The Client-centred Financial Adviser

The ultimate guide to building high-trust, high-profit relationships and a thriving practice

John Dashfield

• Publisher: SRA Books
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781909116252
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Finance

Are you ready to discover the secret to thriving in today's fee-based financial services environment? The old transactional, sales-based approach is fast becoming defunct. The real key to outstanding success as a financial adviser is helping your clients get more of what they really want from life. John Dashfield shares a revolutionary new paradigm in psychology that clearly demonstrates that your state of mind is the most significant factor in creating a growing, prosperous and sustainable 'Client-centred' practice. This book will help you build exceptionally strong, high-trust and mutually profitable client relationships; conduct powerful client conversations; become comfortable and effective when discussing fees; effectively engage new clients and re-engage existing ones; eliminate stress and increase your everyday enjoyment and fulfilment.

Section 1

The state-of-mind factor

Chapter 1

Making the invisible visible

Chapter 1 – Making the invisible visible

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. Henry David Thoreau

Money is a means value. It is simply a means to an end rather than an end in itself. It is what we can do with the money or what the money can do for us that are important and yet the majority of the financial services profession seems to focus entirely upon the means rather than the end.

Financial practitioners are comfortable talking about products, investments or financially based problems. However, they are often uncomfortable having conversations that engage clients in an emotional way about what matters most to them in life, and so avoid having them.

You may have spent scores, possibly hundreds, of hours gaining your technical knowledge and qualifications and, of course, it is vitally important that you are able to give high-quality advice, but how can any practitioner give highly relevant, clear and specific client-centred planning and advice without knowing who the client is, what really matters to them in life and what their ultimate goals, objectives and outcomes are? Without connecting with your client in a human way, so that they articulate, as much for themselves as for you, how they want to live both now and in the future, then how can clear, intelligent decisions be made?

As a practitioner you can be:

• Product and investment centred
• Problem and solution centred
• Client centred

This distinction points to your primary intention. Is it to sell or provide products and investments? Is it to solve financial problems? Or is it to have a deep human connection and thorough understanding of your client and what they want from life and then to collaborate in accomplishing what is most important to them?

To be a truly client-centred financial professional requires far more than technical know-how. It requires you to be willing to do what it takes to know how your clients want to live their lives. Only by doing this can you integrate someone’s finances into a meaningful plan and strategy that links directly into what they want from life. Of course, arranging products and solving financial problems is also part of what a client-centred adviser does, but these are not primary tasks because they are simply a vehicle rather than the destination.

Being truly client centred is the most viable long-term, high-reward, business model because it creates more, not less, opportunity for you. When clients absolutely know that you have their very best interests at heart because they can feel where you are coming from then there are multiple benefits:

• They will entrust you with more of their money.
• They see incredible value in the work you do together.
• They hold you and your advice, recommendations and input in the very highest regard.
• They willingly pay your fees without quibble.
• They become totally loyal to you.
• They refer you to other like-minded people.

The landscape has changed

If we go back in time 40 or 50 years or more then life was very linear. People went to school, maybe on to further education or an apprenticeship, then got a job and were highly likely to be in that job for life before eventual retirement. It was all about stability.

Modern life is totally different. It is unpredictable and the only constant is change. We are likely to have several careers. We are far more mobile. We are likely to go through several significant life transitions. More and more of us are resisting the idea of traditional retirement and, instead, want to travel, start a business or have another career. We want fulfilment and a satisfying life experience.

People’s finances are right at the heart of living an authentic life that aligns with who they want to be and how they want to live. They need and want support, but the right kind of support. They want a financial adviser who knows who they are and that they can trust 100 per cent to put their interests first and give relevant, practical and wise guidance. They do not want someone who is only interested in selling them something or talking technical jargon to them.

You cannot compete on cost, so what is the alternative?

The development of technology has driven costs right down and is making online transactions easier and more attractive. You cannot hope to compete on cost, which is why being a product-centred or a problem- and solution-centred practitioner will only yield ever-diminishing returns. This is not something that will happen in the future; it is happening right now and the evidence is crystal clear in many ways, for example, low cost products, the rise of comparison websites and services from providers cut to the bone so that your business bears more of the cost. The only viable option left open to you is to deliver such high value that your fees are seen as a worthwhile investment rather than a cost.

The client-centred adviser understands this new dynamic. They see that what clients want is someone who is truly interested in them. They know that the real value for the client is not in the transaction; it is in having powerful conversations. Any practitioner can sell a financial product and because the general level of practitioner’s technical proficiency is becoming ...

Table of contents

• Testimonials
• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• How to get the most from this book
• Section 1 The state-of-mind factor
• Chapter 1 – Making the invisible visible
• Chapter 2 – The science behind state of mind
• Chapter 3 – Being is the new doing
• Section 2 Building client-centred relationships
• Chapter 4 – The three levels of relationship
• Chapter 5 – A new way of listening
• Chapter 6 – Effortless rapport
• Chapter 7 – The three levels of client conversation
• Chapter 8 – The art of client-centred questioning
• Chapter 9 – Perfect delivery – every time
• Chapter 10 – The adviser as a coach
• Chapter 11 – What could stop you?
• Section 3 Masters at work: five successful client-centred advisers share their philosophy
• Chapter 12 – How my father’s paperwork inspired me to build a company
• Chapter 13 – They won’t remember what you said; they will remember how you made them feel
• Chapter 14 – How to deliver great value for the fees you want to charge
• Chapter 15 – How much value are you adding?
• Chapter 16 – Why a client-centric approach is the only way to operate our financial practice
• Section 4 New client engagement
• Chapter 17 – Stop pushing and start connecting
• Chapter 18 – The source of all opportunity
• Chapter 19 – The very best marketing you can do
• Chapter 20 – Five steps to your next client
• Chapter 21 – Too much information
• Chapter 22 – The fee conversation
• Chapter 23 – Ditch the pitch
• Chapter 24 – Being client centred is not something you do: it is a state of mind
• Bibliography
• About John Dashfield
• What we do