1st Coaching Call

Steve and I had our first coaching call yesterday. I feel it went well and it gave me a lot to think about.

The first part of our call covered a lot of information about positive psychology. I have always known that I tend to gravitate towards numbers, facts, and logic when I make an argument or try to convince a client/prospect to make a change. Steve is trying to make me see that scientifically, this is the less effective approach.

What he believes in, is what I would call emotional selling. Try to get my prospect/client to think about positive experiences and their dreams. This will put them in a better state of mind to receive your advice and they will also tend to transfer these positive emotions to their thoughts about me. Showing a client some pretty graphs will often times confuse them and elicit a “flight” response where they will then tell you, “I have to think about it.”

We reviewed my meeting with Bob and Janet from my last post and he gave me some good scripting ideas to follow up on their “dreams”. Steve clarified for me that I do not have make their dreams come true, but rather help them to express their dreams and then offer them permission and encouragement to pursue these activities.

The master plan is to help many of my clients with these dreams so when they are at a future client appreciation event, they will tell the prospective clients all about how I helped them make their dreams come true.

I met with a couple of clients today that I inherited from my father. I mostly wanted to help them put a name with my face and increase their comfort level with me. It was also another opportunity to ask clients about their hopes and dreams.

The problem I ran into is that some older clients have a lot of inertia in their lives. They like everything the way it is and change really seems to scare them. I get really frustrated when I see easy opportunities to make their financial lives easier and cannot push the right buttons to get them motivated to take action.

Another question I have is does it make sense to try and stir up negative emotions about their current situation to then show them how you can make their lives easier?

My client, Erna, has a “B” trust with me for around 400k, but she has over $1MM at a local bank in her “A” trust. Almost none of the A trust money is invested and could easily be consolidated at my firm. Plus I could invest it in a safe bond portfolio and earn a lot more money for her that what she has now.

Since she had mentioned that she liked to travel and her kids were on opposite sides of the country, I asked her if there was any place in the world that she would like to go. She mentioned London and then immediately came up with excuses on why she can’t go due to her age. It just seems like so many people are comfortable living their normal lives and are afraid to try something new even though it could make their lives better. Ugh!