“Weekend Content for New Financial Planners” is a collection of articles, podcasts, videos, etc. that I’ve been consuming regarding breaking into financial planning, industry trends, career development, and more.
“Sales” is often looked down upon inside and outside the industry. Yet, we sell in multiple ways throughout the day (e.g., influencing client behavioral change and communicating our services). Nancy Bleeke on the mindset shifts to view selling as being a trusted guide and aligned with wanting to serve clients well [Podcast]:
“My mindset is: ‘This is the first value I get to give somebody. By helping them to make that decision to get help, to work with me, and to help with their opportunity, want or need.’
If we can get over the mindset that sales is manipulation, deception, etc., and instead think about it as ‘This is a real service that we’re doing.’ Because selling is an information exchange. It’s an opportunity to be a guide to help someone else focus on the information that’s important for them and for me to understand them, so that they can confidently make a decision or commit to an action.”
Human First Sales Process With Nancy Bleeke [Ross Marino, Shift With Ross Marino]
ICYMI: While many of your clients may prioritize the value of financial planning, having a client “fire” you because of the allure of another advisor’s investment pitch can be jarring. Additionally, financial planners who understand the importance of factors beyond investing—clarifying values and goals, financial planning, etc.—also tend to be those who place their focus on topics outside of the investment conversation. Michael Kitces and Carl Richards on how to [Video or Podcast with Transcript]:
- handle clients who have communicated their interest in another advisor
- analyze the real reasons for clients’ interest elsewhere, and
- approach ongoing investment conversations
“Every newspaper, the radio on the way home from work, your friends, your neighbors, the stroll through the financial planning… There is no financial planning section, by the way, at Barnes & Noble, if there’s even a Barnes & Noble anymore. It’s more like financial advice, personal finance, and investments—guess what’s the big section? The investment section. So, that’s exactly what I want to talk about. The question I get often is, ‘Hey, I just lost a client to somebody who was pitching better investment performance.’ There are a million versions of this. The one I just got the other day was somebody said, ‘I just lost a client literally to a stockbroker,’ which I was, ‘Well, do they still exist?’ ‘I lost one to a stockbroker because they were claiming investment performance, and I don’t talk about that much, but the question,’ this is an email, said, ‘I know my investment performance is better. Certainly, over any period of time that matters, I know my performance will be better because my process is better.’ And this is how I used to feel.”
Kitces & Carl Ep 114: When Clients Are Tempted By The Siren Song Of (A Competitor’s) Investment Results [Michael Kitces & Carl Richards, Kitces And Carl Podcast]
Lazetta Braxton shares the lessons she’s learned over the years from being a “Mompreneur’ [Article]:
“The marvel is that my mompreneur journey is not unique. While it’s not clear how many moms are represented by the 23.7% of women among 96,452 CFP professions (a stat that hasn’t reached 24% since its initial tracking) or among the 1,806 Black CFP professionals (1.9%), these dismal stats suggest a longstanding fight to create and hold space for married women like me who hold roles as a full-time mom and as an underserved and overlooked financial planner and business owner.”
Lessons From The Mompreneur Journey [Lazetta Braxton, WealthManagement.com]
Samantha Russell with a story illustrating the importance of niche messaging and removing friction in your initial call-to-action [Thread]:
Whether you’re building your practice, studying for an industry exam, or developing strategic partnerships, Morgan Housel on appreciating the power of compounding—and its impact on your outlook [Article]:
“I think part of the reason pessimism is so much easier and more common than optimism is that compound growth is not intuitive.
It’s hard to imagine, say, our incomes doubling over the next few generations. That seems like such a massive leap, like we’d have to boil the ocean to get it done. But doubling the average income over 30 years works out to about 2.3% growth per year. It’s not crazy at all. It’s actually quite achievable. What made it seem so ambitious to begin with is that compound growth is easy to underestimate.
If you look at the end result of a long period of compounding, it’s astounding. But all it took to get it done was little bits of incremental growth strung together for a long time…”
Compounding Optimism [Morgan Housel, Collaborative Fund]
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