How putting clients at ease is the difference between a client working with you or not

It’s understandable when a prospective client has questions about how the relationship with you as their financial advisor would work. Their questions are not standing in the way of you and the client working together. Your answers to their questions, however, might be.

How you explain to a prospective client what you can do for them can be the difference between whether or not they want to work with you. This explanation is so important to me that I have a process for it to make sure it happens for every client in the way I find that works best.

For prospective clients, I clearly and directly present my financial planning services with a process I call the five phases of a client relationship. As most of my clients are in the construction industry and visual learners, I use diagrams to show them how I will move through each of our five phases together. You may want to use something else that fits better with your clients’ learning style.

Here’s what I present to prospective clients.

Phase 1: The Foundation Dialog

The first phase is when we get to know the client, and the client gets to know us. It’s on a person-to-person level, and it doesn’t necessarily get into the specifics of their needs or our services.

Phase 2: The Strategic Blueprint

We tell the client about our services in the second phase. We describe where we will provide value and what the client should expect to pay for our services.

Phase 3: The Goals Navigator

In phase 3, I ask clients to talk about themselves. We want to know their dreams and expectations in three areas. This includes their objectives and why each goal is important to them. I help clients by narrowing this discussion into the context of their financial life.

1) Their estate plan

  • Personal and business investments
  • Financial independence, which means being able to make major purchases while maintaining the lifestyle that they’ve grown accustomed to living
  • Their business exit

2) What’s the client’s current situation? This is a discovery process. We don’t assume we can just tell the client where the problems are.

3) What are all the available solutions for the client’s individual situation, and what will work for the client? I evaluate the pros and cons of each solution and deliver a financial plan.

Phase 4: The Solutions Activator

In this phase, I help the client implement the recommendations in our plan they have decided to use.

Phase 5: The Custom Wealth Inspection

The Custom Wealth Inspection is the heart of my ongoing relationship with a client. It’s the accountability phase for us and for them, where we see if they are on track with the projections in the plan we created together.

We have broken down this process into steps. We compare where they are now with the original plan’s projections. We communicate our findings clearly and visually. If an element of their plan is not going according to the projections, we ask two questions:

Why are they off track? They could be spending too much or not saving enough, or the performance of their investments could be off. There also could be some other reason.

Is this particular objective still important to them? If the objective is still important to them, we explain what needs to be done to get back on track. If it is no longer important, that’s all right. It’s the client’s money, their plan and their objectives. We revisit their objectives and determine how they’ve changed, and then refine their plan to align with the revised objectives.

It’s a simple presentation that condenses the complexity and hard work behind our business. Clients understand the process immediately and see the value we provide.

John P. Enright has been an MDRT member since 2000 and is a Top of the Table qualifier. He’s the president of Custom Wealth Management in Syracuse, New York. He specializes in high-net-worth clients in the construction industry. Learn more about how Enright works with clients in his videos, “Reach Top of the Table by being 1% better  and “How to exceed client expectations.”

 

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