Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
To buy a copy of Bev’s book, The Pocket Guide to Sales for Financial Advisors, click here.
Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
Dear Readers,
If I had a dollar for every time an advisor reveals something to me and says, “This is highly confidential,” or “Please do not share this with anyone,” or “I haven’t spoken to anyone else about this,” well, I would be a very wealthy woman right now! I thought it might be helpful – without betraying any confidences and changing a few facts to protect the people who open up and share – to offer insights to these situations. I often find people are heartened when they find out that others deal with things they think are unique to them!
1. Just because you are open and honest and probably trusting doesn’t mean everyone around you is also this way. Last week I had a call with an advisor – I’ll call her “Jean” – who was devastated. She had worked with a partner for almost nine years.
The team needed to make an important decision on a performance problem with one of their key people. Jean had hired this person and had a good relationship. However, she also understood there needed to be significant change and acknowledged her firm might have to “manage out” the person. Rather than have a discussion about how best to do this, her partner had a direct conversation with the individual and told them they needed “to start looking for something else.”
Jean was blindsided by the fact the conversation had happened at all, but more importantly, by the fact that her partner had not spoken to her about it. When confronted, the partner said, “You and I are both busy. I don’t have time to hear your views on why we need to be sensitive in this situation.”
Take-away learning: Don’t assume because you are a certain way that others behave in similar ways. We all reveal ourselves in a variety of small ways every day. Watch. Listen. Learn and never, ever assume. When someone does behave in a way you don’t like or is offensive, deal with it directly. Don’t let it fester and grow to destroy the relationship.
2. If it looks great on the surface when you are thinking about selling your practice, or merging with another team, dig down deeper to find out what you don’t know yet. No situation is perfect. In the last month I have had six conversations with teams who have sold themselves to larger firms, merged with others, partnered with another advisor – all regret their decisions.
They focused on the underlying investment philosophy, the client engagement process, the price and the sales pitch, but they didn’t focus on whether they liked the culture, the person’s attitude, the approach to leadership and management and the work/life balance approach. In all of these cases, the advisors shared with me if they could undo something, they would. However, in all cases, they are locked in and cannot change their decision.
Take-away learning: Before you ever consider merging, selling or partnering with someone else, spend a lot of hours with them on a personal and individual basis. Yes, you need to align all of the business components. But you also must make sure you understand who they are as people – what they care about, how they handle difficult situations, what their dreams and hopes might be. As an advisor you do this with clients naturally, so you can simply extend some of those open-ended questions and interpersonal skills. Make sure you really know who you are establishing a relationship with and that you are on the same page regarding just about everything.
3. If you don’t stand up for yourself, you can’t count on others to stand up for you. I know this one sounds harsh. As a graduate professor teaching leadership, I admit it would be nice to think that leaders generally stand up and advocate for their team members – and many do just this. However, if you don’t know how to adequately self-promote in an objective and fact-based way, and you don’t know how to address situations that are troubling or difficult for you, you are going to be continually let down.
One of my advisors, “Kenny,” recently shared how frustrated he was that no matter what he does, the senior leader of his firm thinks it is “never enough.” Kenny showed me his organic growth numbers, his retention numbers and his client satisfaction survey numbers, and all are very solid (above industry average in all cases). By all definitions he is doing great, but his leader says he wants more from Kenny all of the time. This can be due to one of two things: either he thinks Kenny is capable of doing even more because he is so good, or he doesn’t see or understand the numbers.
Take-away learning: Internal self-promotion is a key skill to learn. It isn’t about being pushy and aggressive to say “Look at me!” Rather, it is about making note of the things you do well and sharing these. Sometimes I recommend doing a recap on Fridays via email to the leader about what has been accomplished during the week. Or, you could gather email quotes from clients or team members and share them with a note that says, “It’s always nice to get great feedback!”
If you feel overlooked completely, schedule a sit down with your leader and share what you think you are doing well. Stay open and curious about how you could improve. Seek to understand. Some leaders aren’t good at giving feedback so you may need to take the step to solicit it in order to understand what they are thinking about your work.
4. You are not alone in your experiences, and it never shows weakness to say you need help! I work with many advisors and senior professionals with decades of experience. They are top-notch at what they do professionally, but this doesn’t mean that they don’t get angry, hurt, frustrated, and discouraged on a personal level.
It doesn’t take away from one’s success to share things that are troubling in order to deal with them differently and perhaps find another way. While you want to be careful, of course, about to whom you share your secrets or your inner feelings, you don’t want to bottle them up indefinitely.
One of my advisors, “Sean,” was struggling last week with how to tell his partner how annoyed he was with his lack of new revenue. Sean feels he is the sole rainmaker and the scales are not at all even, despite the “split” being 50/50. Sean kept telling me he was very self-aware and he knows the problem isn’t entirely his partner’s fault. Yes, every relationship has two sides. But Sean’s inability to share his frustration until it has built up for many months makes it difficult for him to calmly and objectively deal with his partner now. He just wants to be done.
Take-away learning: Most people don’t like to give feedback to others. They label it “confrontational” or “conflict” or “delivering bad news”. The longer you wait to tell someone something they probably need to hear, the harder it is for you – and for them. If you aren’t comfortable giving feedback/input, practice with someone who can help you. Problems don’t go away because we ignore them – they just fester and grow.
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. The firm has won the Wealthbriefing WealthTech award for Best Training Solution for 2022, 2023 and 2024. Beverly is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate and graduate students Entrepreneurship and Leading Teams. She 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.
A message from Advisor Perspectives and VettaFi: To learn more about this and other topics, check out some of our webcasts.
Read more articles by Beverly Flaxington
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
