Going into my first Financial Road Map® interview, do clients ever ask or express skepticism/sarcasm at the, ‘What’s Important About…To You’ questions because it's just a fill in the blank formula. I ask because someone I practiced with asked this and I must admit that I felt a similar feeling. I know that the process works and gets to important values, but it feels almost too simple. Please offer your thoughts and perspective.
Not if you do it right. If you really care about listening to people talking about what's important to them, they will enjoy telling you what's important.
What’s a good ratio to strive for in terms of client talking vs. advisor talking during the Financial Road Map® Interview? I listened to my first Financial Road Map® Interview today and found that they talked for 60 minutes and me for 23 minutes, leading to a 73/27 ratio.
This is pretty good. Nice job. Particularly impressed that you are recording and listening.
I’m a little confused about the level of commitment we are expecting from a new client once they hire us. In the script and videos it seems that during the Commitment to Implement we expect that at the implementation meeting the client will follow all of the action plan items and sign all of the documents we have prepared for signature, no questions asked. However, on the most recent Webinar, it sounded to me that regardless of what we may have said at Commitment to Implement, at the actual implementation meeting, it is more of a “traditional” approach where we are presenting our “recommendations” and it’s up to the client to decide which items, if any, they implement. To sum up, it seems that at the implementation meeting the approach is much less “take it or leave it” than presented during the Commitment to Implement. Please help me understand.
The expectation is being set they intend to implement your advice. It’s okay if they have questions, but at Commitment to Implement is where you flesh out whether they just want options or really want advice. The evidence that someone really wants advice is that they commit to implementing the advice and then actually do.
At the end of the most recent webinar you gave an example of what you would say to a prospect who wanted to wait on doing a plan. One of the things you mentioned is that the advisor’s main benefit is not in the plan or any other technical work, but in the coaching and accountability. I hate to ask, but why don’t we include that in the script to make sure every prospect knows just what they are getting and why this will be different?
It could be something you tell them during Commitment to Hire depending on the questions they ask. For example, if they get to the point where they ask something like, “what makes you different from the other advisors I’m working with now or have worked with in the past?” You might say something like, “One big thing is accountability. I can tell from looking at your current financial reality that your current advisors do not hold you accountable to implement. For example, your estate situation and legal documents are a disaster. I’m sure you know that you need to get this done and are aware that you’ve just been lucky that this hasn’t bitten you in the butt. What this tells me is that your current advisors might be making recommendations, but aren’t holding you accountable to actually GET THESE THINGS DONE. When you work with me these things WILL GET DONE. Does that appeal to you?"
When you say, "Now let me tell you what you are going to get," and go through that language, are you showing the other items they will get? Value adds? eMoney, Newsletter, etc. Could I show the eMoney commercial at this point?
What they “get” is more significant than things like newsletters. And it’s more than a list of features and benefits. Think in terms of bigger outcomes such as confidence that they are track to achieve their goals. If the video does a better job of explaining what they get you can, perhaps you should use the video. However, I would hope that you can explain that better than a generic video.
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