding you back? What can you do about it? Who can help you? And are you ready?
Will you implement new practices now to gather momentum moving into 2021?
Don't be a WIMP.
Michelle R. Donovan is a referral/business coach, speaker and partner of Productivity Uncorked LLC, a coaching firm that specializes in helping 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. Email Michelle at [email protected] or connect with her on LinkedIn.
Read more articles by Michelle R. Donovan
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
