Feeling emotionally connected to your client can cut both ways

Feeling a connection with your clients can be a double-edged sword. It can fuel your personal satisfaction. It can also lead to burnout.

This is according to"Financial Feeling: An Investigation of Emotion and Communication in the Workplace,"an academic study by Katherine I. Miller and Joy Koesten, which appeared in the Journal of Applied Communication Research. The article was based on a survey answered by almost 300 financial planners.

However, the study also found that "the most effective and satisfying relationships for financial planners came when they truly cared about the client and saw themselves in a relationship with the client. These connections--when genuine--did not cause burnout."

Here are the authors' tips to help you avoid burnout:

• Understand that financial planning involves relationships as much as it involves numbers.
• Try to understand the relational needs of your clients through active listening and taking the perspective of the other.
• Develop a stance of empathic concern in your client relationships where you feel for the client but do not feel with the client.
• Realize that relationships exist at different levels, and it is sometimes okay to "paste on a smile" if it helps to accomplish the goals of you and your client. At the same time, it is important to remain true to core convictions about your profession and your relationship with clients.
• Work to understand norms of interaction in different organizational and national cultures, and interact in ways appropriate for those cultures.
• Rely on others for social support when dealing with stress. Coworkers who understand your job are particularly good at giving advice or just providing a listening ear.

_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Use personal stories in your communications

"In a sea of competition, you’ve got to capitalize on what makes you unlike anyone else."

This advice from "Feel Great Naked: Confidence Boosters for Getting Personal" is aimed at bloggers. The author urges them to share personal stories. But also applies to financial advisors, especially solo practitioners or small firms, when you communicate with your clients and prospects.

Sharing your personality--and even a bit of your personal story--can help you connect with your clients.

For example, in a sales letter, one salesman shared his story of how his family had suffered needlessly because of an estate planning mistake. That mistake fueled his passion for bringing new clients to his firm. After sharing that story, the letter shifted to discussing the benefits his firm could offer his prospects. I'll bet that personal story prevented some prospects from dropping his letter into their wastebaskets.

Don't focus your communications exclusively on yourself. Ultimately, your client or prospect will care more about the WIIFM ("what's in it for me"). But a bit of sharing can create a connection that goes deeper than dollar and cents.

Any financial advisor can heed this advice in one-on-one meetings. It's more challenging when you work for a large firm and you get into written communications. There'll probably be a company-wide communications policy that sets an impersonal tone. This gives an opening for advisors with smaller firms to outmaneuver their colleagues at larger firms.

Have you tried taking a personal tack? I'd like to learn what your experience has been.

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_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Does your auto mechanic communicate better than you?

"Nearly three-fourths of the 1,203 adults polled said their auto mechanic uses clearer English than their financial professionals," according to "Financial Jargon: You Just Don't Understand" by Cathie Gandel in AARP Bulletin Today.

Are you one of those confusing financial pros? And are your clients suffering as a result?

Learn more about the results of a survey by AARP Financial about consumer understanding of financial jargon.

"Interruption vs. Self-Service Marketing"

I'm following up my post on how financial advisors are using LinkedIn. Raising your visibility by using LinkedIn is an example of "self-service marketing," which I read about recently in "Interruption vs. Self-Service Marketing" on marketer Bob Bly's blog.

He quotes an article from DM News: " 'Self-service marketing is all about putting content where people will find it,' writes Rapsas. 'It makes sense to go where the customers are.' " Bly contrasts this with traditional marketing which interrupts people when they're not looking for it.

Bly makes an interesting point down in his comments:

"My rule of thumb: self-service marketing works with products which consumers actively search for information (including pricing) on — for instance, installing solar panels on the roof of your home. Interruption marketing works with products people want when they hear about but weren’t thinking about beforehand — e.g., designer handbags, a home-study course on becoming a locksmith."

It seems to me that people actively search for financial or investment advice, so maybe self-service marketing has a future in this field. What do you think?


_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Annuities gathering steam in professional journals

Annuities may be picking up steam among fee-only financial planners and investment advisors.

According to a press release from the Financial Planning Association:

Despite their tarnished reputation due to sleazy sales tactics, high expenses and weaker investment performance compared with mutual funds, popular variable annuities (VA) with “living benefit” riders may still be a sound choice for some retirees, concludes an article in the May 2008 issue of the Journal of Financial Planning, published monthly by the Financial Planning Association® (FPA®).

In his article, “A Context for Considering Variable Annuities with Living Benefit Riders,” John H. Robinson examines how the investment performance of a particular type of VA rider stacks up against an index mutual fund as each tries to weather two bear markets.

I've written earlier--in "CFA Institute: Consider annuities, even variable annuities" and "Financial Analysts Journal article favoring annuities" about increasingly favorable coverage of annuities in the CFA Institute's Financial Analysts Journal and other venues. More recently, annuities received favorable mention in the inaugural issue of the CFA Institute's private wealth management e-newsletter.

The Journal of Financial Planning addressed this trend in "Variable Annuities: Emerging from the Dark Side?" by Nancy Opiela in March 2007.

But the barriers to acceptance by advisors remain, as "It'll be tough to sell advisors on longevity annuities" suggested.

_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Do your performance reports send the wrong message?

You tell your clients to think long-term. But are you sending them the opposite message?

Here's one manager's take on the topic.

"...we realized that we lectured our clients about long-term performance and investing to meet their goals; however, our reporting focused their attention on short-term returns and market performance. Today, we do not provide any performance for periods less than one year, and we benchmark against CPI, not the S&P 500, to better frame our clients’ understanding."

That's according to Harold Evensky in"The Rational Wealth Manager" (CFA Institute membership may be required to access this article).

Would you consider following Evensky's lead?

_________________
Susan B. Weiner, CFA
Investment Writing
Writing that's an investment in your success

Check out my website at www.InvestmentWriting.com or sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter.

Rich are getting richer, according to U. of Michigan research

"Over the last 20 years, the net worth of the top two percentile of American families nearly doubled, from $1,071,000 in 1984 to $2,100,500 in 2005. But the poorest quarter of American families lost ground over the same period, with their 2005 net worth below their 1984 net worth, measured in constant 2005 dollars."

That's according to research from the U. of Michigan's Institute for Social Research.

Related URLS:

Institute for Social Research: http://www.isr.umich.edu

Panel Study of Income Dynamics: http://psidonline.isr.umich.edu/

Frank Stafford: http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/public/experts/ExpDisplay.php?ExpID=721

"Personal Finance Classes Help More in College than High School."

"Adults who took a high school personal finance class don’t do any better on a test of investment knowledge than those who didn’t take such a class, a new study found. And while college classes on personal finance do seem to help improve adults’ knowledge of investment topics, neither high school or college classes spurred students to save more of their money, researchers found."

This is according to research conducted by Ohio State University.

Beth Chapman: "Putting Your Best Foot Forward: The Media is Always on Deadline"

The following article was written by PR expert Beth Chapman of Ink & Air.

Always prep your staff about how to handle the media. Work with the primary people on your phones to understand the importance of phone etiquette with the media. They are always on deadline. Let’s repeat that, the media is ALWAYS on deadline. Therefore, it becomes urgent that they reach you as soon as possible.

Why the urgency? The media keeps dialing for sources as long as it takes to find someone to answer their questions. They do not wait for call backs. The early bird -- well, you know the rest of that saying.

Do: Call or e-mail the reporter making the query immediately. Tomorrow will not work. When you call, if you do not reach them, give them all of your contact information, including office phone, cell phone and e-mail address. They may e-mail their question while on the phone with someone else. Time is of the essence.

Do Give a thoughtful response. You are competing for “top of mind” awareness with the reporter. When you find out the question, ask the time frame and whether you could have a few minutes to e-mail your thoughts. If they prefer a verbal interview, try to write notes of the points you make. Don’t let the reporter hang up without giving you their phone and e-mail. As soon as you finish the call, send them an e- mail synopsis of what it is you thought you said. Stay on point.

Do: Offer the reporter additional professional sources. Never hesitate to give a reporter someone who is specifically able to answer the question. You get points for not wasting their time.

Do: Offer additional materials If appropriate, ask a reporter if they would like to receive additional material that supports your point, tax codes, bulletins from professional organizations, or overviews found in trade journals. This may require a special fax number they will give you.

Don’t Guess! One of the worse things you can do is take a stab at the answer. It is also not smart to become an “instant” expert by doing a quick review of the subject with reference material you have on your desk. If the question is not spot on in your area of expertise, don’t go there.

Don’t share the topic of a media query with other media. It may be tempting to discuss with a second reporter what the first one just asked. It is considered bad form in the journalism world. A reporter will not trust you going forward if another reporter uses you for the same story at the same time. Wait until the first reporter’s story is published.

Got questions for Beth Chapman? Post them as a "Comment" below.

Visit the SusanCFA blog again next week for more do’s and don’ts of working the media and suggestions for overcoming likely pitfalls.

This is Susan, copying Q&A from the Comments section for your reading ease:

Anonymous said...

Beth,

How would you handle the guerilla marketing campaign, from Turner Broadcasting's point of view and from the city of Boston?

Can guerilla marketing work any more, or does it now have to be so shocking as to be negative?

7:35 PM

Beth Chapman said...

Turner Broadcasting has dealt with very negative PR in a quick, concise manner and, by assessing themselves their own penalty beyond the actual costs of the emergency created, they have effectively said "Mea Culpa" in a very public way. No large corporation, receiving good PR counsel, would ever want such a public "scandal" to keep making news, much less make its way to court. They have very effectively controlled the negative media hype.



Guerilla marketing is about finding and communicating to specific communities. There are many ways to do this that do not include posting anything on public infrastructure which historically has been against most municipal bylaws. I do not believe good guerilla marketing needs to be shocking or negative, but equisitely targeted to the demographic sought. A focus group, or groups for the purposes of brainstorming with this demographic would uncover opportunities for marketing that are creative, effective, and legal.



If nothing else, this is a very loud and clear wake up call for everyone over the age of 25, and particularly those in government, to learn about blogging and turn to it for public sentiment and information during an emergency.

Anonymous said...

Our firm is a high net worth investment manager based in the Boston. Our clients mainly reside in the New England, New York, Florida, and parts of California. While we have clusters of clients in other geographical areas we would like to gain more national exposure. Could you provide us with any tips as to how we may expand our client base further?

Beth Chapman said...

I make presentations to groups of financial advisors all over the country. I seldom find any who have made successful inroads with local media for a specific reason -- local media does not cover investment management. Oh, they cover firms opening, and closing and scandals, but the basic metropolitan newspapers use syndicated columnists to cover personal finance. High net worth families, however, read all of the national business media. Reaching national media is a matter of story idea development, targeting specific publications and reporters, and sending good story ideas once a month to those reporters. The stories can be based on client questions that you know would interest the readers of your target publications. Working with the national media takes time, and persistence, but will be vastly more satisfying that trying to get local publications to cover your ideas. One other suggestion is to look at the industries or professions of your best clients, and target those publications as a means of reaching good clients like the ones you already have.