Some Thoughts on how to be a successful Financial Advisor

Setting goals is essential to success.  The problem is that most goals are not defined properly.  Goals must start with why, this is essential.  It is often overlooked, we are so ingrained by television and media into believing that what is important is not why but how and what.  We have to change our thinking about this concept. 

To illustrate this point think about the television ads you have seen lately, the ones that drive you to mute them or switch channels, they usually tell you they will save you money or that they have a sale on.  The reality is that the sale price is the real price, they all have perpetual sales.  I have never once been in a J C Penny store in the last 20 years and not had at least 50% off the retail price. Now think about the Canadian Tire ad for summer water pistols where the guy proposes a peaceful outcome and gets totally soaked by the kids with the water guns.  

The normal ad focuses on what,  50% off, the Canadian Tire ad focuses on why, it’s summer time, it’s hot and there is nothing that feels so good and is so much fun as a good old water fight and if gramma or grandpa is involved even better. 

I saw another one today the new Ram truck ad for the NFL broadcasts with Paul Harvey talking about God making farmers, if it doesn't make you cry I would be surprised.  The important thing is that it is about 'Why"  not about a cheaper truck. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMpZ0TGjbWE

The problem with goals is that they are not well defined in the present positive sense on paper, they have unrealistic time frames and there is no commitment to succeed no matter how many times one fails.  Saichiro Honda said, “Success is 99% failure.  Thomas Watson the founder of IBM said, ”that if you want to increase your success double your failure rate.”  But this quote probably sums it up best of all,  “I’ve missed more than nine thousand shots in my career. I have lost 300 games. Twenty six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again all my life…… and that is why I succeed."   Michael Jordan

To be an independent financial advisor requires a special individual, an entrepreneur with a high desire to succeed, intellect, means and a market.  The industry has a very high failure rate, in  year one as high as 95%.  Of the 5% who make it to year two only 1% last five years.  Those that do succeed  were those who were willing to go the extra mile, they were the ones who said every "no!" is one step closer to the next yes. The problem is that getting a lot of rejections can be painful, that pain is the number one reason why so many talented individuals do not make it as independent financial advisors.

What can you do to defy the odds?

Start with your "Why" define your goals, write them down in the present positive tense, read them everyday.Don't be afraid to set big goals, just understand that there are no unrealistic goals only unrealistic time frames. Now you know Why and What. The way to achieve a goal is to develop the "How" , a process.  With a process you you can repeat it over and over until you can perform the process without thinking just like Michael Jordan. 


A Simple process that works
 
 Nick Murray in his book, Serious Money explains how he used the research  of Dr. Aaron Hemsley to change his outlook to prospecting.  By following this simple process Murray became one of the most successful mutual fund salesmen in history.  If you take this to heart and follow this simple way of approaching the sales process you can very quickly eliminate the pain and begin to have everyone say yes.

Dr. Hemsley was an insurance agent, he qualified for MDRT and had moved into management, there he discovered that he could recruit highly qualified individuals who could not get through the first year in the business all because of the pain of rejection.  At that point he decided to go back to school and get his PHD in human psychology and spend the rest of his life studying how advisors deal with objections and to teach them how to get by the problem of rejection.  You can learn more about Dr. Hemsley at his website, https://www.aaronhemsley.com/

The prevailing thought of our industry is that you have to make 10 calls to get three appointments and make one sale.  That maybe true if you are asking for an appointment to sell insurance.  But that isn’t what we do, we develop relationships with people and help them to make smart choices about how they use their money.  

Here is Hemsley’s approach as used by Nick Murray.

1.      It doesn’t matter what you say to someone, it has all to do with how you say it.  If your subconscious mind thinks that the objective is to sell them something then that is what will be conveyed in your conversation.  If you change that to a different objective, such as going for coffee or chatting about the weather with the objective of getting to know the other person then your subconscious will take a different tract and you will come across as someone who could be a resource. 

2.       With that in mind you can now ask everyone you meet to go for coffee.  You will record the number of times you ask.  Use the back of a business card,  a tick mark is all that is necessary.  Do this for a week, add up the number and divide by five.  This is your bench mark, the number that you are going to contact every day and ask to go for coffee. 

3.       Now repeat that simple process for four weeks, if the benchmark is 3 per day do that for five days for four weeks.  Simple, easy,  all you need to implement the plan you have between your ears.

4.       At the end of four weeks add one more per day and do that number for four more weeks and so on.

5.       Now the question arises what if I fail?  Well I guess you could quit, commit suicide, or you could do the reasonable thing and recognize that failure is not the end and start over.  

6.       Here’s the cool part about this concept, you will reach a point very early in the process where  you will be converting 10 out of 10 to clients in a short period of time.   And you will no longer fear making a call.