The Great Engagement Differentiator

What differentiates great service? Great businesses in the eyes of their customers?  What determines your success with attracting and engaging appreciative clients?

(for more on client engagement buy the book Click to view Client Engagement for Financial Advisors )

Shawn Achor[1] tells us that “happiness” is the greatest differentiator. 

Research in the growing field of "positive psychology" indicates that when we engage consumers with positivity and in a manner which allows them to look at the solutions we offer (be it a product or a service), then their brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic[2]: in other words they are more likely to engage with you and adopt the solution you are offering (that is buy from you).

Regardless of your views on “happiness”, engaging consumers with “happiness” and positive psychology, the thing that you do need to pay attention to is that the way consumers choose to do business with you and interact with you is changing.

The field of “wealth management” “financial advice” is one in which this trend is not only powerful but also an enormous opportunity.  The “disruption” in advice models and offers, the consolidation of the landscape of advice and the nature of client interactions makes “advice” ripe for opportunities for refreshing your business model.  Let me build the case for why you need to do just that.

The old model was predicated on the advisers total control of the information of “financial speak” and processes[3].  Now consumers not only have access to information they have assistance through businesses such as Vanguard, TD Waterhouse and any quasi scaled advice service or information portal.  A “google” search for “apps for financial advice” delivers over 9,000,000 results.   Scarier still is the recent development of an app where a consumer can consult a financial adviser for $10 a question with the view of bringing advice experts into someones world easily and efficiently and cost effectively.[4]  Will that even work, surely that does not suit your clients?

Well if your clients are in the 30-49 year old age group, then you might indeed have a concern.  It is this group that indicates that where there is an advice relationship, that only 1 in 2 are happy with it.[5]  This cohort cites the following as reasons for their “disconnect” with the relationship:

·       A lack of collaboration with the adviser so they feel in partnership

·       A lack of individualisation in the solutions offered

·       A lack of mobile capabilities that increase the convenience of engagement and interaction

·       And a lack of complete end to end solutions

The advice to businesses and individuals in this space can be applied to an array of businesses. In short a range of solutions that provides for enhance collaboration, process efficiency and engagement efficiency is what is required to be able to compete and differentiate.

Specifically, the initial and subsequent engagement needs to be highly personalised and convenient and must address the value to the client of their present situation.  Someone with “only” $50,000 to invest, may reveal that this $50,000 was delivered through years of hard work and sacrifice and hence it is the most significant journey they have financially been on. 

This is very much about empathy that is a fluid discussion not a formulaic process.

Secondly you must connect with mobility and socially with clients.  Choose your weapon carefully.  This is about what is the best way to engage with your clients initially and continuously that fits into their lifestyles, not yours.

And lastly becoming a central hub for your clients.  This means interconnections with other advisors perhaps that can be brought into meetings easily or other streams in your offer.

How do you package that up?  Because the above looks like a lot of hard work.

Well this is where you are definitely behind the 8 ball if you are only considering this now.  In 2014 Liz Moyer wrote in the Wall Street Journal[6] that businesses are “rolling out souped-up smartphone and tablet apps that let clients conduct video-chats with advisers” (amongst other services).    Citigroup private banking arm back then was testing a new video-chat function with selected clients and planned to make it broadly available to customers. (Which they did).  Moyer wrote that the customers can use the:

“iPad app, which the bank introduced in February, tap a tab on the app screen and initiate virtual face-to-face conversations with their personal bankers.

The software also allows both client and adviser to see data about the client's portfolio simultaneously, or to see possible investment outcomes in varying market scenarios. "You can have a shared experience. It's the kind of interaction between client and adviser that we've been pushing toward," says Tim Tate, the private bank's global head of client management.”

And if that’s not suggested to you that perhaps you need to consider easier, efficient collaboration via digital means, perhaps this will:

“Investors could move their business elsewhere if firms don't respond. A survey released in June by consulting firm CapGemini and RBC Wealth Management found that 57% of affluent people over age 40 and 80% of those under age 40 would consider leaving their wealth-management firm if digital services weren't offered. The survey defined digital services as functions that are Internet or mobile-based, including social media, email and video.”[7]

So what is the great differentiator?  It’s advancement in engagement.  Simply that. 

Engagement that suits a customer, that is efficient, engaging, collaborative, compliant.

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[1] http://goodthinkinc.com/resources/books/the-happiness-advantage/

[2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathycaprino/2013/06/06/how-happiness-directly-impacts-your-success/#4d0658517ae2

[3] Accenture, 2015, New Realities, New Approaches, Changing the Client-Advisor Relationship in Wealth Management.

[4] http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/04/11/app-offers-financial-advice-under-10

[5] Accenture, 2015, The Greater Wealth Transfer

[6] Moyer, Liz, Wall Street Journal 11 July 2014 “ A New Wave of Apps for Wealthy Investors; Wealth Managers Add Web Tools as Online-Advice Firms Like Wealthfront and Betterment Grow

[7] Moyer, Liz, Wall Street Journal 11 July 2014 “ A New Wave of Apps for Wealthy Investors; Wealth Managers Add Web Tools as Online-Advice Firms Like Wealthfront and Betterment Grow

Excerpt from the book "Client Engagement For Financial Advisors"

Of course for more....you can access the complete guide at the following link:

Click to view Client Engagement for Financial Advisors

There has been much research on why people seem unable to make financial decisions in their best interests with some of the acknowledged causes being; an inability to cope with complexity, choice confusion, herd mentality, social proof, an inability to look forward and to forward plan, a lack of understanding of basic and fundamental concepts like compound interest and cash-flow management, genetics (yes I’m serious), behavioural fundamentals and personality including self-control, and sadly but unfortunately a reality, that some people through socio-economic circumstances, background, upbringing and situation influences are trapped in a “just getting by” whirlpool.

Is it any wonder therefore, that despite your brilliant proposal, that a response of “I need to think about it” is received?  That people do anything at all to move forward is somewhat of a miracle!

What are some of the tools and techniques that professional advisors can employ to assist in this process of decision making for a client?  And importantly to set a positive context in which people can make decisions.  Work by Klement and Miranda (2012) attempted to solve for this very equation.[i]  Predominantly they looked to provide advisors tools to accurately assess an investors risk preferences to help therefore in reaching the goals of the investor but at an appropriate level of risk. 

People are in fact disengaged with advice because of a complex interaction of: behaviour, socio-cultural influences, biology and cognitive skills.  Therefore, as we have stated, it is the way you understand and manage your prospects and their emotional responses that will determine their willingness to engage with you, to make change.  The disengagement, with ones’ financial affairs, that we have explored is not a deliberate choice.  No-one wakes up in the morning or has as a daily mantra “I am deliberately avoiding dealing with my financial past, present and future”. 

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[i] Klement, J., & Miranda, R. E. (2012). Kicking the habit: How experience determines financial risk preferences. The Journal of Wealth Management, 15(2), 10-25,7. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/docview/1034599867?accountid=14205v

A handbook for the modern wealth professional

I'm pleased to provide the link to my newest publication, a handbook for client engagement for the modern wealth professional.

Click to view Client Engagement for Financial Advisors

Client Engagement for Financial Advisors - launched and live

After a hiatus from this blog, a foray into FinTech (which is still going!) I have shifted back towards delivering tools and techniques for client engagement with a particular focus on the needs of the modern client and have done so with gusto with the launch of a handbook for the modern wealth professional.

The link is included here and I look forward to engaging with you to assist you on your journey towards positive client engagement.

Is love the answer? The bizarre love triangle.

There is indeed a triangular theory on love. Sternberg, posited that love, is formed, in all instances on the emotions of passion, liking and commitment. All when combined you have what we all seek, consummate love.

For me, I approach love from two perspectives. First the biology. How does it happen, what is it's purpose, it's biochemistry, it's role in adaptation. And secondly, it's role in well being and ultimately the meaning and purpose of life. Is the need and search for love an innate biological process? Or is it something more?

Well despite many pseudo psychologists quoting examples of the love hormone oxytocin, there is in fact no single hormone or process that can account for, deliver, or be responsible for the many facets of what we know as love. Indeed that very hormone can make us feel the best of human emotions, and the worst. It can indeed promote what we consider negative feelings such as jealousy. There is a difference between love and infatuation, between losing oneself and control and being calculated and controlling (in love and in life).

Indeed many of us may have been on the receiving end of a type of love, ludus. The architect of ludus sees love as a game, a test of feelings and attraction. It is interesting to note the type of personality, perhaps a disorder here. This type of person sees it as a game. It is emotional manipulation. Having more than one partner or picking fights for reaction purposes. Often associated with childhood experiences of loss and abandonment by maternal or paternal figures, a pattern is set that becomes normal for the protagonist, but bizarre by any other measure.

For many, beyond the physical allure, the chemical overload, is the matching of values and reciprocity of affection. It's a complex cocktail that no mixologist has yet mastered and that's what makes it so surprisingly intoxicating when we come across it.

In those circumstances, self awareness, self disclosure, transparency, are all critical ingredients to stability of love, of the initial attraction. And sustainability is not the gifts that we liked, the expensive dinners, but it is the relinquishment of a degree of control that can only come when one is accepting of themselves. That's what makes love so hard to find. Know thyself is not something we've all yet mastered.

There are many theories on love. Many friends with advice. But in the end it comes down to whether in a partnership each person has the ability and the tools to reveal the magnificence of the ideal person they are with, and whether or not that person is ready to be revealed.

It is the Michelangelo phenomenon, where that statue, that magnificence is waiting to be released from the block of stone in which it sits. The sculpture is always there, but it takes a partner with the right skill to reveal it. And the stone needs to yield in the right way.

Love is the answer. The beauty and magnificence to find it is within all of us.

What is mindfulness? (And will it drive you crazy?)

I purchased a mindfulness colouring book recently. My mind moves often at a 100 miles an hour (yes I know I'm not special in that regard), and focus on the moment, clearing my thoughts, applying my filter(s) can be at times, difficult. So concentrating on the task at hand, surely with Faber Castells at the ready, would solve the lack of "stillness" in my daily routine? Sadly no. I've not had that much self inflicted frustration thrust at me for quite some time. Of course I didn't choose an "easy" selection of graphics, and well I wanted to "blend" colours and not have it look like a 3 year old had completed the templates. Perhaps I was missing the point?

There are different approaches to mindfulness. A great way to explain what it actually is, is probably to start with what it is not. When we don't pay attention to what is going on around us, when we operate on automatic pilot, when we go through the motions, this is indeed the opposite of mindfulness. And we have all done it.

I can't tell you how many times I have driven into my street, and can't actually remember the drive home. Perhaps considering Melbourne or now Sydney traffic, that's a good thing. But imagine if that's the way you felt about a meeting, and interaction, or your day? In other words where we really haven't paid attention to what we have been doing or saying. Rather we have just reacted with ingrained habitual responses. Without mindfulness we can not create changes in how we live our lives, which is required because of the constant interchange and exchange of experiences that comes at us each and everyday. Without mindfulness we can. It change patterns that possibly are not serving us well.

I have triggers. Throughout my life they have led to a pattern of reacting to things. The reactions have manifested differently depending on the different experiences encountered, but nevertheless they are the result of patterns. Sometimes the reactions are needed and beneficial. Sometimes they have been rather destructive. The reactions are not the problem. The habit and locus of control relinquishment is.

Has mindfulness helped? Well I don't think I'd be writing this without it.

So what is mindfulness? It's paying attention, it's being aware. It is a style of thinking. It's being actively invested in the experiences that come your way, and dealing with them in the present rather than applying old filters and patterns.

Buddhist meditation teaches one to detach your own personal filter from the experience so that the automatic reaction does not occur.

It's not easy! It is about firstly focusing your attention to the experience at hand and then being open, accepting, curious.

Researchers have demonstrated that self awareness levels and positive emotions are associated with the ability to be more mindful.

But to break old habits, when you are practising mindfulness, Shapiro and Carlson in their article "The art and science of mindfulness, integrating mindfulness into psychology and the helping professions" (American Psychological Association, 2009) listed some elements that being mindful requires. They posit that to have success in mindfulness one must be non judging - be impartial to the experience, non reactive - forget and let go of habitual responses, trust - trust you are in control of the experience and also they identify having patience as key (just to name a few).

For me it was very much about transferring the quiet stillness I feel when running track, into everyday experiences, and not reacting in patterns of the past. It was also about appreciating that what was happening now, in the moment was not something that was happening to a scared helpless 11 year old boy. And as such triggers become, well, less of a problem. Letting go of some patterns is not without it's trauma.

What's the point of it all? Well there is a connection to concepts of flow, to peak performance for individuals and for teams. There's connections to happiness and well being. There are connections most profoundly to living a better life and being closer to the person whom it is you want to be.

That old adage exists : of playing the movie of your life, and whether you are proud or not. Luckily for anyone reading this, you can throw the script out if you don't like the direction the story is heading and rewrite it. It's never too late.

Time for positivity?

The bandwagon has arrived and I'm jumping on. Or so it may seem. It appears if anyone and everyone who has read an idiots guide to positive psychology is turning themselves into key note speakers, quoting the same studies about cortisol and oxytocin and about the amygdala and neuro plasticity. And you know what......good luck to them. If they can earn a dollar and possibly get some inquiring minds to investigate positivity in their own lives, well then kudos to them.

But make no mistake, what they are espousing is nothing new. Theories of happiness and well being, and what delivers these often subjective measures of life satisfaction have changed little since ancient times and the days of philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

Socrates believed that the quest for happiness was only delivered by knowing oneself, or in other words by self awareness of self and virtue. This was expanded on by Plato who suggested that that awareness needed to be beyond the sensory self and in fact required a deeper investigation. And Aristotle looked at values, self discipline, and the balance of virtues in a quest towards the good life.

As theories expanded through the enlightenment, the 50s, and then with the humanistic psychology movement, one of its guardians Maslow, entitled a chapter of his 1954 book (Motivation and Personality) : Toward a Positive Psychology.

So what of this modern thinking? This new positive psychology movement that talks about the left prefrontal cortex of Buddhist monks lighting up when they reach a state in meditation? What of the biochemistry of emotions?

Well it's new science. Assisted by technology, that supports the theories around happiness and well being. Yes, oxytocin is associated with social bonding, yes increased dopamine is associated with the experience of happiness and yes the brain can change during our life as we explore different skills and we can create new neural pathways and these pathways can be plentiful when we meditate or practice skills such as playing or learning music.

But here's the rub. None of these positive effects occur without individuals actually doing the work that is involved with self exploration towards self assessment and awareness. It takes work on behalf of the individual to investigate their positive self, to create plans for growth, foster relationships, to regulate behaviours, to find purpose in life and to strive to master ones environment.

Chanting "serenity now" will not deliver eternal happiness, set oxytocin flowing through your viens, light up your left pre frontal cortex or create new neural pathways.

A lot of hard work and self examination just might. So take the next presentation you see with a grain of salt, with curiosity, with critical thinking and with a notepad to write down the suggested actions you might take personally to develop positivity in your world.

If there are no suggested game plans, strategies or processes, well then seek answers from someone who has lived the journey. Not just from someone who has read a book.