No matter the industry, providers of products and services are always saying something to the effect of: "You are blind as to who is going to walk in the front door for their first meeting with you. As you work with the client a bit you have a greater collection of knowledge but still not the whole picture. It can still take 10 years or more to really know who you are dealing with". Do you truly know the life and financial motivations of your clients? Their deepest desires? Do you know their risk tolerance? Do you know what types of products and services they want?

The reality is that most providers of products and services know very little about their clients. For the first few hours from meeting the client research shows that less than 10% is known about the client and in the medium term less than 20%. How much better off would the client and the provider be if more was known earlier?

The question I have is: why don't product and service providers seek to find out more about their clients? One reason is that it is hard and we do not have the time. So, the key is finding a way to quickly and non-invasively get the information you want and make the client feel understood. The process must be mutual.

Our "inside out" process for serving clients is below. Most providers start at step 3 - the product providing point. Whereas starting at step 1 is key - understanding the client's life and financial motivations. Step 2 is to demonstrate empathy by communicating on the client’s terms, and then step 3 is to match the DNA of the client to the right product. Finally, step 4 is to guide the client to make the right choices.

If you want to get started on this process, please go to www.dnabehaviormarketing.com and take our complimentary Communication DNA profile. Then you can see how to bring this process into your business to get to know your clients at a deeper level much more quickly for a more productive outcome.

In recent weeks we have strongly focused our messaging around "business transformation". In particular, the need to address the client experience that is being provided in order to transform. So often, leaders regularly talk about getting the right people on board, developing the team and the leadership, having the right product, focusing the business plan, improving execution etc. These are all important dimensions; however, they are not all of it.

The key to business transformation is increasing the level of engagement of both your clients and employees. This is regardless of what business you are in or the nature of the service being provided. In 2009, there was some very compelling Gallup Research supporting this approach. This is illustrated by the graph below and the following key points:

When we interview businesses, so many readily admit they know less than 20% about their client. What would happen if they knew more than 50% about their clients? So, from an implementation perspective we believe it is key to know more about your clients. Then deliver a client centered experience by aligning your products and services to the client and then having employees who are client focused. This transformation in the alignment of your clients, employees and products can be achieved through predictive DNA behavioral insights. This is the fundamental purpose of our DNA Behavior Marketing system and Business DNA programs.

For advisors, growing your financial planning business is about getting more of the right clients who you can profitably serve on a sustained basis. This means you must have financial planning clients who will pay for the value you provide and will allow you to do so efficiently and with minimum wasted energy. I am sure this sounds logical and for many financial advisors this will sound obvious. The question is: are you acquiring clients and managing relationships as well as you can?

Creating the right client acquisition plan does not just happen and normally you need to have been in business at least 5 years to be in a place to work out is right. Experience is needed. One starting place to getting the right plan in place will be performing a financial analysis of your business to determine the profitability of your client relationships. In my experience, it will not always be your highest fee paying clients who are the best clients to have.

However, I would seriously recommend in building your client acquisition plan that you consider the client experience being provided. Remember, we are in an experience economy. Transforming the client experience you wish to provide is the key to growing your business and also your revenue. This is where the perceived value will come from. The starting point for this transformation process is with YOU personally understanding who you are, your Financial DNA personality and your life purpose. Consider:

• What are your talents and unique gifts?
• What are you passionate about?
• What are your own life and financial motivations?
• Where could you make the most difference in the life of your clients?
• How do you wish your service to be remembered?
• How will you differentiate your service?
• What capabilities do you have to develop?
• What processes do you have to build?
• What will the profile of the desired clients be?

THEN, address what fees you need to charge to profitably deliver this service experience, and the fee charging model. From this platform you can determine your client selection policy and the ideal practice for you.

For you to be successful in creating an experience your service must create feelings. The client must feel that who they are is understood along with their life. Further, your clients must feel that they are making the right life, financial and investment choices. So, your client service experience must have a greater "inside out" feeling and hence methodology to it. This is not just connecting with the client on an inside-out basis up-front to build the plan. The inside-out experience must be continually provided every year through the review meetings and in every communication. You will only achieve this by creating a service model that is authentically connected to the core of who you are and also the core of who your clients are.

Fundamental to the approach I have been using for the last 10 years is to have all of my clients complete a Financial DNA personality test up-front in the planning process. This creates the feeling of being understood. The feelings of understanding and trust are accelerated when the client sees my own Financial DNA personality profile. This now makes us more equal and shows I have walked the journey too. From here, I build the whole planning experience tailored to who the client is so that they can make the right choices.

To learn more about Financial DNA and building the "Ideal DNA Advisory Practice" visit: www.financialdna.com/advisor

Have you considered what is going to propel growth in your business in the coming months and years? Schwab conducted a research study in March 2009 which shows the greatest 3 enablers of growth are:

1. Closing the deal with prospects - 75%
2. Maintaining quality service - 73%
3. Adding new technology for scalability - 67%

So what is your strategy for closing more prospects more quickly and improving client service? How are you going to maintain and enhance your client service? Success comes back to the old adage "know thy client". People pay lip service to this, but do they really do it? And how well?

My view is that you will not know the motivations of your prospects and clients and how to communicate with them until you objectively know their DNA behavioral style. Once you know their DNA you can more quickly build a deeper relationship and also match them with the right choices for purchasing your products and services. Trust will be developed very quickly and your sales will increase.

This is the foundation of our DNA Marketing system (go to www.dnabehaviormarketing.com). Our DNA Marketing system provides you with an online behavioral marketing system whereby all of your prospects and clients can complete a profile online on your website. From there you will be able to seamlessly communicate with the prospects and clients on their terms and also customize your product and service offerings based on who they are. Using this system will deepen and scale your marketing. Also, this approach addresses one of your greatest barriers to growth which is not having enough time for business development and marketing.

The theme at this week's FPA Conference in Annaheim centered on trust. Becoming the trusted advisor is not a new idea however, it is increasingly talked about.

The question is how do you become the trusted advisor? How do you accelerate trust in your advisory relationships, and for that matter in any relationship?

Building trust is directly related to how you behave in relation to others. What many do not know is that the starting point for trust starts with your behavior. If you do not trust yourself, then you will not trust others and others will not trust you. What we have learned from research is that some people are not naturally wired not to trust and hence will always have more inherent difficulty in building trusted relationships. So, these skeptical people have to be more conscious in developing trust with clients (and their team).

Interestingly, based on our extensive behavioral profiling of financial advisors, over 70% of them would be low on trust or more skeptical. So, why do you think there is such a lack of trust of our industry, and now being trusted is being valued so much? It is also fair to say that being completely trusting as a person can be naive. Some skepticism is reasonable so long as it is healthy.

Now, you need to address how you are going to improve your level of trust. The first step is gaining clarity of who you are, your talents and your life purpose. When you have the personal confidence to be who you are your fears start going away and generally trust builds. We help people through this step by having them firstly take the Business DNA Natural Talents Profile.
The second step is to uncover your client relationship management performance. We do this by having you take the AdvisorTRUST 360 Profile. In essence, the profile is a behavioral client performance evaluation. The process involves you rating yourself and having at least 3 clients each rating you on 75 performance items across the following 7 key areas:

1. Communication
2. Results
3. Relationships
4. Emotional Intelligence
5. Trust
6. Advisory values
7. Advisory competence

The profile report identifies areas of strength where you are positively building trust with clients and areas where further development is required.

With this information a coaching program can be put in place to help you improve your trust and level of client satisfaction. The reality is that every person will have performance aspects needing development across these 7 areas. Even those who inter personally may naturally build strong trust could be lower in demonstrating advisory trust in terms of the results and processes side of their service delivery.

If you would like to learn more and participate in the AdvisorTrust 360 Profile please contact us at inquiries@businessdnaresources.com

In my work with entrepreneurs and family business owners there are quite divergent views about whether to bring children into the family business when they are young adults, or even at any stage. Some say never and others have a desire to perpetuate the family association with the business. There are cases for both. Of course, rationality plays into it and the family legacy.

In my own case, I had to work through many of the issues because our family had a pastoral (cattle ranching) business which I eventually managed for a number of years. I enjoyed it from a business perspective but ultimately did not have the passion to make it a life long endeavor. My brother was not interested at all.

The big issue is, do the children want to be involved in the business? Then importantly, what is their passion for the business?

On one side it is wrong to force the children into something they do not want to be part of. However, is it wrong to deny them the opportunity? Often parents do not want the children in the business to avoid family problems by not mixing family and business.

I believe each case needs to be looked at on its merits. The starting point should be the DNA of the family members and also the DNA of the family and the DNA of the business. By looking at the question from the inside out, the answer will soon be apparent. If the children have a very strong passion for the business then the next issue of how they are involved should be looked at. Who can blame them if the business has been discussed around the dinner table every night for 20+ years?

In considering the involvement of the children, their aptitudes and abilities need to be examined. Passion is one important aspect, having the capability is another. Often this will come down to the role they play - certainly at the start. Thrusting them into a leadership role without experience and knowledge could be a disaster. Protocols need to be put in place for evaluation and determining their place on merit.

Overall, a family governance structure will be needed which properly regulates decision making. The decision making structure needs to be separate for each of the family, investments and business. They are all quite different areas. A key part of this will be the involvement of children in the business.

Risk tolerance is a much talked about area in financial planning and it is one core component of an investor's unique financial behavior - what we call their Financial DNA. It is so fundamental that we are always talking about it and making decisions with reference to it.

A huge difficulty has been reliably measuring an investor's risk tolerance. One of the problems is that an investor's risk tolerance is assessed today but then a portfolio is developed for the long term which has to cope with fluctuating markets. Do you truly know what your client's risk tolerance for the long term is? How much of your assessment of the client's risk tolerance is based on current situational factors and their emotional impulses today about the market? Then add in the fact that a person's risk tolerance may differ across different asset classes. Of course, an advisor's own risk tolerance can color the situation resulting in the client "eating" the behavior of the advisor. There have been lots of examples where a group of advisors addressing the same case facts at the same time will come up with different risk tolerance assessments for the client.

After more than 10 years of studying financial behaviors, including risk, and performing research based on our online profiles Financial DNA Resources has now launched our "Behavioral Portfolio Report". You can download a copy of it here: http://financialdnaresources.com/FinancialDirections.

The Behavioral Portfolio Report provides a comprehensive and holistic analysis of a person's complete financial behavioral style resulting in the creation of what we call an "Inside-Out Portfolio". The inside-out portfolio gets to the level of asset classes and also tactical factors for investment selection. This then becomes the foundation for the financial plan and investment policy statement.

Fundamental to the Inside Out Portfolio is a superior analysis and quantification of the person's risk perception and risk attitude. In particular, our analysis uniquely dissects their:

1. Understanding of risk and return - if this is high then they are likely to see investment markets as less risky
2. Risk propensity to take risks (or be bold) - their behavioral inclination to make daring or bold choices
3. Risk tolerance - which is the ability to live with the consequences of taking risks

Interestingly, our research has shown that in 20% of cases people have a higher risk propensity than risk tolerance. This is critical for advisors to know as their client could take greater risks than they can stomach.

Core to our Financial DNA work has been the discovery of a person's natural "hard-wired" behavior - these are the behaviors that remain stable through a client's life. This applies equally to risk propensity and risk tolerance.

Recently, we have had people re-take our profiles to determine profile consistency with time gaps of over 3 years. The consistency level has been very high which is powerful considering the turbulent times we have been living in.

It is key to know a client's natural risk profile for building a portfolio as this is the behavior which will reveal itself when they are under pressure and generally throughout their life. This behavior is highly predictable. However, you do need to know the client's current financial preferences as well based on experiences and education. This will tell you where they are at now and how much portfolio variance they can accept, and what additional guidance they may need in the portfolio construction phase.

So, our view is that you cannot know enough about your client when you are advising them. Knowing all of the dimensions of the client's risk attitudes and objectively quantifying them is important for the "know your client rules" and more importantly to be able to have a transparent discussion with your client to properly manage their expectations. Using your intuition is very important but it alone is not enough. Now is the time to start educating your clients with much deeper and applied behavioral insight.

In recent times I have done a lot of talking about your "success impediments". What is getting in your way to success? A lot of the time it is our own mind. We allow negative thinking to get in the way. This will be true at any time particularly when times are tough and we are fearful. Or it will happen because we have limited experience or a lack of confidence. However, we should never let the big thoughts go away. These big ideas could be a genuine opportunity that is being thrown your way. To start growing you need to firstly not throw the idea away. At least write it down in a journal or talk to a friend or associate about it. You never know what they too have been thinking or how they will provide you with another thought or idea which will liberate your thinking.

To grow you must think big. In my own case, whenever I have taken a big step or pursued a big idea it is because I have taken that dream and not allowed myself to get in the way. I am doing something right now in our DNA business with an idea which I would never have thought possible. Interestingly, the idea came to me on how we could use technology differently and within weeks I have seen futurists talk about this as the future and industry specialists talk about these types of delivery concepts. While I have the vision, I can also see from those around me who have the talents to implement it. So, I will not be the barrier.

Sure, thinking big takes courage but we can all do it if we want to. What dreams or big ideas do you have that could change your life? Would you be a fool to let them go?

Last week I participated in a learning program for fast growth businesses conducted by Verne Harnish (founder of Gazelles, Inc) who is world renowned as "The Growth Guy". Verne has run training workshops for and coached many great entrepreneurs all over the world. He has a very straightforward approach to helping an entrepreneur stay focused.

After listening to Verne for a while, and I have been in his workshops before, it became very clear to me that the Big Question we need to ask ourselves is: What is your success impediment? That is, what is getting in the way of your success? I believe we can continuously ask ourselves this question in every area of our life, at whatever stage we are at. In many instances, it is "you". So, the question becomes what are you going to do to get out of your own way? Are you self-aware of what is in the way? A lot of this is about your DNA. A lot of the time, we are not aware of what our natural blind spots are which are a core part of our behavior. Ultimately, people succeed or fail because of their behavior. Taking this further into a business or a family, the behaviors of the team or family member will also be important.

This is why coaching is very important. If you are an entrepreneur, Verne will certainly endorse that a coach is critical to your success in business. The same is true in life generally - a good life coach can really help your quality of life. If the coach starts by asking the big question every time then your feet will truly be held to the fire and the right focus will come.

When one looks at business, it is easy to miss or not appreciate the importance of private businesses and entrepreneurship. How often do you look to the larger public companies for opportunities, marketing and jobs? Probably a lot. This is what many first think of doing.

I would like to suggest that you change your thinking and focus on private companies. Information from the recent G8 Summit in Italy shows that 70% of the world's jobs are provided by private companies and 100% of job growth. This would mean the energy forces are with entrepreneurship for many business opportunities.

Think about this next time you hold a strategy session for your business.