With fin-tech options and the emergence of AI-aided financial planning, Advisors are understandably concerned about the future. Changes are coming rapidly. What does it all mean?
In fact, these advances in technology underscore like never before, the key differences that only humans can bring:
Caring, empathy and understanding.
An AI engineer might argue the last point with me, but I'm not talking about data and calculations when I refer to understanding. I'm talking about understanding another person on an emotional, instinctive, human level. These are fundamentally human traits.
As an Advisor, your ability to demonstrate caring, empathy and understanding has never been more vital or advantageous. When your prospective client is weighing whether to save a point by investing with a robo-advisor or going with you, a feeling of trust and being truly valued as a person will tip the scales in your favour.
So what can you do to demonstrate this connection in a way that truly impacts people?
Here are 5 tips to implement:
Personalize everything. Bake a personal touch into each client interaction. This doesn't mean chewing up time with banal fluff, but instead, doing things like including small personal details from your conversations in a follow up email. Taking the time to diarize your meetings properly, including a few notes on what's going on in your client's lives. Review the notes before your next meeting so that you can start the meeting or call talking about what they care about.
Ask deeper questions. Fin-tech platforms can have you fill out a lot of fields to gather facts, but isn't capable of understanding or caring about the personal motivations behind a decision. When you talk with prospects and clients, probe to understand the 'why' behind their choices, how they balance competing priorities, what they deem to be most important to their well-being.
Be relationship- not transaction-focused. Review all of your processes and identify what look to be mundane transactions. How can you bring relationship into those moments? Make a plan to build those actions into how you run your business. In your meetings, instead of handing someone a form to fill out, gather as much of the information as you can through conversation and complete some of the form yourself while you chat.
Be responsive. Financial decisions often involve anxiety. Getting back to someone in a timely, personalized manner is a practical way to show caring and empathy. Even if you are waiting on information from a third party, you can drop your client or prospect a line saying 'John, we're looking into your question on xx. I have calls out to a and b institution and we'll get back to you as soon as we've heard from them. I expect a response within the next three days.'
Create a pleasurable experience. Where do you hold your meetings? What hospitality do you provide? Small touches of comfort elevate the experience of working with you and create a strong, subliminal connection. Why? Because they feel good!
Prioritize the sense of connection between you and your clients. They will feel cared for and truly valued. That, along with your expertise, is worth the investment. No machine can duplicate that.
Want to communicate with confidence and close more business? Book a FREE Business Breakthrough Consultation Call with Kira, here.