Recently, Merrill Lynch and Capgemini have issued a very important research study which demonstrates how much investors confidence has been eroded by the turbulent markets. Investors are still very wary of the future. Click Here to read the article.
The article points out that the following:

1. Investors want a more active relationship with their advisors, including a deeper understanding of their investments and how they are aligned to their goals, based on their actual risk profile.
2. Many investors are being driven by their emotions when making investment decisions which is increasing the need for advisors to engage in greater dialogue with their clients.
3. Clients are now demanding fundamental changes in how they are served, and are favoring firms which can understand both their emotional and intellectual needs. This is increasing the need for advisors to incorporate a behavioral finance approach towards portfolio management. Advisors need to be able to incorporate the emotional factors into stronger portfolio management and risk management capabilities. A behavioral finance approach of this nature can be a big differentiator among firms.

This research is very consistent with other research, such as from Gallup, which demonstrates the need to emotionally engage with clients at a much deeper level. This is the new “behavioral economy”.

In all areas of life, people talk about how they can improve and sustain performance. How do we get better results and keep good results regularly coming? This is true for people in their personal lives and careers, businesses, sporting teams and so on.

Foundational to building performance to a high level is knowing your DNA Behavioral style, openly communicating with others and then keeping to a purpose based plan. This is the core DNA Performance Model.

However, the key to sustaining performance is “confidence”. Building performance and starting a “winning streak” is one thing but keeping it going is another. Have you noticed how some people get it together early in their life or career and then lose it later seemingly going into a downward spiral. Some then come back, some do not. Others start slow and then get in the groove and grow. This is also true of businesses and also sporting teams. When you take a look into all of these situations of fluctuating performance the common element is confidence.

When confidence is increasing and is high it can propel you forward further to achieve even better results. However, compatency and arrogance can creep in with a failure to remember what got you there. Then a bad event comes or someone does something great out of the blue and you do not know what to do. This can be the start of a loss of confidence, which can build up. At the same time, for another person who has been on a losing streak they string together some wins and successes. Suddenly, they start the climb upwards.

I would encourage all of you to think about what makes you confident and what makes you lose confidence. If you like, we can help you with looking at your confidence attributes.

I would also encourage you to read the book “Confidence” by Rosabeth Moss Kanter. This book uses plenty of great personal, business and sporting stories to show how winning streaks and losing streaks begin and end.

Resistance to Financial Planning

Last week, there was a Financial Planning Association group discussion in which someone posed the question: "Why do people resist creating a formal financial plan?"

This is a great question and gets to the core of financial planning.

Many people do not know what financial planning is. I think many financial planners are still learning what it means to them. As the industry grows and comes to more of a collective view then this will help. Is the planner about achieving returns or helping a client achieve life and consequently financial goals? What role is the planner playing in the client's life?

Those who accept the planner as their financial life guide will more likely do a financial plan. Another key point is the person's level of personal trust. Do they have fears about planning and sharing themselves and getting help? Do they trust the planner? Both issues are at work.

I also find that if the planner is not a trusting person (and our research shows 70% are not) then this is not conducive to building relationships and getting planning commitment. The question of trust gets down to both a person's DNA behaviors and their life experience. The more the planner represents product and is not independent then trust will also be harder to build.

Ultimately, the more a planner seeks to know their client and make the client feel they are understood then the chances of getting the plan done increases. Further, retention will increase. The client is not a financial number but a person whose life constantly develops.

Last week I was working with one of our Certified Wealth Mentors with my role to offer some behavioral insights on some difficult client cases. The cases were difficult because of the clients’ attitudes not only to financial decision-making but also to life. These cases reaffirmed to me how much trust is core to all dimensions of every client situation. This is why when we redeveloped our DNA personality system in the past year we made trust a new stand-alone personality factor.

Often when we talk about trust it is in the context of our role as trusted advisor and building open relationships with clients. Certainly, this is an important dimension. Talking about trust in this way is fine. However, the heart of truly understanding trust and to knowing our clients is to know where trust comes from. There are a number of very important dimensions to trust that we all need to know. Let me ask you the question: How much do you trust yourself? Trusting yourself is the starting point of building sound relationships and also making sound decisions. Your own level of personal trust will determine whether you will trust others and then whether others will trust you. So, if you want to know whether your clients will trust you, reflect on your own level of self trust and then learn about their self trust.

We all have a natural level of trust which comes with our natural DNA behavioral style and then there are life experiences added on top which deepen or reduce our trust levels. The more we know who we are and have personal confidence then the more likelihood that we will trust.

In one of the client cases I was referring to the client was 60 years old with a very successful business and over $10 million to his name and annual income of over $2 million. However, he was personally unhappy, not prepared to let go of the iron grip on his business or prepared to create an estate plan his family could know about or be involved in. Does this sound familiar? This is a client who has very low personal trust levels and it transcends every part of his life. It will be very hard for this advisor to get close and really provide the advice he needs and on the other side the advisor will find it hard to meet expectations. A no win situation.

Have you seen people make fear based decisions and not be transparent? This starts from low personal trust levels. As a service provider you want to know your clients trust levels early if you are going to have a close and profitable relationship. You will never be able to help this type of person until you can discover the source of the fear. The difficulty is getting them to tell you. I do find that when you can get a client to talk about their strengths and passions you have a much greater chance of unlocking the fear, and trust grows from there.

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.