client meeting
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It’s a little late for resolutions, but then this is generally the time of year when a lot of us let ourselves off the personal-growth hook.  

Let’s fill the gap with a bit of professional development. I’ve got eight suggestions — together these will improve your clients’ experience, make better use of technology to communicate with them, help you meet regulatory requirements and grow your book. 

1. Make client meetings about the client

Are your meetings about the person you’re with, or about the products in their portfolios? 

Increasingly, digital tools and pre-packaged investment portfolios can provide good returns. Clients come to you for something more — to benefit from your expertise in identifying gaps and other issues in their financial lives, or to simply gain peace of mind that their portfolios are well-suited to their goals. Whatever their reason to be your client, listen for it.

2. Find a better way to know your client

Are your client meetings scheduled based on how long it takes you to get through all the compliance requirements and forms, especially the know-your-client forms?  

Instead of focusing on the forms, ensure the focus of your conversation is the client, and the changes in their life. Have they moved, had a child, found a new job, lost a job, gotten married or divorced?  

After you’ve had a detailed conversation about the client’s life, ask a few follow-on questions to complete the missing information on the form. But tie that in naturally to your conversation about the client, and don’t allow the form to be the centrepiece of the conversation. This might even shorten your meetings. 

3. Adopt a better approach to product knowledge

Is your personal product shelf manageable? The upgraded know-your-product (KYP) obligations introduced by the client-focused reforms initiative went into effect a couple of years ago. The easiest way to meet the KYP obligations for all the securities you offer is to have a reasonable number of products on your shelf.  

Conduct a review, and weed out products you no longer want to keep up on. 

4. Improve client communication

Are your clients as engaged as they could be? If there’s room for improvement, increase your communication with them.  

We may be facing a year of volatility, so be sure to proactively communicate to clients to ease their fears. Clients are often overwhelmed in meetings with their advisors, so be sure to send follow-up messages summarizing the decisions you made together, action items and next steps all in plain English.  

Send periodic communications between client meetings. Offer webinars to drive engagement. Invite clients to ask questions about their annual statements, and the fee and performance information included there. That’s a natural jumping-off point for an effective conversation that promotes the value you provide.

5. Use technology more effectively

Are you leveraging all available technology to drive efficient client meetings and follow-ups? 

If your firm has note-taking software, try it. Clients expect hyper-personalized communications from their advisors, based on what they receive in all other aspects of their lives. Use technology to efficiently develop and send value-add messages.  

Some clients may prefer to attend meetings virtually, so use your technology (as long as it’s seamless and supports robust client engagement). Don’t be intimidated.  

6. Put your best foot forward with prospects

Are you attracting clients effectively? There’s a book by Tilman Fertitta entitled Shut Up And Listen!: Hard Business Truths That Will Help You Succeed. It’s a very insightful title, if direct. Advisors sometimes use client meetings as an opportunity to showcase their finesse as a product-picker. Most clients looking for an advisor don’t want to know about the myriad products available, nor do they want to learn about investing.  

They just want someone they can trust, with whom they can connect, and with whom they believe they can have a good relationship. 

7. Get on the financial planning bandwagon

Do you offer financial planning to clients? If not, make this the year to get your financial planning designation, or at least to leverage your firm or colleagues to offer financial plans to your clients.  

As this industry continues to swing from a product to an advice focus, goal setting and planning are increasingly important. Be sure to leverage financial planning technology — many of these programs will supercharge your process.  

Until you have the designation, be sure to at least have goal-setting conversations with your clients. That is the real value you can offer them.

8. Take a practical approach to improving financial literacy

How are you supporting clients on their financial literacy journey? While I’m a big believer that financial literacy is important, raising the overall level of financial literacy amongst Canadians will not happen quickly.  

In the meantime, we need to change the way we talk to clients. Until we know that a client is both interested in, and capable of understanding, all the details around investing and our industry, we need to simplify the way we communicate with them.  

We don’t need to dumb things down, we just need to break them down. (I love that line — it’s borrowed from a seminar I attended recently.) Doing so will provide clients valuable education and improve their understanding of financial matters at the same time