Today’s video is about the things you can do to make it easy for clients to implement your recommendations and get the real benefits of your advice. After all, only advice that is implemented is valuable.
If you prefer to read it … see below.
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How easy is it for me to be a client of yours?
So I know most Advisers give their clients some sort of follow-up actions or homework as we used to call it, or things that they need to do to make implementation happen.
And certainly there are some activities that a client has to do because nobody else but them can.
Kind of like going to the gym, you’re the only one that can lift the weights and expect to get the results that you want.
But how many of you assign homework or action items to your client, that honestly, they’re not that hard, but they create another ‘thorn’ in the client’s side?
So in other words, it’s something that they have to do, they don’t do it all the time, so it becomes a bit of a hassle or a bit of a burden.
And if they haven’t done it and they get a call from you, or they’ve got a meeting coming up, they push back, so they don’t return calls, or they don’t return emails, or they cancel meetings.
So let’s turn that around and think about what are the things that you could do to make it easier for them to take the burden and the hassle away?
So for example, if you’ve got to collect details around the client’s salary and get their pay slips, you’ve got to get information around their shares and any of the holdings that they have, in direct equities, maybe it’s that you’ve got to get details around the rent that they collect, you know what it is that you need to get.
What can you do so that you could collect that information on their behalf?
Maybe they need to give you their login details to computer share, maybe they need to give you the details of their property manager, or one of the emails that they might get, so you can follow it up, obviously with their permission.
But what are the things that you can do to take that extra burden and hassle away and make their life easier?
So I’ve got an accountant who’s based in Brisbane and one of the first times it was coming up to tax time, he came back to me, and he said, “Kim, I’ve done your tax return, I need you to just check it.”
I was pretty annoyed because I thought, how can you have done my tax return?
I haven’t given you any of my information.
So I rang him quite livid and said, “What’s going on?” And he said, “No, no, I’ve got everything.
I logged into your computer share program, I’ve got all your insurance details, and I followed up through your insurance providers, I’ve got X, Y and Z.”
So he had everything I needed cause I’d either given him logins, or I’d made his life easy to access it through signing authorities.
I’d forgotten about it though.
And the only thing he didn’t have was my interest in a non-interest bearing account.
And he said to me, “Kim, you usually only pay about a hundred dollars interest on that account at maximum. So I’ve just allowed for $100.
But if there’s anything you can see that I’ve missed, let me know.”
I was blown out of the water, couldn’t stop praising him enough.
I was so happy that all that time I normally spend preparing for that tax return had now been done and taken off my hands.
So where can you do something similar for your clients and make their life that much easier?
Because after all, it’s one of the benefits of having you as a Financial Adviser.
And you are A Valuable Adviser.