The worse thing you can do is avoid the stress because it will continue to build to an unmanageable level. Be ready, confident and able to meet the challenges of your day by maintaining your health, sleep, exercise and balance of life/work.
Our advisors deliver one-of-a-kind service. If you would like to learn more, join our member-only website or sign-up for one of our coaching programs.
If you do not use the red client folders that are a key part of Supernova organizational system, you could wind up being very blue.
The red folder is the one Supernova advisors give to their clients when they introduce their new service model. These folders are also given to prospects that agree to a 90-day free look. The goal is for the client (or prospect) to bring this folder to every call or meeting; it keeps them more fully engaged in the 12-4-2 cycle. They are more prepared for your monthly conversations.
The folder should be customized to fit your business style. It contains things like a working agenda, a summary of the financial plan, progress toward goals, a summary statement or any other reports that will aid your conversations. Most importantly, the folder should ALWAYS include blank paper for the client to write notes during the phone appointment or the personal portfolio review. And they should use those blank pages to formulate questions or jot down notes between your monthly meetings.
That’s right; the key to the client folder is the blank paper! Why? Because you want your clients to take notes, write down details and keep them for future reference. You want them to be better prepared for each of your monthly conversations. A more fully engaged client is more enjoyable to work with as well as more loyal.
What if a client doesn’t bring the folder or write down notes? Doesn’t matter…you should write your notes and send a summary to the client. For some clients the use of the red folder takes a little extra training or prodding. But it’s well worth the effort.
The value of this small exercise is not just that you are serious about your commitment to service. It is that you are building a compliance wall around your practice. A compliance wall is another positive result of having a Supernova practice: concierge-sized, planning based, quick resolution of problems, unparalleled service and wall of compliance around your practice…all good stuff.
Do you have to call a client or prospect two to three or even more times before you connect with them? Phone tag is one of those insidious time wasters most people accept as part of doing business. But you don’t have to!
When you apply a systematic approach to communicating with your clients and prospects, phone tag can be eliminated. You end up saving countless hours of time.
And your system doesn’t need to be complicated. When you organize your time around those things you do most frequently, like talking to clients and prospects, you’ve accomplished half the battle. You go from being reactive to being proactive.
In fact, CSAs and other client administrators on teams that have adopted Supernova tell us that their phones never ring. Jennifer in Chicago remarked:
“I have other administrators walk into my office and ask me what the matter is because our phone doesn’t ring. I just laugh because it is such a relief. Instead of being reactive and taking care of emergencies we are the ones controlling the time.”
How is this done? By using the 12-4-2 concept of a monthly contact for each client and prospect. After a couple of months, the phone stops ringing off the hook. Clients know the longest they are going to go without talking to their advisor is thirty days. Prospects expect your calls. No more phone tag.
There are a lot of reasons to use scripts as a guide to conversation rather that using the old FA standby–winging it. One of the very best reasons to script is to keep consistency in your client contacts and Concierge Service.
Be sure that everyone on the team understands and uses the language that puts your best on display. What does your team say when answering the phone? Does everyone say the same thing when saying good-bye, scheduling appointments, setting up a portfolio review?
They will when you decide what works best in your practice for your client base. There is a major difference in saying, “no problem” and “it’s my pleasure”, or “Johns office, “ and “Signature Financial team.”
You decide what works, you script it and then you will have a bit of control over how your practice presents itself to your clients and prospects.
Supernova advisors use their client’s recommended professional advisors as centers of influence. One of those advisors might be a concierge travel guide. Plan a trip or cruise to an exotic location with your local concierge travel guide and help them promote it by inviting clients and prospects to come along.
Some affluent people hesitate to sign up for “group travel” because they don’t know who else is going or what they are getting into. If they see your name associated with it they will be more likely to sign up. And if the trip is unique and cool enough you will have no trouble filling the spots.
Supernova advisors are always looking for ways to create value for their clients. Here is a quick tip that takes little time and will be greatly appreciated by your clients.
When talking to your clients make note of any upcoming trips, business or personal. Follow up with a phone call a few days before they leave and offer to call their credit card companies and let them know where they will be traveling so charges at restaurants, or stores won’t be flagged or refused. This will save the client embarrassment when he/she tries to purchase something. The client may not care but it looks like you are on top of their affairs.
Want to know more about the Supernova Process? Call us for a free consultation: 866-448-7858 Ext. 702.
By not providing coaching to people after providing them with behaviorally based skill training, we set them up for failure.
Thomas Crane, in The Heart of Coaching
The basis of Supernova is live coaching. All of us have seen great speakers who have been effective presenters. But the danger in presentations alone is that there is usually no follow-up, no encouragement to guide the change and development the speaker encouraged. As a motivational speaker, I know how effective great presentations can be. I also know that the audience’s enthusiasm can wane and even disappear in just a few days or weeks. Changing behaviors that have accumulated over years and have become habits takes more than just a rousing speech.
Coaching works because it continues to encourage, guide and assist in making significant change take hold. Good coaching is as much listening as presenting.
It works because it is tailored not only to a common goal, but also to specifically individual needs.
Coaching doesn’t work when the topic is disputed, not agreed upon or the coach has little or no experience.
Coaching doesn’t work with fuzzy goals or outcomes.
Coaching doesn’t work when there is no desire to change.
Coaching is not nearly as needed when learning new behaviors or practices as it is when changing older habits.
Coaching is not rocket science. It is just a basic, proven way to create a distinctive and manageable practice that honors the client relationship as well as reaching even more productive relationship with new clients.
Supernova has a clearly stated core outcome that is known from the beginning. It offers distinctive tools to refine a successful practice to an even more productive success. At Supernova, we want to create significant change. We believe it requires coaching.
Advisors are business owners. While you may work for a large investment firm, at your core you are a business owner. What do business owners do on a regular basis? They take a step back and examine what they are doing. In a general sense, they try to do more of what is working well and either improve or eliminate what is not working well.
It is incumbent on an advisor to do the same thing. There is a simple way to get that process started. Print two lists. The first list is your entire practice high to low by assets and the other list is high to low by revenue. When you review these lists you are probably going to receive some surprises. Among the surprises may be clients who rank higher or lower than you thought they would. How can someone you seldom speak with be doing more business than someone who calls you three times a week? You may find people you don’t recognize. Believe me, it happens. You might find clients who should have their accounts linked by for some reason they aren’t. Guess who else you may find. You may find people who no longer fit into your practice.
My all-time favorite is the advisor who looked at the bottom of the revenue list and saw a negative $39. When I asked how a client could have negative revenue the advisor told me he was waiving fees. The advisor then said, “I am paying this client to do no business with me!” Why not take a step back, review those two lists. You might not find anything quite this entertaining but you will find a few things that you will want to address.
By now anyone interested in college basketball has heard the story of Brad Stevens, 37, the Butler University coach (Now the Boston Celtics coach), who became the third youngest head coach in the NCAA Division 1 history to have a 30-win season and the youngest coach to make the Final Four two years in a row.
Brad grew up in a suburb of Indianapolis. He was an economics major at Depauw, a small, private Indiana college and then went to work for Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals, one of the largest corporations in Indianapolis. The problem was, he loved basketball. So he quit his job in downtown Indianapolis and went to work FOR FREE as an assistant coach at BU to follow his dream. Now he is the coach of the Boston Celtics.
He was willing to make the change that changed everything for him. The character and integrity of Brad makes him a role model for all of us. My Butler Bulldogs lost a great coach, but the time they had him will leave a lasting impression on how to live their lives. He was the paragon of “the butler way’ , The Butler Way, a term framed by the legendary Tony Hinkle and used by sportscasters in the 2006-07 men’s NCAA college basketball playoffs to describe the BU team, demands commitment, denies selfishness and accepts reality, yet seeks constant improvement while promoting the good of the team above self.
The Supernova program also demands commitment, denies selfishness and accepts reality while seeking constant improvement and promoting the good of the advisory team and the client above the self. When you implement this program into your business you will see phenomenal growth while giving every one of your clients the best service they have ever had. They will thank you for it with loyalty and referrals.
There are those who are afraid of coaching. They know they need guidance but criticism in the past was not always helpful. There is a major difference in coaching and criticism.
Coaching is about encouraging better behavior, practices and skills. Criticism is about finding fault and correcting specific actions, behavior or practices.
Coaching at its best is designed to explain and guide every participant to find new habits and refine old habits by opening the mind to new solutions and insight into solving old problems.
Criticism is at its best in finding fault, mistakes and problems in habits, behavior or skills. While criticism is important in recognizing problems, real or perceived, it does not find ways to change the behavior it criticizes. Here is what Winston Churchill said about criticism.
Getting coached by a professional coach calls attention to the healthy state of things, about how things could be. Coaching is a teaching, training and development process in which an individual gets support while learning to achieve specific personal or professional results or goals.
At Supernova our skills are in coaching not criticism. We do not tear down in order to build up. We coach successful adults-men and women, managers and sales people, planners and advisors who want more success and believe there is more to learn about being a client-centered, highly-productive professional without pouring their lives into their practices.
This is the first in a series. Want to know and grow? Then join us in this journey and we will all learn together.
test