Genuine encouragement is powerful. It’s also surprisingly rare. Make sure you’re receiving it and giving it.

• Listen for opportunities to compliment your clients on things they have done well.
• Giving encouragement is much easier when you feel encouraged and inspired.
• If you don’t feel encouraged and inspired, let’s set a time to talk to help get you focused on positive aspects of your business.

Transcript

Never underestimate the power of genuine encouragement.

…

(And we are talking about genuine – not just paying lip service for the sake of it.)

Often times advisors never receive any encouragement themselves, and yet they are doing a phenomenally great job.

I had taken receiving encouragement for granted because when I was swimming, I was surrounded by a hugely encouraging team. As I was pursuing my Olympic aspirations, I had people watching me and encouraging me all the time. When I came over to join an NCAA team at UC Berkeley, we, again, had 23 other guys on that team. We were constantly encouraging each other, and I tended to take it for granted.

After I finished speaking to advisor groups, I would have advisors come up and ask me about coaching. I would just default to, “No. All you have to do is figure out what you want your point B to look like, analyze where your point A is, and then figure out the steps necessary to get from, literally, A to B. It wasn’t until I stopped and thought about the fact that they were probably not receiving nearly as much encouragement I received throughout my career. Often times, upon talking with them, they were receiving none.

That’s why I’m [now] passionate about coaching advisors.

Here’s an example: several weeks ago, I spoke to a young lady who was going great in her business, but she needed to get some other things organized, bringing some more structure into the business. When I had her send back her questionnaire that I send to coaching clients, there was just a little note mentioning cold walking and receiving a $3 million client.”

We had our next conversation, and she went through how she needed to structure and stratify her book – As to Ds and what have you, and [she] knew how I coached about that. But, I kind of pulled her up and said, “Just tell me more about this $3 million client.”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “It was cold-walking that I did. I banged on his door, and we got talking. Then we had a phone call two weeks later, and he had just sold a business. He opened up his account with me and brought over $3.5 million.” She said, “What was funny was he told his sister and brother-in-law, and then a month later, they brought in $1.5 million.”

I said, “That’s amazing! What that points to is that you build trust very, very quickly and very easily. Many advisors would die for the opportunity to do that, and you’re doing it naturally!”

Immediately the whole demeanor and tone of her conversation changed. She had never looked at it that way. She had never had somebody tell her, this is a real strongpoint you need to pat yourself on the back for.

So we then went through her A to D clients, talking about stratifying them based on AUM and then on revenue-by-client (for which your broker-dealer should be able to provide you an in-depth report), but her focus now shifted to, “I can do this! There is great stuff happening for me in my business.”

So often times advisors never hear an encouraging word.

So,

1. You have to be able to encourage your clients. Listen to them closely about their aspirations, but regardless of their financial state when they begin their relationship with you, find a way to compliment them and encourage them.
2. You simply can’t give away what you don’t have yourself. You need to feel encouraged and inspired to pursue your objectives.
3. If you don’t [feel inspired and encouraged], shoot me an email, and we’ll figure out 10 minutes when we can talk, especially about your 2020 aspirations. We can talk further about some really neat things that are probably going on in your business that you are not really even noticing.

Drop me an email, we’ll talk for 10 minutes. We’ll look at some positive steps for you to start focusing on, especially as 2020 is just around the corner.

I look forward to bringing you another Distraction-Proof Advisor Idea next week.

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