Thrivos Consulting Founder Penny Phillips joined Velera Wilson, author of You’re Absolutely Worth It, to discuss showing up despite the fear.
Disrupting the Status Quo (Podcast Interview)
Thrivos founder Penny Phillips appeared as a guest on This is Women’s Work with Nicole Kalil.
In this episode, Penny talks with Nicole about taking on an industry that is very old and very set in their ways. I share my experiences early on in my career and the decisions I made that helped me to step out of what’s traditionally accepted, and solve problems in a totally new way.
Why Advisors Should Care About GameStop
Should Advisors Care About GameStop? Yes. Here’s Why.
Don’t underestimate the power of social media and its ability to mobilize, organize, motivate and influence people, including clients.
When I ask advisors how recent headlines are impacting their communications with clients, the typical response is, “My clients don’t care about Tesla or Bitcoin. They’re not focused on what people say on the Internet. They know we have a sound, long-term plan in place.”
I asked that question in March, when most of us went into mandatory lockdowns because of COVID-19, and again, a few weeks ago, when a mob stormed Congress and sent Washington, D.C. into chaos.
I asked again yesterday, when a Reddit subgroup called r/WallStreetBets drove up the price of GameStop, AMC and Blackberry by nearly 1,000%, collectively, and eviscerated hedge funds across Wall Street.
But my question now is, if your clients aren’t engaging with you about the current events dominating news cycles and social media feeds, then who are they engaging with? Because they’re talking, listening and exchanging information with someone.
Read the rest of Penny’s article on WealthManagement.com here.
When a Team Member Doesn’t Want to Come Back to the Office
Many leaders are anxious to get back to the office, but some team members want to continue working from home… permanently.
Read our latest article in wealthmanagement.com about how to handle team members who don’t see the need to go back to the office.
17 Unique Client Gift Ideas for the Holidays
This year make it a point to send holiday gifts to your clients that are memorable, thoughtful and show your appreciation for their business and partnership. Below is our list of the 17 best and most unique holiday gift ideas that won’t break the bank and will have clients looking forward to another year with your firm.
- Be the firm that sends unique books as gifts each year. The “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series is a great place to start and has editions for clients of all types.
- Make a donation to a charity that is near and dear to your client’s heart.
- Send a gingerbread house-making kit with a note wishing your clients and their kids (or grandkids) a wonderful and fun holiday season. (Under $10 at Target online).
- Gift personalized piggy banks to your clients’ children or grandchildren. (Under $20 at personalizationmall.com).
- If you have a spouse or family member who is an avid baker, consider sending a box of homemade baked goods.
- For clients who celebrate Christmas, send personalized tree ornaments.
- Rent out a room every December at a nice restaurant and host an annual holiday party for all your clients. Make a small donation to a local charity on behalf of every attendee, and provide a thank you token as the “party favor.”
- Go organic for health-conscious clients; send a box of chocolates from companies like Hu Kitchen. (Think: unprocessed, vegan, environmentally sustainable and delicious!)
- Send a fun popcorn gift box set with different kernels and seasonings from sites like worldmarket.com or thepopcornfactory.com (under $20).
- Speaking of gift boxes, sites like gifttree.com feature unique gift box ideas like “The Man Can” (shaving kit for men in a painter’s can) or “Sweet Nostalgia” (old-time nostalgic candy in a tin lunchbox).
- Go traditional and send your clients a bottle of their favorite wine.
- Omaha Steaks offers great (and reasonably priced) gift packages for clients who love to barbecue, entertain and…eat meat.
- If you are gifting to a client’s office or business: send a K-Cup coffee sampler or candy tower for everyone to enjoy.
- For adventurous clients who are avid travelers, send personalized travel journals or notebooks for the upcoming year’s adventures.
- Send a collection of teas and/or spices that can be used all-year round.
- Share a bit of your culture with clients by sending a gift unique to your family’s background like Greek olive oil or Masala Indian spice sets.
- Windowsill herb kits or potted herb plants are beautiful and useful gifts. They can be purchased through a number of online retailers including homedepot.com, amazon.com and williams-sonoma.com.
Tips for making the gifting process simple and sustainable each year:
Be known for something specific. Create a repeatable holiday experience for clients through your gifting. Clients will begin to associate your gift or special gesture with your brand and will look forward to your firm’s trademark token of appreciation each year. (Almost all the ideas on our list apply!)
Utilize your team. If you don’t have someone dedicated to client service or marketing on your team, consider hiring a seasonal intern to help with fourth quarter activities including planning a holiday event, client gifting and getting organized for next year.
Have a repeatable system. It’s not practical to send a personalized gift to every client every year. Consider separating the gift ideas above, into segments: all top clients will receive personalized gifts, all second-tier clients will receive a book of your choosing or a bottle of wine, all third and fourth tier clients will receive a holiday card only, so on and so forth. Use your CRM to stay organized and plan ahead.
Identifying Hidden Gems on Your Team
Hidden gems are team members who have been typecast in a role but have innate characteristics that would enable them to excel outside of their traditional scope of work or in other areas of the business.
What we know about the new generation of talent (think: Gen-Y and Gen-Z) is that they are incredibly creative thinkers, who are adept at finding faster and more unique ways to complete tasks. We also know that the best leaders in this business have the ability to draw out that type of new-age thinking from even the most seasoned talent on a team.
Identifyingthe hidden gemsis critical for two reasons. First, it can help solve the “engagement” challenge we have in our industry; employees no longer feel pressured to stay at a firm where they are unhappy. If they don’t feel challenged, if they don’t’ feel connected to their work, if they don’t feel like management cares about their development and fulfillment…they will leave and they will leave quickly. Secondly, it adds to the sustainability and durability of the business; the founders can’t be the only ones solving problems and making crucial decisions. In other words, imagine how much better your organization would run if you were leveraging ALL of the creative and critical thinking skills that exist on the team. (P.s. Most of it is currently lying dormant in the minds of folks who don’t regularly have to tap those skills.)
Here are four common hidden gems you can find on a team.
The MacGuyvers
People who have the ability to think outside the box to solve problems. Always pleasantly surprising others around them, they may choose to implement their own methods rather than follow standard operating procedures.
Where to find them? Look for the person who you usually turn to to put out the proverbial office fire.
How to elevate them? Make them the unofficial “Efficiency Officer.” Challenge them with quarterly question-based projects like, “How can we cut down our working hours but get the same if not more productivity from our service team?”
The Chameleons
People whose personalities can adapt quickly, they tend to get along with everyone on a team.
Where to find them? Look for the person most likely to organize an office off-site or team-building session.
How to elevate them? Invite them to a client event and task them with asking for introductions. Have make note of how they shift and adjust when working with different types of people, and then use that information to build psychographic profiles for your various target markets.
The Silent Leaders
People who can quietly inspire others on the team; they aren’t necessarily the loudest in the room, but they command respect from others through their actions and behaviors.
Where to find them? Look for the person you might consider “the most consistent and reliable” in the organization.
How to elevate them? Develop them. Provide them with coaching and professional development around how to identify and cultivate talent on a team. They may serve as a great player-coach or manager one day.
The Worker Bees
People who display the same work ethic with or without metrics or schedules. They march to the beat of their own drum when it comes to how to get the work done, but they always get it done.
Where to find them? Look for the person who comes in at 9:15 but is working on a Saturday.
How to elevate them? Reward them with “flexibility” as a bonus. Additionally, allow them to continually create new standards and procedures for the office and teach others how to implement.
How many can you find on your own team?
Four Ways Advisors Can Achieve Both Scale and Customization
Mass scale and customization sounds like an oxymoron; the notion that you can efficiently wholesale produce and deliver a service while still providing each customer with a uniquely tailored experience. It is the success formula for companies like Netflix and Amazon and the driving force behind today’s roboadvice platforms.
As the financial services industry continues to consolidate and private equity money favors businesses that can attain the highest levels of operational efficiency, advisors should be focused on how they can achieve both scale and customization within their own businesses. Here are four practice management to-dos that accomplish both:
1) Utilize a highly customizable CRM.
The most complex CRM systems like Salesforce give businesses the ability to create customized workflows and automate, from the simplest to most complex, business processes. Advisory teams should create multiple workflows across each aspect of the client engagement spectrum, from lead generation to next-gen client nurturing.
For prospects and leads, consider the activity that should be completed prior to a lead becoming a warm lead and ultimately a client. i.e. How many days post-initial introduction should a phone call be made by the assigned relationship manager? How many times should he/she continue to reach out if the initial call goes unanswered? At what point does the lead get dropped into an automated newsletter mailing list?
For current clients, consider the various service tiers for clients of varying demographic profiles. i.e. A business owner client with comprehensive planning needs would trigger a separate workflow than a just-out-of-law-school attorney paying ongoing fees for advice.
2) Integrate technology end to end across the wealth management spectrum.
You can’t possibly scale your business if you have a CRM system that doesn’t speak to your planning software that doesn’t speak to your investment management platform, and so on and so forth.
If you are upgrading systems ensure that integration points exist with all other systems you use. Appoint someone as head of technology (assuming you don’t have a chief technology officer) and empower them to stay in-the-know on best in breed wealth management tools and technology. Invest heavily in client facing tools that enhance the client experience but don’t increase the implicit costs of service (i.e. your time), for example: meeting scheduling apps, client satisfaction questionnaires and virtual meeting tools.
3) Segment clients by common preferences and needs.
Grouping clients together by common needs and preferences allows you to scale the services you provide (i.e. create repeatable workflows and deliverables) while still ensuring clients feel like the deliverable is unique to them. Busy female executives, professionals who own their own businesses, families with special planning needs: build tools, processes and service teams around each of your client groups. In other words, develop a philosophy around how you serve clients in each of these segments. Hire relationship managers or service advisors who can align to and serve each of these segments.
You may be wondering how to handle clients who fall below a certain threshold of assets or revenue. Apply a multi-tier methodology after initially forming each group; each group may have a comprehensive planning option, an asset management or single-issue option, and a fee for advice option.
4) Poll and survey your clients.
Do you know what your clients consider an “exceptional client experience?” Make it a habit of asking them through easy to produce and mass deliver survey tools, like Survey Monkey. Ask a combination of free form questions like: “Describe your best and worst ever client experience,” and multiple-choice questions like, “What type of service experience most appeals to you?” Use the data that emerges from these surveys to make tweaks in workflow and updates to clients’ CRM profile notes.
How to Make Clients Feel Like They’re Right Even When They’re Wrong
Do you ever reflect on how a client or prospect felt after leaving a meeting with you?
I recently faced the trifecta of iPhone debacles for someone running a mostly-mobile business: a cracked screen, non-working audio, and no signal…on a 93-degree day, in Manhattan, in between two important prospect meetings. Over the course of the next 3 hours I visited an Apple store and a Verizon store and dealt with two completely different customer service representatives. Here is what I learned. (Hint: according to LinkedIn, one had behavioral and communication training.)
1. The customer is always right. Even when they’re wrong. In times when negative emotions are running high- stress, frustration, fear, sadness, anger- empathy and understanding are your most powerful tools. Pointing out what they could have done better or what they should have done is not helpful. Providing them with reassurance that there is a solution and that you can help make sure this never happens again IS.
2. The focus must be on what the client needs from you in that moment. It may not always be the same and it may change over the course of the meeting; look for the signs. If the client is frustrated, even aggressive, do not respond in kind. This seems obvious but oftentimes our natural reaction is to respond to aggression with…defensiveness and attitude. Consider what would be most helpful: allowing them to vent? Empathizing with specific statements? Agreeing with them? If the client softens, reconsider your approach; perhaps it’s time to now talk through powerful steps forward or map out all their options for them in order to give them a sense of clarity and control.
Keep in mind, there is a big difference between listening, teaching, advising and coaching. Tap into each appropriately.
3. Act like you have all the time in world. If they’re the right clients, they will not take advantage of that. Imagine these two scenarios: a visit to an urgent care facility with fifteen patients in the waiting room and a physician who briskly walks into the examination room and barely looks at you, or a visit to an office where the doctor takes off his/her glasses, sits down without looking at your chart, and tells you he/she is here to help. See the difference? As patients, customers, clients, human beings, we naturally relax and have an easier time opening up when we feel as if we are not inconveniencing others.
Here is my recommendation:
Write these two questions on a piece of paper and have that paper with you in each client meeting as a reminder. What do they need from me in this meeting? How can I be helpful to them based on their emotional signals? Post-meeting, spend 5 minutes reflecting on whether you were able to answer the questions and adjust accordingly.
Is it Really Time for Another Hire?
This is a question I ask many of my advisor-clients as they gear up to hire yet another service-oriented team member. “Are your office policies and procedures documented?” I ask. “Do you have institutionalized systems and processes around client acquisition, client service and client engagement?” “How clear are team members on company objectives and quarterly goals?”
Teams are not always at capacity as quickly as they think they are. Often advisors will feel the need to bring on additional support when work begins falling through the cracks or when team members aren’t meeting deadlines. More times than not, that additional hire fails to “solve the problem” and simply falls into the same inefficiency trap as everyone else; and the work that can be done by two people has now been distributed among five. (Technically speaking every 100 clients / 100 million in assets can be managed by one lead advisor.)
Consider the following three questions the next time your team tells you they feel they are at capacity:
1) Are expectations clearly set with clients during the onboarding phase?
Imagine never having to “chase” clients down for business reviews, or never having to field a phone call from a client with an issue that could be managed by someone else…
The client onboarding phase is critical. It gives you and the team the opportunity to set expectations with clients about service, as well as their relationship with your team. By the time they are officially a client they should know: how often they will be meeting with your office and when, who specifically they will be meeting with, whom to call with questions and concerns, where to find important information about their accounts and policies and what to expect overall from you and the team over the course of their life cycle.
2) Do you use technology effectively?
And I don’t just mean, “do you have a CRM system?” I mean, is there someone in your office dedicated to keeping up to speed on technology and artificial intelligence.There are thousands of programs and apps designed to create efficiencies for financial advisory organizations; from digital scheduling tools to internal team communication systems (e.g. Slack), each year you should be finding more ways to use technology for day to day operations.
3) Are there more exceptions than there are standards relating to client planning needs?
Although each client situation is unique, you should identify several client profiles that exist within your book. If you don’t already, create a standard way of thinking around how to approach a client’s needs; the way in which you build your advisory models, the way review meetings are run, what documents, tools and resources are brought into each meeting, and the way the plans are updated each year.
The most powerful conversations you can have around day to day efficiencies will come from the conversations you have with your team members. Begin by engaging them in a discussion around the above questions.
Your Brand Probably Isn’t Resonating with Next-Gen Wealth Holders
When most advisors think about today’s millennials, they think about seventeen-year-olds taking selfies and posting on Snapchat.
The reality is, most millennials are now in their early 30s and stand to inherit trillions of dollars over the next two decades from their parents and grandparents. While they may still be taking selfies and posting on Snapchat, they are double the size of the baby boomer generation, incredibly tech savvy, entrepreneurial and in-tune with their finances.
If you are truly building a sustainable business, then yes, you must build a multi gen-team and durable operational infrastructure (see: our other blogs!) but you must also ensure that your brand narrative can transcend generations. Most advisor business owners have over looked this last piece.
Here are some of the things millennials care about: Sustainability, transparency, leaving the world a better place than when they found it, price, ease of doing business, authenticity, and creating fulfilling experiences for themselves and loved ones.
Here are some things millennials don’t care about: The fact that a business has been around for 150 years.
This is a generation that will choose the no-name-brand-product over the much more popular and traditional brand, if the former adheres to ESG principles or has better pricing for similar quality. This is a generation that vets products and services, not based on the rhetoric of a single company, but based on the reviews and opinions of the general public (i.e. other consumers.)
How do you ensure that your brand will connect to the next generation?
1) Craft a story that incorporates what the next gen cares about. Speak directly to them in person and via all print, digital and social channels. Talk about how transparent your firm is, the impact-investing capabilities you have, and the fact that you want to help them plan for tomorrow, but also live for today.
2) Allow the personas of team members to develop. Make sure you are strategically connecting members of your team with your clients. Consider segmenting clients not by just assets or revenue, but by interests and commonalities; assign team members with similarities ownership over a segment.
3) Create authentic content. The only way to truly stand out in a world of ghost written articles and generic content, is to develop a bold, genuine perspective on whatever it is you’re writing about. Use your words and any medium you have (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram) to allow people to get to know YOU, your business, and your perspective on wealth management.
So, what’s your powerful next step? Engage the children of your clients (or your clients) in an honest discussion about your website, social pages, and marketing material. Ask for feedback on how you might be able to better connect to a different – but very important – sub group of clients.