In the midst of the current pandemic, many companies are facing great challenges in supporting their employees, who now are mostly working from home (WFH) to adhere to government recommendations. Initially, we speculated this lockdown would only last weeks. Instead, it has become months. The longer it goes, the more we worry.
There is an urgent need to understand what each of our clients requires personally to be ready to face the WFH challenge. However, as we know, many of them are not ready. Each of our clients has a different and distinct type of business, such as hospitality, tourism, construction, and so on. In this WFH situation, they’re not looking to make large profits. They’re looking for business survival strategies. It’s a difficult time for any industry that didn’t already have a digital platform in its operations.
There are two things we can do as financial advisors in these turbulent circumstances:
First, we must convince our clients this pandemic was unexpected and we cannot control it 100%. No one can. We can, however, instill a sense of stability for our clients by convincing them there is a silver lining to every situation. Rather than bringing about panic, we calmly and collectively assure them of the positives.
For example, the great majority of us do not have the novel coronavirus and are healthy. Be thankful we have our families, even though our business is running slower or may even have to stop. Make our clients feel they are not alone, and we stand by them.
Second, from our professional perspective, there are things we can do that we may have previously neglected in our busy lives. We can now prioritize our time to implement the following:
1. Read ebooks, follow webinars and virtual meetings related to what we want to pursue further in our profession. The financial services profession is about people. It’s also a business that develops so quickly that we’re required to keep expanding our insights and knowledge. There are still many positive things about self-development that we can realize.
2. Develop new digital strategies for the new normal. We must continue to do the activities of a financial advisor, which includes being persistent and consistent. We must remain productive while working from home. Show clients your goal setting remains the same but with a different strategy during this new life where we’ve switched to digital applications.
If before this quarantine many advisors only physically met their clients; from now on, we can meet using video applications. Meeting virtually is also more efficient, considering that we can meet more people per day than usual. In the end, this strategy is much more productive.
I believe after the storm has passed, there is always a rainbow. After going through this pandemic “storm,” there can be a better version of you if you remain positive, stick to your goals and find new ways to work and earn income.
Stay healthy and stay safe. Be MDRT!
Kennedy Sumarlie, AWP, of Jakarta, Indonesia, has been an MDRT member since 2018.
Fantastic