The “blah blah blah” effect

Alan had spent 30 years building a successful retail chain. At one time, he’d hoped that one of his kids would succeed him in the business; but, over the past few years, it became clear that this wouldn’t happen. When Alan got an attractive offer for his business last autumn, he seized the opportunity to cash in on his hard work.

Until that point, almost all of Alan’s net worth had been tied up in his business. He’d never dealt with a financial advisor, aside from an agent from whom Alan had bought life insurance about 20 years ago at his accountant’s suggestion.

When Alan signed the deal to sell his business, he asked his accountant, his banker and his closest friend for recommendations regarding a financial advisor. Alan set up appointments with the three advisors he was referred to – and that’s where things got interesting.

– An impressive introduction

“All three of the advisors were very impressive,” Alan said to me. “They all worked for well-known firms and had professional offices. When I looked at their websites and LinkedIn profiles, all were clearly successful, with solid teams behind them.

“And when we met,” he continued, “all of them did the right things. In every case, I was greeted politely and professionally. These advisors had clearly done their research and knew a fair bit about me and my company going in. In every case, they had talked about my situation to the contact who’d referred me to them. In fact, one [advisor candidate] had gone so far as to visit one of my stores on the weekend before we met.

“When we began talking,” Alan said, “all three [candidates] demonstrated real interest in my situation and asked excellent questions about my circumstances and what I was looking to achieve. At the end of the initial portion of [each] conversation, I was impressed and would have been happy to work with any of them. Two difficulties arose, however, when we shifted gears and they talked about their capabilities and approach.”

– Standing out in a sea of sameness

“First,” Alan continued, “they all went on too long, and I found myself struggling to pay attention. In fact, a couple of times, I tuned out.

“But that wasn’t the big problem. The real issue was that they all used virtually the same words to describe how they work. They all talked about their credentials and experience and their disciplined, conservative approach to diversification and to managing money. And they all talked about the quality of their team and their commitment to responsive client service and to a high standard of communication.

“Finally, all three talked about their philosophy of ‘holistic wealth management,’ an expression I’d never heard before but was very familiar with by the third meeting. In fact, two of the three advisors I met with used what looked like exactly the same chart – a wheel showing the different facets of advice they provide to clients, getting into things such as tax and estate planning and charitable giving.

“The challenge,” Alan continued, “was that, impressive as these advisors were, the words they used to describe themselves were interchangeable and also kind of vague. By the third meeting, it all felt like just so much ‘blah blah blah’ as these advisors talked about how they work.”

– From the abstract to the concrete

I asked Alan what he ended up doing.

“It would have been a very difficult decision,” Alan said. “Fortunately, the second advisor I met with took this [process] one step further. After she finished describing her approach, she told me that she’d like to show me what this might translate into if we chose to work together.

“She pulled out a printed document entitled Case Study: 65-year-old business owner and walked me through the situation of a client she had worked with who had sold his business. She explained that while his exact circumstances were different from mine, I might be interested in the process they’d gone through.

“First, she provided some general background and described what this client and his wife wanted to achieve. While not all their goals applied to me, there certainly were some similarities.

“Then, the advisor talked about what [she and the clients] had done. She pulled out a binder labelled ‘Road map’ and walked me through the steps they’d taken, including creating a detailed cash-flow forecast going out 30 years that she referred to as the ‘foundation’ of her approach. All of the personal information about this client was blacked out, but she got into quite a bit of detail about the specific actions that were taken.

“And, finally, she walked me through what this client had achieved as a result of this road map.”

– The final step to close the sale

After a brief pause, Alan continued: “And then, she did one more thing – she explained that for reasons of confidentiality, she never publicly shared the names of her clients. But she did offer to let me look at a list of comments from business owners she’d worked with, which included their ages and the types of businesses they’d run.

“Then, she said that all of these clients had said that they’d be willing to talk about their experience with people who, like me, were considering working with this advisor. If I’d like to talk to one of these clients, she said, she would contact them and get permission to give me their phone number.

“That made up my mind for me,” Alan said. “I’m sure that the other two advisors would have been willing to supply the names of clients if I’d requested it; but the fact that she’d suggested this without my asking told me that she understood the importance for me of selecting the right advisor.

“We ended up meeting two more times before I made my final decision, but the combination of her walking me through that case study and the road map, and the offer to put me in touch with a client who’d gone through her process, really set her apart.”

– Getting past “blah blah blah”

There’s an important lesson here for us as advisors: it’s not enough to say the right things or have the right credentials; you have to be able to translate what you do for clients from the abstract to the concrete and to set yourself apart in the process.

The advisor who won Alan’s business used three methods to show the benefit of working with her in concrete terms:

1. The case study of a client who had been in a situation similar to Alan’s.

2. The sample road map.

3. The list of testimonials from clients this advisor had worked with and the offer to put Alan in touch with one of them.

Other things that advisors share with prospects to communicate their value in specific, concrete terms include: articles in the local newspaper, in which the advisor is quoted or profiled; quarterly webinars posted on the advisor’s website; articles the advisor has written for a local paper, or a white paper he or she has posted on the web.

Advisors who focus on a niche market set themselves apart as specialists and demonstrate their expertise by showing prospects talks they have delivered to meetings within that niche or newsletters and articles the advisor had written on issues specific to that niche.

However you do it, there’s a clear message from Alan’s experience: even advisors who already are successful need to figure out how to get past “blah blah blah” when talking to prospects and to convey the benefit of working together in clear, tangible terms.

Fail to do that and you risk having prospects tune out and take their business to advisors who do a better job of communicating their value.

Dan Richards is CEO of Clientinsights (www.clientinsights.ca) in Toronto. For more of Dan’s columns and informative videos, visit www.investmentexecutive.com.

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