March 10, 2009
Step Four: Practice the 50 – 50 rule
One of the most important steps to productive client meetings is consistent use of the 50 – 50 rule.
What’s the 50 – 50 rule, you may ask?
For every 50 words you say in a client meeting, your client should say at least 50. Research on this subject is absolutely definitive – clients are more likely to report that meetings are a good use of their time when they are the ones doing the talking.
If you don’t believe this, consider this simple fact. Over the years, I’ve talked to many investors who say that one of the things they like best about their advisor is that he or she is a “great listener.” I have yet to run into an investor who says that the reason they like their advisor is because he or she is a “great talker.”
The best way to get clients engaged and participating in a meeting is to be sure to ask lots of good questions.
And the best way to ensure you ask good questions?
Take five minutes before a meeting to go through the agenda and beside each point write down questions you’re going to ask. That alone makes your chances of having the 50 – 50 rule work go up dramatically.
One pitfall that some advisors run into is that they are too busy taking notes in meetings that they don’t focus on maintaining eye contact and observing the client’s body language. As a result, they don’t completely engage with the client.
A simple solution to this comes from a top performing advisor with a bank-owned firm. She has an assistant sit in on meetings and take notes, so that she can put 100% of her focus on the client interaction. Doing this eliminates worrying about remembering key points and lets you give clients your complete attention.
Step Five: Translate the agenda into client outcomes
At the end of the conversation, the agenda has helped guide you through the meeting.
At this point, take the time to verbally summarize what you’ve talked about and next steps from the meeting.
For larger clients with whom you’re meeting two or three times a year, you could also say something like “I found today’s meeting very productive and hope you did also. I’d like to suggest that we plan to meet again in three or four months. Tell me, what specific issues would you like to devote more time to at that meeting?”
In other cases, where advisors have multiple meetings scheduled with an important client over the course of a twelve month period, as part of the agenda for the first meeting of they year, they’ll lay out a roadmap of the issues that will be covered in each meeting.
You have one final opportunity to remind clients that the meeting was a good use of time. Most advisors systematically create meeting notes, summarizing what was discussed and outlining next steps arising from each meeting. Consider creating a “client friendly” version of this summary – and sending it along to clients as a reminder of the topics you covered and the value they obtained from taking the time to meet.
Take the time to build a systematic process around written agendas into your meeting planning routine. If you’re like most advisors, once you’ve tried this for a while, you’ll be pleasantly surprised about the positive impact this has on the value and productivity of client meetings.
* Dan Richards conducts programs to help advisors gain and retain clients and is an award winning faculty member in the MBA program at the University of Toronto. To see more of his written and video commentaries and to reach him, go to www.strategicimperatives.ca.
Display article as PDF for printing.
Would you like to send this article to a friend?
Remember, if you have a question or comment, send it to .
