Meaningful events in your clients’ lives
The following is based on one of The Covenant Group’s clients. All of the names and telling details have been changed.
When we started working with Diane Murphy, she had been an advisor for six years. The previous fiscal year was a banner year for her, but this year, she was struggling along.
Diane had noticed a frustrating trend. Prospects and clients were putting off making decisions related to their financial plans. Many said they liked what they saw, but wanted to focus on other priorities and asked Diane to get back to them in six months. While the second half of her year now looked rosy, Diane worried about getting through the first half.
Our coach arranged to meet at her office. By coincidence, the appointment took place the day the morning papers announced a landmark merger between TremTech and Stratical.
At our session, Diane bemoaned the slump in her business. “I’ve wracked my brains about why it’s been so hard lately,” she said. “Some of my peers are going through the same thing, so perhaps it’s the economy, and this is just something we have to ride out.”
Our coach sympathized with Diane; getting people to act now is one of the great challenges advisors face. The chasm between maintaining the status quo and action sometimes seems impossibly wide, and many advisors don’t know how to bridge the gap. As a way of leading Diane to the answer, our coach asked her about the day’s breaking news.
“I heard it on the radio this morning,” Diane said. “I ran into a number of TremTech people on the elevator. They were all in shock. A couple of my clients actually work in TremTech’s IT department.”
“Diane,” our coach explained, “this merger is a meaningful event in the lives of everyone who works at TremTech. The two companies have parallel structures; they’ll have to restructure and eliminate redundancies, which means laying people off.”
Diane and our coach talked for a few more minutes about the merger, after which Diane asked how we knew so much about TremTech and Stratical. Our coach explained that we work in a number of markets, including IT, and that it’s our job to stay on top of changes and trends in the industry. In fact, our coach explained, on my way over, he had placed a call into the head of training at TremTech.
“Have you called your two clients yet?” We asked.
She answered no and I asked her why not.
“I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“This merger will have an impact on the financial situations of your two clients. They need you now.”
“I guess I feel a little uncomfortable about contacting them right now. I don’t want to look like an ambulance chaser.”
Diane’s comment betrayed a relationship style that could hurt her career as an advisor. We needed to explore this before moving on. “There is a strong parallel between the business of financial advising and personal relationships in that both suffer if there’s a lack of intimacy. Let’s say someone close to you just passed away. This is a time when you most need the support of your friends. However, you’ll notice that your friends quickly separate into two groups: people who call immediately and others who wait. The people who wait might care about you just as much as those who call, but they’re afraid. They might describe their fear in any number of ways, but essentially they’re afraid of intimacy. Ultimately, this fear will cost them the opportunity to express their friendship and deepen the relationship. It’s the same in business; the idea of being an ambulance chaser comes from you, your fear of client intimacy.
“Look at it from your client’s point of view. This is a tough and frightening time for them. Imagine how relieved and comforted they’d be if you called to let them know you’re thinking of them, and that you’ll be there to help them any way you can.”
Diane nodded. “You’re right. I’ll call them as soon as we’re done.”
Our coach reminded Diane about her original problem of clients putting her off and asked her if she thought she’d have the same problem with her IT clients.
She said she didn’t think so, and when I asked why not, she said, “They’ll have to do something.”
Our coach pointed out to Diane that people tend to make decisions when there are meaningful events in their lives and when there is some form of transition. When your clients are experiencing equilibrium in their lives, their tendency is to maintain the balance. I said to Diane, “If you take a close look at the clients who have put you off recently, you’ll discover that many are experiencing equilibrium. In fact, I doubt that the economy has much to do with the reasons your clients have been procrastinating. They may point to the economy as an excuse, but people make decisions based on their unique situations. No matter what the economy is doing, they might be in a thriving business, they might have just sold their business, or retired, or had a new baby, or recently inherited money, been promoted, laid-off, transferred. Any of these meaningful events will disturb the equilibrium, and shake up their priorities. People make decisions at these times because they want to return to a state of equilibrium. If you work with clients at these times, you’ll find they’re prepared to act.
“As advisors, we need to zero in on meaningful events. To use these events as opportunities to get to know our clients better. And for many of those clients, it’s also a time for them to get to know themselves better. We can help them clarify their goals, and work with them to develop the appropriate solutions.”
After our session, Diane contacted her clients. As she expected, they were anxious but glad she had called and eager to get together with her. Diane met with one of them, John, the next day for lunch. John indicated the likelihood that the IT department would move to the Stratical location, 2300 kilometres away. Even if they offered to transfer him there, he’d refuse. He wanted to stay put. In fact, he saw himself becoming a technical mercenary, selling himself to the highest bidder for periods at a time. Over the next couple of weeks, Diane developed a plan to help John that included making provisions for his severance, rolling over his pension, and placing life and disability insurance on his life.
Diane went through the same process with her other client. Soon after, John referred a number of his IT associates to Diane. Within a few months, the merger played out as John had anticipated. Diane’s clients were fully prepared and excited about their new opportunities. By the end of her fiscal year, the business Diane generated from the TremTech/Stratical merger accounted for a significant portion of her income, and helped her significantly exceed her previous year’s revenue.
Lessons Learned
Diane learned how to be a better advisor by focusing on meaningful events in her clients’ lives. Meaningful events disturb your client’s equilibrium, forcing them to reevaluate their goals and reorder priorities. At times like these, your clients need you most and you have the opportunity to deepen the relationship. As an advisor, your point of difference is client intimacy. Be careful of your own fears of getting close to people. You don’t want to be the type of advisor who shies away from their clients when something meaningful happens, especially if the event is a challenging one, such as a job loss or a death in the family. When you focus on meaningful events, you will find that your clients are eager to return to a cosy state of balance and therefore more likely to want to implement your solutions right away.
Successful advisors are highly tuned to the meaningful events in their clients’ lives. They carefully monitor their clients’ environments, read the papers and journals that report a change in the industries their clients work in. Their minds quickly make connections between events and clients affected by those events. When meeting with or talking with clients they tune their ear for indicators of change. And they develop expertise at dealing with a variety of meaningful events. Today, for instance, Diane is an expert at guiding clients through career changing events such as mergers.
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