Another thanks - this time to Financial Standard in Australia for this article
http://www.fsadvice.com.au/blogs/view/94327458
On "rethinking client engagement"
Saturday, 22 April 2017
How Choice Channels Deepen Engagement
Great thanks to Australia's IFA magazine www.ifa.com.au for this recent article
https://www.ifa.com.au/news/17711-choice-channels-deepen-client-engagement-suitebox
Which of course is effectively an excerpt from my book
Client Engagement For Financial Advisors
https://www.ifa.com.au/news/17711-choice-channels-deepen-client-engagement-suitebox
Which of course is effectively an excerpt from my book
Client Engagement For Financial Advisors
Sunday, 2 April 2017
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.
[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
Tuesday, 28 March 2017
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
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”.
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!
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”.
[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
Sunday, 19 March 2017
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.
Sunday, 3 July 2016
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.
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.
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