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A fiduciary is a designation many advisors assume creates instant trust with their prospects.
“I’m a fiduciary, and other advisors are not. You can trust me.” If you have a specific designation, and you assume that’s all you need to create trust in your sales process, you are making a costly mistake.
Here’s the rub: Trust isn’t automatically built into your initial prospect conversation just because you have multiple designations next to your name. Why? Because you’re not the only advisor that has those same designations.
Trust can only be created, human-to-human, in your initial conversation, regardless of the professional titles or accreditations you have.
This is especially true in a saturated and commoditized industry like the advisory profession – where from the potential client’s point of view, everyone has an accreditation of some kind.
To your prospects, titles are ubiquitous, to be expected, no big deal – they have little power in their decision-making process.
And it doesn’t matter if you’re a trustworthy person – they can’t get to appreciate that about you until after they’re a paying client.
Just having integrity and bringing that to the table isn’t enough for them to commit to working with you at the end of your initial meeting. You need to demonstrate your trustworthiness directly in the conversation itself.
And that demonstration should never be based on information about your knowledge, expertise or the pre-sale education you have. That free information can come across as persuasion.
This can be hard to accept, given the professional norm of providing your prospects with free information and value upfront.
Consider these mindset shifts:
1. Don’t assume your designations gives you “category-of-one” differentiation.
Your prospect already knows you’re an advisor, and they expect you to know what you’re doing. You won’t lose anything in taking the focus off yourself and putting it on them. In fact, that’s the key to creating trust often missed by advisors.
2. Be diagnostic in the sales conversation like a doctor.
A doctor who precisely and efficiently (with bedside manner and empathy) diagnoses problems is more sought after than a doctor with plaques on their wall who isn’t as good. If you don’t have a thorough “x-ray” process that gets underneath their surface-level issues, you’ll be stuck filling the void with information.
3. Be patient and wait for your prospect to own their problems.
Unless your prospect first owns their problems, they won’t agree to commit to fixing them with you. Helping your prospect own the gravity and urgency of their issues is the first step towards creating deep trust. Once that’s established, they’ll be ready to onboard with you in the first meeting. (Like in therapy, if a patient doesn’t fully own their own issues and commit to fixing them, they never make it through).
Only an advisor who is a trusted authority is the “doctor” every patient wants to see.
Being a trusted authority is an internal mindset and status that results in completely differentiating you from the other advisors your prospects are also interviewing.
To learn how you can become a Trusted Authority advisor and create real trust in your sales process, order the complimentary book and consultation below.
Ari Galper is the world’s number one authority on trust-based selling and is the most sought-after high-net worth/lead generation expert for financial advisors. His newest book, “Trusted Authority” has become an instant best-seller among financial advisors worldwide – you can get a free copy of Ari’s book here and, when you click the “YES” button in the order form, you’ll also receive a complimentary “get new clients” lead generation consultation. Ari has been featured in CEO Magazine, Forbes, INC Magazine and the Australian Financial Review. He is considered a contrarian in the financial services industry and in his book, everything you learned about selling will be turned upside down. No more chasing, no pressure, no closing.
Read more articles by Ari Galper
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
