Referrals To Ideal Clients Are Not As Easy To Get
Many consultants and authors want you to believe that they have identified the secret to referrals, that they have found the magic formula that if followed precisely, will lead to a never ending flow of clients willing to hand over their vast fortunes because they were referred by a friend. It would seem that everyone has discovered the secret simultaneously and they are all willing to sell it to you because you are the only one who has not figured it out.
The raw truth is that referrals are increasingly hard to get for most advisors. And there are solid reasons behind this trend.
Large numbers of clients have been burned. They have been burned by banks, brokers, mutual funds, insurance agents, mortgage brokers and many others in the financial services world who were supposed to “have their back.”
As humans, we experience losses differently than wins. Wins are enjoyed but quickly forgotten. Losses, on the other hand, are burned into our primal brains to prevent us from allowing them to recur.
Many people who thought they were financially well off have suddenly found out how vulnerable and unprotected they really are. They are scared and rightly so. Bernie Madoff and others used referrals to burn entire networks of friends and families.
These events make clients gun-shy to refer and their friends gun-shy to listen and respond. Clients and their friends have become more cynical and more fearful because it is precisely the right way to think in this kind of environment. That reduces the likelihood of getting a referral and the likelihood that it will be acted upon if received.
People Refer Those Things They Value
Most advisors are delivering the wrong kind of value. Most advisors are focusing on and keeping their clients’ focus on investments returns. This is a huge problem because advisors have no control over investment returns. If they did, they would be rich from trading their own accounts and they would not need clients in the first place.
Most investors know that past performance is no guarantee of future returns, so even if you have done very well for your clients, they and their friends know in their heart of hearts that your future results are likely to revert to the mean, meaning subpar performance for them. When you focus is on investment returns, the only sure thing is that your performance will vary.
Clients don’t like to recommend variation or potential variation to their friends. They like to refer certainty. They know that if they recommend a movie, that their friends will have the same experience that they had because they will see the exact same movie. Their level of enjoyment and the emotions they experience will be different, but they will see the exact same movie.
When they recommend a restaurant, they want to know that their friends will experience the same great food and the same great service they’ve received. If the food and service vary, they are unlikely to recommend.
To earn referrals it is essential that your process is highly repeatable with highly repeatable outcomes, even for very different clients. The raw truth is that consistent repeatable outcomes are critical to your long term success.
Most Financial Advisors Offer Unremarkable Services
Most advisors are delivering undifferentiated services. If what you are offering is substantially similar to thousands of other advisors, why should a client refer you to their friends and why should their friends go out of their way to switch advisors?
The raw truth about referrals is that there is no shortcut, no magic wand, no secret process, no magic phrase…there is only the hard work of building a practice that delivers real value to real clients that is unlike anything they can get elsewhere.
You must understand the scarcest commodity on Earth and how to leverage it both for yourself and your clients. ONLY when you understand the power of this commodity and how to wield it like a Samurai warrior, can you expect referrals to flow to you…because you will be delivering something that fewer than 1% of all advisors know how to do…and many who know how to do it are too lazy to use its full potential.
The raw truth is that clients respond to real value, not fluff, flash and bullcrap.
If you are ready to step up, do the work and deliver real value for your clients, read on. We will lay it out for you in simple terms. Our process is very different from what other advisors do. It produces results that are very different from what other advisors produce. It delivers a different kind of client value.
Our process also generates spontaneous and prompted referrals…not because it’s magic but because clients’ understand that it is unique, and that neither they nor their friends can get it anywhere else. It is scarce. And like gold or diamonds, its scarcity makes it worth talking about.
“The Real Deal”
We like to refer to our way of working with clients as “being the real deal.” Being the real deal is about authenticity, transparency and integrity. It is about making a very simple promise to clients and then following through in a very methodical way to deliver exactly what you’ve promised and so much more.
Being the real deal requires that a lot of work be done for your clients, but in our model that workload is spread out over a number of outsourced specialists. It is a delegated model both internally and externally. What strategic delegation enables is leverage…the most important kind of leverage…leveraging of time…for both you and your clients.
The scarcest commodity on Earth is time. Clients never have enough of it and what they have is frequently already committed. If you can give your clients the gift of time, you will be more valuable to them than any fee you could charge.
If you are like most advisors, you too, are out of time…time for the critical tasks you must perform for clients with time left over to lead your team and grow your practice. By strategically delegating and spreading the workload, you can deliver an extraordinary experience in every client meeting and do it consistently, meeting after meeting.
By using our system of 10 clearly defined Client Deliverables, 5 Critical Reports and our proprietary 143 Checkpoint System all driven by our online Client Meeting Checklist Software, you will learn to leverage both your time and your clients’ time to deliver an entirely new kind of value for your clients.
You will learn how to focus your clients’ time and energy on those things that cannot be delegated, like family, fun, fitness, faith and friends. But in order for them to be able to fully focus on these things, they will have to know that their entire financial house is in perfect order because you have proven to them through your consistent progress reports that it is completely under control.
What Clients Value Most About You: The Key To Unleashing Endless Streams of Referrals
When they know their next meeting with their advisor is already on their schedule, when they know they have enough money to fund their current lifestyle, when they know their future is secure, when they know that their goals are on track, when they know that they have done everything within their control to create their ideal life, when they know that you truly have their back, no matter what…they change… their worldview changes, their kids change, their life changes…and they will attribute it to you and your team…and they will refer and refer and refer because they will know that this process will work for anyone who uses it. The will know that it is a predictable, repeatable, process with predictable, repeatable, outcomes for everyone they love or care about…and you will know…that you are The Real Deal. And that, is the raw truth about referrals.
Bonus Content: The Ten Client Deliverables™
Click here to download The Ten Client Deliverables™ you can use to create a consistent repeatable high value offering for your clients.
