It’s either because Financial Advisors don’t understand the worldview of the market or they don’t address it effectively. However, some Financial Advisor’s behavior does show that there is at least a subconscious awareness of this issue.
Case in point: I’ve conducted many workshops with Financial Advisors. I always began the workshop by introducing myself and what I do for a living. I ask each of the participants to stand and introduce themselves as if I were a prospect. They proceed to describe themselves with some very “creative” names for what they do for a living. “I’m a Wealth Enhancement Specialist”. “I’m an Innovative Financial Solutions Provider”. If you could have been a fly on the wall you would have seen and heard each Advisor, one by one, introduce themselves to the group, not one calling themselves a Financial Advisor. By the end of the introductions we were all chuckling. When I asked why – and this took some thoughtful searching – they all agreed that it was due to consumer “attitude”, as they called it.
This “attitude” is the worldview commonly shared by most of the public, a broad distrust of the industry at large. It’s not something you can change and we find that most Advisors don’t have a strategy to address and move beyond this barrier.
The key is to develop your marketing story. When you truly understand the way clients and prospects think and feel, you can create a marketing story that subtly and effectively addresses this worldview.
Creating this story will be different from anything you’ve ever done in the past and you may need to erase some muscle memory. Presenting facts and figures about your performance history doesn’t work. What does work is a passionate story that is about them, not about you. It’s the reason they will believe in you.
When you do this you’ll find your qualified clients will become your best “client advocates”, the most productive centers of influence a Financial Advisor can have.