Camp Connelly is designed specifically for you - the Financial Advisor. With more than forty years in the business Don Connelly has done it all. Now, he’s sharing his wisdom, insight and experience with you. Learn to overcome objections, stay motivated and win clients efficiently and effectively.
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July 2009
Sales Idea: “Good morning. This is your wake-up call.”
Whenever turbulence occurs in the stock market, it always appears to some people that things are worse than they really are. Other people see opportunity, no matter how dire the circumstances. And that’s what makes a market.
I tend to be one of the optimistic ones. I chose a long time ago to be optimistic. And I see an enormous opportunity. Yes, this meltdown is a disaster. But it’s also the best opportunity any Advisor’s ever had to prospect and gather assets. The tide is out and the shells are lying there for the taking. But you better gather them before the tide comes back in. Like everything else in life, this is easier said than done. And therein lies a wake-up call to every ill-prepared Advisor in the world.
The reality is that only the best-prepared Advisors will prevail. The rich will keep getting richer. And the more business they do, the more vital they become than the rest of us. That’s the way life works. Not everyone gets a trophy. In talking about the Cup Chase in NASCAR racing, Greg Biffle was quoted in Sports Illustrated as saying, “If you don't get in [the Chase], heck, you're just another guy—a guy who can be replaced."
We all know by now that top performers do the ordinary things extraordinarily well. Tiger Woods chips and putts, just like every other golfer in the world. He just does these things better than they do. Top tier Advisors prospect, give presentations and close sales, just like every other Advisor in the world. They just do it better. They are better prepared no matter what Fate throws at them.
In 1987, I watched hundreds and even thousands of Financial Advisors get blown out of the business. They didn’t have the necessary skill-set to survive. They were okay as long as the market was going up. When the market crashed, their production was cut in half and they couldn’t cope.
It’s easy to be good in a bull market. I am seeing some 20-year veterans experiencing a similar fate today. They came into the business in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s and never really had to get good. A bull market hides a lot of blemishes. They got by without developing a polished set of selling skills. A surprising number of these Advisors didn’t even have a business plan. Eventually, they had $70 million books and were doing $700,000 per year. Now they are doing $350,000 and don’t know what hit them.
Develop the right skills. Don’t let that happen to you, now or in the future. Keep your skills razor sharp. But you can’t sharpen skills you don’t have. It may be that you are lacking these skills and it’s not your fault. Firms don’t seem to be teaching new Advisors how to sell so much anymore. Instead, there is a lot of emphasis on (and dependence on) product knowledge. This puts the burden on you to learn and hone the basic skills of Financial Advisor survival. Your business and your perpetuity depend on it.
Never before in your career have you needed to call upon your skills like now. This market is a lot direr than the market of 1987. More so than at any other time in your career, you’ve got to call on your presentation skills, your referral acquisition skills, your skill at overcoming objections, your closing skills and your prospecting skills.
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