Welcome to a special episode of Soundbites, brought to you by Investment Executive and powered by Canada Life. This week we continue our series with Chris Reynolds. Chris is the co-founder and executive chairman with Investment Planning Counsel. He’s well known in the Canadian financial management industry as host of the Turning the Page podcast, and he’s the author of The Six Circle Strategy: The Entrepreneur’s Journey to Wealth and Freedom. Today we’re looking at the fifth circle: Relationship. We talk about the three kinds of customer relationships, celebrating milestones, recognizing potential, and we started by asking about emotional maturity.
Chris Reynolds (CR): Emotional maturity is the ability to stay calm, thoughtful, and generous when everything around you is trying to turn you into what I term a raccoon trapped in a recycling bin. It means you don’t react to every problem with ego. Wealth management’s an industry that has fear in it, it has family dynamics, it has money anxiety, it has market volatility. What clients really need is to feel that you are steady. Partners need to feel that you’re trustworthy. Emotional maturity creates the conditions for deep relationships because people can relax around you. They know you won’t overreact; they know you’ll listen, and that you’ll respond with commitments rather than huge drama. And drama is exhausting. If your business feels like a soap opera with portfolio statements, it’s time to really make some changes.
Recognizing true potential
CR: In my experience, employees rise when someone they respect sees something in them that they don’t fully recognize in themselves. That’s what managing employees is all about. Recognizing potential. Most people walk around with a little voice in their head, you know, an employee, saying, ‘Am I good enough? Am I good enough for this job?’ And a great leader becomes a louder voice saying, ‘Yes, not only can you do this, you’re in line for something even better.’ Employees need a feedback loop. They need it. And a positive feedback loop amplifies what is working. If one of your employees tries something, it works, then you reinforce it, their confidence grows, and then the whole team performance will grow. However, I can tell you what doesn’t work with employees is a continual negative feedback loop. The best leaders use a positive feedback loop to amplify what’s working, and they use a corrective loop to bring them back onto the path to where they want. They celebrate what’s working and adjust what isn’t. They create a culture where trying, learning, adjusting, and improving is normal. That builds relationships.
Celebrating milestones
CR: Relationships are built when people feel seen. How do you make people feel seen? By celebrating milestones. I know advisors who make a big deal when a retirement goal is achieved or maybe a client sells a business, or a major anniversary, or first grandchild. These are things that every advisor and every team should look for because they’re really the emotional markers of financial life. If you’re always celebrating great milestones and great achievements, you move from being an advisor to the trusted family guide.
Three kinds of customer relationships
CR: Break your clients down into three categories. The first category is what I call raving fans. You love them and they love you. Every time you see their name pop up in your schedule, you get a big smile on your face. You could literally spend hours with them. They listen, they engage, they appreciate what you do, they refer lots of people because they believe that you’re creating value. Those people bring energy to you. They bring energy to the staff. So, you really have to focus on how many raving fans do you have in your business. The second type is what I call BAU, business as usual. These are good clients. They pay the bills. They are the beige sweater of your client base. You know, there’s nothing wrong with beige, but no one writes songs about it. Your goal is, every quarter, try to move some of your BAU clients into raving fans by intensifying the relationship. And then the third is the ones who really bring down a business, which I call your unprofitable relationships. They ignore advice. They drain you. They drain the team. My advice? Bundle those up and get rid of them. Many advisors spend way too much time trying to rescue the wrong relationships. And far too little time deepening the right ones.
And finally, what’s the bottom line on creating valuable relationships?
CR: Relationships are the infrastructure of any business. Specifically, in the wealth management business. Our real product is confidence. And confidence comes from trust. And what builds trust is consistency. And consistency comes from relationships that are built through communication, authenticity, care, and follow-through. Every single day, you are trying to build confidence and trust with your client base. You can have the best performance that there is and still lose clients if the relationship is weak. You can have average performance in a tough market and keep all of your clients if your relationships are strong and they trust your process. So, the practical bottom line is, be real, listen carefully, follow through, and be there when it gets hard. If you want a simple test, ask yourself, if I stop managing money tomorrow, would this person still want to have a cup of coffee with me? And if the answer is yes, you’ve probably built something real and special. If the answer is, ‘Only if the coffee is free,’ you probably want to keep working on the relationships.
Well, those are today’s Soundbites, brought to you by Investment Executive and powered by Canada Life. Special thanks to Chris Reynolds of Investment Planning Counsel. He’ll be back soon to walk us through another circle in his Six Circle Strategy. In the meantime, you can get more insights from Chris at his “Turning the Page” podcast site. You can even schedule a ‘virtual coffee with Chris’ to discuss issues specific to your practice. You’ll find that at IPCC.ca slash Turning the Page. Join us again next week for another episode of Soundbites. Thanks for listening.
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