John Bowen is CEO of CEG Worldwide and one of the foremost coaches of financial advisors and other professionals who focus on the affluent.
Prince: What are the most successful financial advisors doing that differentiates them from the rest of the industry?
Bowen: They’re focusing on two key elements to accelerate their success. The first is delivering a great client experience that gets results well beyond investments. The second is attracting a steady stream of prequalified, pre-endorsed clients.
For the first factor, financial advisors need to deliver a world-class experience that addresses the major concerns of wealthy families: making smart decisions about their money, mitigating taxes, taking care of their heirs, making sure that assets are not unjustly taken and making a big impact with their charitable giving. This by itself will drive the second factor, because when affluent clients receive this type of experience, they become marketing apostles for their financial advisors.
However, it’s critical for advisors to bring in both the right teammates as well as other strategic partners to deliver this experience and enjoy a growth rate of between 20 percent and 40 percent. The top financial advisors know they need this type of team and partners to attract a steady stream of affluent prospective clients who are raising their hands to explore working with their firms.
Prince: How are top financial advisors attracting a steady flow of affluent prospects?
Bowen: They’re taking advantage of today’s technology to connect effectively with the right prospective clients. Instead of communicating on just a one-to-one basis, they are now talking on a one-to-many basis.
They also understand the importance of relationship marketing, which means focusing on strategic relationships with accountants, attorneys and other professionals as well as delighting their clients so that they receive referrals. But they no longer count only on relationship marketing. More and more, they’re using video, webinars and marketing automation, and getting great results.
Prince: What type of client experience are successful advisors delivering?
Bowen: The top financial advisors have learned that to both deliver a world-class client experience and have the ability to scale up their businesses, they have to have a very systematic process. The process has to address all the major financial concerns of the individuals and families in their affluent market niche.
In addition, these advisors know that their process has to take advantage of the fact that most affluent individuals want to first connect with their potential advisors on an emotional basis and then to justify their decision on whether to work with them based on logic. The advisors we have the privilege of coaching do this by starting with a discovery meeting in which they ask a series of questions around seven major themes that enables them to understand where prospective client are now, where they want to go, and what the gaps are.
With this understanding, the advisors determine whether their prospective clients’ current providers are effectively addressing their needs. If those providers are not, the advisors will explore with their prospective clients whether they’re the right ones to help them achieve all that’s important to them. If both advisor and client agree that they are a good fit, the advisor starts to systematically address each of the five major concerns of the affluent.
Prince: How are top advisors scaling up their practices?
Bowen: They’re building systems that allow them to deliver a consistent world-class experience to each and every client, as well as to attract a steady stream of pre-endorsed, prequalified affluent clients each and every month. To accomplish this, they’re making effective use of technology and building great teams both inside and outside their firms.
Prince: How can advisors achieve the success of your top coaching clients?
Bowen: First and foremost, they should never lose sight of their current and future clients. Those clients are counting on them.
Once advisors are in a position to consistently deliver a world-class client experience, they’re ready to scale up. I recommend that they begin to incorporate marketing automation and to leverage content at that time.
The top thing that the affluent cite in what they want from their financial advisors is that they want to work with experts. When financial advisors demonstrate their expertise by publishing their first e-book and then using technology to attract affluent individuals to both live workshops and virtual seminars, they will get the affluent to raise their hands to explore working with them. They can design their programs exactly the way they want to achieve their growth goals.
I wish all financial advisors the best of success in achieving all that is important to them.
