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Have you ever been on the phone with a wholesaler or vendor and they’ve said more than one time, “Sorry, I wasn’t prepared… I am not in front of my computer right now…” Then they spend the rest of your time filling the silence, unable to answer your questions and asking you to tell them information that they could have Googled had they put an ounce of energy into preparing for the meeting?
It’s sloppy. Here is the question you have to ask yourself, “Are you sloppy with your client meetings?”
When was the last time that you practiced a client meeting? Full blown dress rehearsal: You’re in a suit, sitting down in your conference room, going through the handouts, anticipating the questions, knowing how you are going to respond.
Financial advisors are bringing in millions of dollars of revenue go through this exercise every single time they surge™. Every. Single. Surge™ (Surge meetings are when client meetings are scheduled in succession over a multi-day period.)
Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect
“Again,” I can still hear my father’s voice telling me to practice over and over. On the ice, on the court, in front of an audience and especially when I joined our advisory firm.
Practice wasn’t about trying; it was about succeeding. Did this make us into varsity all-star athletes? Gosh no, our genetic predisposition to clumsiness would ensure we never saw a championship game. But my goodness, did our parents make us fierce in a meeting – the real stage.
It all begins with fundamentals. When I bring on new advisors, relationship managers or operations personnel, I am often hiring people with little to no experience in the world of finance. When I recruit an advisor, I like someone who has fewer than seven years of experience. This is just enough time for them to learn hard knocks about quotas, firm minimums and “the grid” without becoming so jaded they are no longer malleable.
When anyone starts with our firm, we start off with the most basic fundamental: dress code, handshake, walk and how we speak to one another.
I shared this once with an advisor who told me, “If they don’t know how to show up dressed for business professionals, I am not hiring them.” Understandable, but unrealistic. You can sit here and blame a generation for not understanding the value of workplace etiquette or you can do something about it. Most candidates have never been taught why these fundamentals are important. They are not stupid; they are ignorant on the subject and can be educated all day long.
Advisors who join our practice generally understand the importance of workplace business clothes. What about outside of the office? How about this scenario: You are catching an airplane and you are dressed in comfortable sweatpants, sneakers and you have your headphones around your neck. Your flights are long and you want to be comfortable. I can’t count the centers of influence or future clients who I have met on airplanes, not to mention running into clients and prospects in the airport. How you present yourself, even outside of the office, matters if you want to have the type of career that leads clients to you.
Learning how to shake hands is something we start with all the kids in the family once they are age four. Meet any Shilanski kid and they will have a world-class handshake. If they do not, you let me know and I will take care of it. Shaking hands (assuming it comes back in fashion) conveys so much about what someone immediately thinks of you: calm, confident, assured. Think of the times you have awkwardly shaken someone’s hand. How did you feel? It was weird, right? The too-strong handshake leaves you wondering what they are compensating for. The dainty handshake makes you feel you were too aggressive. Let’s not even speak of the handshake when not all the fingers make it. It leaves an impression.
Walking is something we practice in the office when it comes to how we approach clients in our lobby before we escort them to our conference rooms. Our relationship manager gets up out of her chair, comes around the desk and greets the clients when they come in. Our financial advisors practice where the client will be – getting coffee, sitting in the chairs, standing by the desk – and anticipate how they will greet them.
Perfect practice makes perfect. It is the execution of the littlest details that will make having the home court advantage actually mean something.
Game day – Don’t fumble
When we are in surge™, we are seeing seven to 11 clients a day.
Every client must feel as if they are our only client. There is no exception to this rule for any of our team members and particularly for our advisors. You must execute a surge so flawlessly that your clients feel you are busy, in high demand, valuable but never ever in a rush.
Each meeting has a cadence that is practiced. Our meetings follow this rhythm because it is intentionally designed to ensure clients feel that they are receiving massive value during their time with you one-on-one.
We begin by asking clients what questions that they have. We always start with their questions. If you do not know what is on the top of their minds in the meeting, whatever you have to share with them will be at the bottom – forgotten.
We ask their questions in advance. Our relationship managers ask the clients what questions they will have. We walk into the meeting already knowing what is top of mind and we lead by ensuring that they have their questions answered. If we cannot answer their questions – because we are human too! – we explain exactly how we are going to get back to them on the matter.
During each surge™ we deliver value adds™ to our clients. We rotate value adds™ as needed every few years, but we always practice how we are going to go over them with the client. When we present the value adds™ to our clients, the document is facing the client so that we are reading upside down. This means we had better know what is on the value adds™ before the meeting so that we can smoothly navigate the document to deliver massive value.
If you are using documents in your client meetings, how often do you practice presenting them?
Predictability
Can you predict what every client or prospect is going to say to you in a meeting? Of course not.
Do clients have a lot of similar questions? When we get into the momentum of surge ™, we discover running themes in our meetings. Every week in surge ™ debriefs, we go over the questions and ensure we have a mutual agreement on how we are going to respond to them. Especially if you work in an enterprise office, you want to make sure that during surge ™ everyone is saying close to the same thing. Clients talk and may share more with each other than you think.
When I am preparing for a board meeting at a client’s office, I like to see the room before I go in. I want to know the layout, where the windows are, where the door is, where I will sit and how I will present. I want to walk the room and anticipate what is going to happen as best as I can. I am “future setting” what I want the desired outcome of the meeting to be. I am showing up with intentionality and purpose.
Future setting is critical to the visualization process of your success. You can’t see success if you are unable to focus on how you will get there.
Perfect practice makes perfect.
Micah Shilanski, CFP®, is a financial planner who achieves the ‘impossible’. Micah is recognized as a leader in the concept of lifestyle design for financial planners and has spoken at conferences across the country. Micah is an advisor with Shilanski & Associates, a founder of Plan Your Federal Retirement, and a co-founder of The Perfect RIA.
Read more articles by Micah Shilanski
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
