Blog - Financial Advisor Coaching by Susan Danzig

Best Practices for Acquiring a New Book of Business

For financial advisors, one of the quickest ways to grow your practice is to acquire an existing book of business from another advisor who is usually exiting the business. While this can be a huge boon for your business, you need to handle the transition delicately and create an optimal transition for your new clients. These tips will help you gracefully handle the acquisition and keep everyone happy and informed!

Find the Right Fit

Before you even consider buying a book of business, take the time to examine what would be the ideal fit for you and your team. The easiest way to create a smooth transition is to find a business that is similar to yours in terms of ideal client, area of specialization, values, and business model. These mutual traits will be essential in smoothing out the transition, so keep these in mind as you explore different companies to acquire.

Ask for Assistance

The biggest asset to help you smooth out the transition will be the previous owners, as they know the personalities of their existing clients. When signing a contract, you might ask to include billable hours for personal support, or perhaps dual meetings where they can introduce you in person. These introductions are invaluable and help create a feeling of teamwork with the new clients, reassuring that they’re in excellent hands.

Tailor Your Messaging and Stay Personal

One of the biggest concerns that your new clients will have is whether you will deliver the same level of service that they have come to expect. 91% of prospects are more likely to engage an advisor who utilizes some amount of personalization in their communications. It’s essential to build your client relationships right from the start, so ask for personalized info on each client when acquiring the business. Instead of sending out a form letter, reach out to each client personally and invite connection, or ask them to come into the office for one-on-one meetings. While this will add to your workload at the beginning of your acquisition, it shows your new clients that you are committed to their satisfaction and start your relationship off on the right foot.

Combine Your Messaging

While it can be tempting to completely overhaul your website and messaging, your new clients will feel more comfortable with gradual changes. Keep the existing style, messaging, and website for a short period of time while gradually combining your two businesses. People tend to dislike change, especially when it’s forced on them, so keeping things familiar throughout the transition is a respectful and comforting gesture.

Continually Reach Out

After your initial introduction, stay connected with your clients by following up at four-week intervals to ensure they are happy with your service. Continue to emphasize your availability and willingness to meet and use similar messaging as their previous financial advisor to make them feel at home. Just by expressing your support, you can decrease client turnover and make an incredible first impression on your new book of business!

As you start to acquire new books of business, these steps will help ensure a smooth transition for your clients. Finding practices that have similar ideal clients, values, and business models will allow you to seamlessly combine businesses, and personalized touches and consistent follow up will seal the deal for your new clients!

How to Ensure You’re Hiring the Best Possible Candidates!

As you expand your team, you need to evaluate even more than the qualifications and certifications listed on a resume. Having a diverse staff that works well together and is united on common goals will eliminate stress and tension in your workplace and allow your business to succeed! Here are some tips to help you create the best hiring process and find unique qualities that will help your business shine!

Describe Your Ideal Candidate on Your Job Descriptions

While it is common to list out the roles and responsibilities of each job, you also want to explain what you’re looking for in terms of personality and fit. If your company has core values you want a candidate to espouse, include those in a short paragraph under the description of your role. You may also want to explain the culture of your office and what employees can expect from working for you. This helps you attract the right people and set expectations before the first interview even begins!

Monitor Your Social Media Presence and Reviews

The hiring process is a mutual agreement that will involve research on both sides, so make sure you know what comes up when a potential employee searches for your business. Sites like Glassdoor and Indeed are instrumental to showing off your workplace culture and benefits, so ask your happy employees to leave positive reviews if they feel comfortable doing so. You may also want to highlight parties and charity work on your social media profile to show off the fun side of your office!

Ask Existing Employees for Recommendations

A great way to find a cultural fit is to ask your existing employees for recommendations from their previous companies. This is an excellent way to find someone who gets along well with the personalities in your office and has a proven track record of hard work! You can also encourage your employees to share the job listing on personal LinkedIn and Facebook profiles to notify their friends and professional contacts about the new opening.

Reach out to Local Colleges

If you’re hiring for an entry-level position, be sure to post on job boards for local universities. This is a great way to onboard fresh new candidates who will be eager to learn. You can also directly email the office managers of specific departments to find recent graduates who come highly recommended by professors and staff.

Explore Social Media Profiles

To ensure that your candidate isn’t doing anything inappropriate on their personal time, you may want to examine their social media profiles and ensure they aren’t using profanity or engaging in illegal activities. This can help prevent any interpersonal drama in your office and keep your company’s image pristine in the public eye!

When you have a pool of similar candidates, it can be difficult to look past the stellar resumes and qualifications to find the best cultural fit. These tips can help you make the most of your upcoming recruiting process and ensure that the candidate your select will be a team player and a fitting ambassador for your brand!

Interview Tips to Find the Best Employees for Your Team

Especially for smaller companies, finding and retaining quality employees will make or break your business. It is essential to find team players that are bright, friendly, flexible, easy to work with, and dedicated to the success of your enterprise. To help narrow down your field of candidates, here are some creative solutions to introduce into your interview process.

Think Outside the Box

Let’s face it, we’ve all prepared our answers for the basic interview questions and rehearsed scenarios that make us sound like complete superheroes carrying the entire workload on our shoulders. To get an honest answer out of your candidates, try asking one or two unusual interview questions. Even twists on classic questions like “What movie character are you most like at work?” or “What’s an unusual aspect of your personality?” can get an honest answer our of your candidates, as opposed to a pre-planned speech.

Ask About Their Passions

This is one of my favorite questions to ask my interviewees, as you can see their eyes light up as they talk about what matters most to them. It can also give you a glimpse into what their life looks like outside of work, and whether their hobbies will allow them to fit in with the company culture. If they are interested in volunteer work, it can also indicate that they will deeply care about your clients and put in the extra effort to make them feel supported.

Do a Brief Office Tour

One of the best ways to evaluate how a candidate will mesh with your team is to do a complete walkthrough of your office. Introduce them to your employees and see how their personalities interact, and make sure the interviewee is engaged and curious about the roles of his or her future coworkers. Above all, ensure that the candidate is respectful and kind to every person that they encounter, regardless of their job title. This is the best way to preserve the harmony of the office!

Go Out to Lunch

Another way to shake up the interview process is to treat your candidate to lunch on the second or third round. While at the restaurant, pay close attention to how the candidate treats the wait staff and other diners. Are they conscientious of other people’s space? Do they hold the door open for other diners? Do they smile and make eye contact with the hostess and wait staff? If they treat everyone with kindness and respect, they will likely get along with the rest of your team.

Get Multiple Opinions

It can be difficult to ensure you’re getting a rounded view of a candidate, but asking for a second opinion can help you collect varied opinions. When interviewing, invite other colleagues into the room and give them time to interact one-on-one, then have an internal meeting to ask what everyone thought of each applicant.

As you go through the hiring process, you want to ensure you’re looking at more than just the basic certifications and experience required for that position. Finding someone who is a great fit for your team, will care about your clients, and will get along with your other employees is worth taking extra steps to vet the candidate in unusual situations.

Crafting an Impactful Mission Statement

As your company sets out to create a comprehensive marketing strategy, it’s essential to consider how prospects will view your operation from the get-go. The first impression that they get from your website and social media will color your interactions moving forward, so take the time to tailor a coherent message to weave throughout your site. One of the key focus points of this process is to create an impactful mission statement that summarizes the goals, aspirations, and viewpoints of your business. Here are some key tips to help you get started!

Define Your “Why”

Before you start writing your mission statement, take the time to consider the ultimate goals of your business. The concepts of “making money” and “delivering excellent customer service” are great starting points, but a well-crafted mission statement should go even deeper than these. Ultimately, the mission statement must come from your personal experience, but here are some questions to ask yourself as you brainstorm. Have you always wanted to get into this line of business? Is there a childhood experience or a life event that inspired you? How are you making the world a better place? Weaving these motivations throughout your narrative will help prospects understand your personality, your brand, your commitment to them and what specifically drives you to serve your clients.

Stay Humble (and Human!)

One of the most challenging lines to walk in the business world is the thin one between touting your achievements and bragging. While it’s generally a great idea to highlight your results, it can easily come across with the wrong tone. An easy way to avoid this is to thank the people who made it possible—your employees, dedicated clients and your family. Another way to soften the tone of your piece is to integrate parts of your personality into the writing. If you have a great sense of humor, include tasteful jokes so you come off as approachable. Conveying the right tone can be challenging, but it’s an effective “evergreen” piece of marketing when you get it right, so it’s worth the effort!

Be Specific and Succinct

If you look at the mission statements of other companies, you may notice that they include a lot of industry jargon and buzzwords that take up a lot of space without really saying anything. To stand apart from the crowd, cut the fluff and drill right to the heart of your mission.

Ask for A Second Opinion

As with any piece of marketing, ask for a second opinion from your coworkers, strategic partners and friends. Too often, we get caught up in our own emotions surrounding our creative work, and it’s easy to lose sight of what strangers will think. Getting outside opinions will ensure you’re hitting the right notes, and that everything comes across as genuine and welcoming.

An impactful mission statement is hard to write, but the payoff is one of the greatest in your marketing plan. Take the time to craft a short yet meaningful statement, and you can use it throughout your marketing pieces for years to come. As always, reach out to me if you’d like assistance developing your brand!

How to Convey Your Brand’s Integrity

Today’s consumers are highly motivated to find companies that align with their personal values and ethics, creating a wonderful opportunity for businesses to attract like-minded clients. However, it’s essential to remain humble and sincere while showcasing your brand’s integrity. Here are some strategies to conveying your brand’s integrity without bragging or seeming too preachy.

Crafting a Sincere Brand

When prospects are deliberating whether to use your service, they’ll usually scour your website to craft a first impression. Communicating a clear and concise brand that includes your target market and your area of specialization is an important first step in the articulation of your brand. From there, you will want to include your brand message to give prospects a clear sense not only of who you are, who you serve and also what you are committed to for them overall. To make these future clients get a clear sense of your values, it is essential to express why you are focused on this group, why you are an excellent fit to serve this clientele and how your background, education and experience sets you up to be a natural fit for this focus. This complete message sets you apart from the competition and helps your clients to determine whether you’re the best fit for their ongoing needs. You want to stand out from the crowd and setting the groundwork to support clients at specific life stages will support your brand messaging. This is a great time to incorporate your “why” and explain what motivates you to work hard for your clients every day. How did you first get into your field? What most excites you about your work? What are your plans for the future? Answer these questions in a compelling narrative to create an immediate connection with your prospects.

Show, Don’t Tell

The easiest way to convey your brand’s integrity is to ensure it seeps into every interaction you have with the public. If you’re constantly highlighting your excellent customer service, ensure that prospects aren’t spending a lot of time on hold when they dial in. Remind your team to maintain a friendly and welcoming tone throughout their interactions with the public, even if it’s just someone who only stopped in for directions. You may even want to enlist the help of friends and family to pose as new clients and report their first impressions when interacting with anyone in your office. Conducting these quality checks will help you catch any potential issues early and ensure you’re putting your best foot forward!

Highlight Your Volunteer Work

One of the best ways to grow your presence in the community is to volunteer for causes you support. Having a company presence at major charity events that are in alignment with your brand allows you to network while giving back to the community. To create the greatest impact for your marketing, choose an organization that speaks to your values and your clients’ priorities, allowing you to integrate your knowledge and passion to create a better world. For example, I am at the Financial Planning Association Day On The Hill event in Washington DC, which allows me to meet likeminded people while supporting legislation that will improve the lives of families across the United States. To maximize your influence, you should post pictures of these events on your website and social media pages. Becoming a donor for charity events that you are aligned with is another way to put your marketing budget to good use, as you will often get a company logo in the event fliers and social media posts.

Be Consistent

As consumers go out of their way to support ethical companies, they will also do preliminary research to ensure their brand statement isn’t just lip service. I recently stumbled across a company that touted their commitment to diversity throughout the site but had a C-Suite team comprised completely of white males. Take the time to think through your company’s day to day conduct and ensure you’re committed to those core values.

As consumers become more socially-conscious, it’s more important than ever to highlight your brand’s integrity. Taking the time to craft a brand statement, portray a friendly demeanor at all times, and highlight your commitment to the community will help you attract like-minded prospects.

Essential Strategies for Succession Planning: Navigating the Transition

As the moment you’ve been planning for approaches, it’s natural to feel anxiety and trepidation, but having a comprehensive plan in place will keep you organized and motivated throughout the business transition. Here are some of the steps you should take during the transition to keep your company on track!

Check in With Your Attorney

While you should talk to your attorney throughout the process, this is where their expertise is vital to ensure a smooth handoff. Have them draft a contract that outlines your responsibilities throughout the transition, and when tasks should be passed off to the new owners.

Meet with New Employees to Communicate Your Brand

To ensure that everyone is onboarded efficiently and will maintain the standards of your brand, schedule a meeting or two to educate your team about the branding and company values. Setting these expectations early will emphasize the tone of the company and prevent any future inconsistencies, so don’t skip out on this vital step!

Communicate Clearly with Existing Clients

While you may have already discussed the transition with your existing clients, reach out to them again to confirm that the transition is underway and outline the timeline. Give them plenty of time to discuss potential changes and express any concerns they may have. I recommend that you send official notifications via snail mail and email. You may want to also schedule a conference call with your top clients to give personalized attention, introduce them to the new team to further support a successful transition.

Establish a Consulting Timeline

If you plan on staying on to assist after the transition, work with the new owners to outline your responsibilities and time commitment. Having these parameters in place will help you manage expectations while still guiding your team towards success. In your agreement, outline the number of hours you’d prefer to work each week, the days you will typically be available for consultation, and whether you want a trusted team member to monitor your emails to bring urgent items to everyone’s attention. Reviewing your personal preferences ensures everyone is on the same page moving forward!

As you complete the succession planning transition for your company, it is essential to outline your next steps and set expectations for the future. Creating this roadmap and including the new owners in on your game plan ensures a smooth transition for all parties involved, including your valued clients!

Essential Strategies for Succession Planning: Training Your Team for Success

In order to provide your team with the skills they need to steer your company through a transition, you should begin training them as soon as possible. The need for everyone to be on the same page means that you should take your training slowly and ramp up responsibilities over time, keeping in mind the delicate and nuanced situations that your employees may someday face. Here are 4 training strategies that you can use to guide your team towards a successful transition!

Maintain a Focus on Your Core Values

It’s easy to lose sight of the big picture throughout the minutia of a business transition but driving home the focus on your core values will help your team remember what matters most. Ultimately, despite the changes in your management structure, your company’s goal should remain the same throughout the process. Remembering your core values, your brand promise and revisiting them at team meetings will help you remain client-centric, and therefore avoid the churn of clients that can sometimes occur during business handoffs. Keep your team conscientious of their brand and ensure that they communicate it effectively during both face-to-face and digital communication with your clients.

Slowly Ramp Up Responsibilities

If you have an employee or two in mind for future leadership roles, this is the perfect time to slowly delegate essential tasks. Communicate that you are there to support them and keep an eye on the overall project, but allow your employees the chance to complete these tasks on their own. This will help build both their skillset and your confidence in their abilities to guide the company through the transition.

Don’t Skimp Out on Meetings

One of the most frustrating challenges of a business transition is the lack of communication. Most employees hate being left in the dark, and the lack of news can spark harmful rumors. Include key employees in your business development meetings and hold company-wide updates to curb the spread of misinformation. Creating a united and involved workspace can help reduce employee turnover during potentially stressful periods of time, so don’t try to create sweeping changes in the background without consulting with your team. This is an essential time to keep an open-door policy and be transparent about upcoming changes, so give your team the time and space to address their concerns and ask for clarification.

Clearly Expound Upon New Roles

Another avenue of keeping employee satisfaction high during a business transition is to properly outline their opportunities for growth and development in their new roles. By giving them opportunities to add leadership development and new skillsets to their resumes, you can help build their investment in the new company. Of course, it also doesn’t hurt to provide additional incentives like company events and bonuses to keep your team happy and productive!

Giving your team essential benefits and support will guide your company through the transition and keep your existing clients happy! If you need help designing a personalized succession plan, reach out to me to schedule a consultation. I can evaluate the current branding of your company and the planned changes to help craft a new marketing plan for the transition!

Essential Strategies for Succession Planning: So What About Branding?

As you continue your succession planning, one inevitable question will arise: What about my branding? Should the new company keep our existing logo,
tagline, and colors, or is it time for a fresh start? What is the best way to conduct these changes? There are no universal answers to these questions, but the nature of your business and your preexisting strategy can help inform your decision and help your company move forward throughout the acquisition process.

How Effective Is Your Existing Brand?

This is an excellent place to start your exploration, and you need to be completely honest and objective as you look at your company’s success. Take a look at the current business landscape and evaluate whether your branding sets you apart from the competition. Are you developing brand recognition and building a following in your community? Is your name unique enough that people will pick it out from the crowd? How does your logo, tagline, and company colors compare to others in the industry? If your existing brand is truly an asset to your team, it may be best to keep it throughout the transition. If you find ways to improve, you can seamlessly update your brand throughout the succession planning process.

Meet with An Expert

Given how essential branding is to your overall success, this is the perfect time to bring in experts on branding and design. Getting sound advice can prevent major stumbling blocks and ensure that you’re putting the best foot forward with your overhauled look, so connect with industry leaders now and set yourself up to win.

Need a Fresh Start?

A business transition is the perfect time to reframe yourselves in the business landscape, so embrace the refresh if it’s time to move forward. Sit down with your team, including any new partners or investors, and determine what aspects of your branding need a makeover. The key things to discuss in your meeting are your target market, your area of expertise, how to communicate your brand and how you want your brand to be perceived. By taking a bird’s eye view of your branding, you can craft a new look that establishes trust and authority.

The Sooner, The Better

If you decide to update your look, start immediately. Your first step should be to email your current clients and inform them of the coming changes to your name and look. Be sure to drive home your commitment to their needs. Ask your ideal clients for their honest opinion about your new brand. Get input to ensure you’re putting the best foot forward across the board. After sending the initial email, you can slowly start making changes to your website, but be sure to include language such as “formerly known as” to smooth the transition. You may also want to place your new logo side-by-side with the old one for a month or two, in case older users are confused when navigating to your site.

Your brand is invaluable to the success of your business, and it should be an essential part of your succession planning. Take the time to meet with your team and decide whether it’s time for a refresh, integrating this change throughout your transition. As always, if you have questions about your branded system, please reach out to me!

Essential Strategies for Succession Planning: Initial Questions and Preparations

According to a recent survey by FMG Suite, a startling 73% of advisors do not have a written succession plan, but 60% of those same advisors are planning to
retire within five years. While building a comprehensive plan can be a time-consuming process, it ensures that your life’s work will continue after you’ve ridden off into the sunset to enjoy the next phase of your life. In order to provide your team with the best chance of success, you should start considering your succession plan as soon as possible and make adjustments along the way to support the sustainability of your firm.

When Should you Start Considering Your Succession Planning?

Ideally, you should begin evaluating possible transitions as soon as your business is viable. Once you feel that you have mastered the tools of the trade and feel confident in your advisory skillset, it is time to consider possible next steps for business development. This can include onboarding a team to expand your reach, or simply acquiring a book of business to expand your current client list and AUM. Regardless of which path you take, you should start considering your options, grooming a second in command, and deliberating possible next steps for your firm.

Under What Conditions Would a Transition Take Place?

Having a firm plan of the conditions you’d need to transition will help you immediately consider or reject any incoming terms, as well as providing a logical framework for an otherwise sentimental decision. Write down the answers to these questions and use it as a personal reference as you start considering your options:

In an ideal world, how long would you like to keep working at your firm?
If something minor goes wrong with your health or personal life, how might it shorten this timeframe?
If something major goes wrong with your health or personal life, how might it shorten this timeframe?
Who would handle your current accounts if you had to take short-term leave?
Who would handle your current accounts if you had to take long-term or permanent leave?
What is the minimum amount you would be willing to sell your stake in the firm for?
What would you ideally like to sell your stake in the firm for?
Are there any personal or financial roadblocks preventing you from retiring or selling your business?

Once you have written out the answers to these questions, you’ll have a better understanding of your position that will help you make the right decisions with your upcoming strategies.

Is Your Team Ready to Make Changes?

As you begin your succession planning strategy, it’s essential to take an honest look at your team. Consider their personalities and capabilities both as a close colleague, and from a client perspective. Is your team capable of running your firm with minimal input from you? Is there a natural leader who would be able to take the helm if you decide to leave? How would the other team members react to having this person manage the business? If you see a natural choice for a successor, it might be right timing for a conversation with them to determine if they are interested in being a part of your succession plan. If you are aligned that the fit is a good one, you can also start allocating more responsibilities and grooming them for the promotion. If there isn’t an obvious choice, it may be time to bring in a fresh perspective with new hire(s.)

Succession planning is an essential part of growing your business, and it’s important to ask these questions as early as possible. Once you have evaluated your position from both a logical and emotional standpoint, you will know how to prepare for your next steps

How to Attract Millennial Clients

As Millennials begin to establish careers and take over the consumer market, businesses have been struggling to adapt to their preferences and needs. Words like
“lazy,” “entitled,” and “sensitive” dominate the headlines and create a bias against this generation that can dissuade businesses from focusing on the next generation of clients. However, as Baby Boomers begin to retire and make up less of the consumer market, businesses need to adapt and redesign their marketing strategy. Here are some tips to help make Millennials feel supported and included in your business plan.

Be Direct

Perhaps more than any previous generation, Millennials want to get straight to the point. When designing your website and marketing materials, use direct language about what your company offers and the values you embody. Headlines and bullet points are particularly effective for this demographic, especially when citing hard numbers and statistics. While marketing to previous generations relied mostly on emotional appeals, Millennials are more likely to immediately search for the facts about what you deliver, so be sure you’re being direct and straightforward with your marketing message.

Monitor Third Party Reviews

Constant access to the internet allows the younger generations to be more thorough in their research, whether they’re buying a single product or signing up for a service. Ensure your company stands out by monitoring third party reviews and opinions about your business and addressing any complaints that arise immediately. Asking loyal clients to leave reviews on Google Places for Business, Yelp, or the BBB can help kickstart your online reputation and appeal to those who do their research!

Get Involved in Your Community

If you’ve been watching marketing trends over the past year, you’ve likely seen a trend of “woke” marketing designed to appeal to Millennials. Corporations now take political stances to drum up an audience and create buzz surrounding the causes they support. While your business might not want to take this to the extreme, you can still mention charities you support and what values matter most to you in the about page on your website. Posting photos from charity events and fundraisers that you attend is another way to emphasize the good you’re doing in the world, which is essential to catching the eye of Millennial activists.

Try Organic Marketing Channels

The biggest difference between Millennials and the previous generations are how they respond to marketing in general. Growing up in an environment inundated with ads has made them more critical—and even cynical—about the blatant consumerism that surrounds them. That’s why companies targeting Millennials have turned towards more organic means, using word of mouth and influencers to expose people to their brand. Though you may not have the funds to pay $250,000 for an Instagram post by Kylie Jenner, you can still integrate this strategy into your marketing. Encourage your current clients to spread the word by sharing your posts or talking about your brand on social media, and perhaps enter them into a raffle for their influence. An positive review from a passionate client is worth its weight in gold when working with a media-savvy audience like Millennials.

While some businesses still resist marketing to Millennials, it’s essential to integrate them into your marketing as demographics shift. They are poised to dominate the consumer market in the next few years and learning how to appeal to their open and direct approach to life will help your brand succeed in the changing market.