Breaking Up is Hard to Do – Getting Prospects to Leave the Incumbent Advisor

One of our biggest challenges in client acquisition is when a prospect is having trouble letting go of the relationship with their current financial professional.

Of course, you strive to deliver great value and service and to form solid relationships with your clients, so none of them want to leave you… right?  (I hope so.)

Change is hard – especially when it means moving on from an existing relationship.

Clients will often balk at meeting with you, simply because they aren’t sure how to end their current relationship.  Breaking up is hard to do!  😊

This is often an unspoken objection. Meaning, they don’t tell you that this is holding them back from meeting with you and/or moving their business to you.  And you can’t deal with the unspoken.

Don’t Wait. Bring it Up.

Because we know that this might be a reason people don’t consider new options, I recommend you bring it up. Don’t wait for them to mention it or, worse yet, not mention it.

Here is some sample language for you to consider in approaching this scenario. You will have to adjust the words to fit your style and you may come up with even better approaches.

The prime objective is to determine and recognize the barriers to moving forward with you.

• I’m curious. Who are you currently working with? Maybe I know them.

• On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, how confident are you that your current advisor has you headed in the exact right direction for you?

• On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, how confident are you on reaching your financial goals?

• I know that the decision to change advisors is not always an easy one. Even folks who are not happy with their advisor avoid that potentially uncomfortable conversation. Are you open to exploring a few different ways you might handle this?

• If you wish, I can guide you through the process of informing your current advisor.

• What is it about your current advisor that’s not working for you?

• Some advisors aren’t particularly good at building great relationships with their clients, so their clients often can’t put their finger on it… only that something isn’t right, something is missing. Might that be how you feel?

• The last thing I want to do is disrupt a perfectly good, valuable relationship. On the other hand, we do have some areas of expertise that other advisors don’t have. It’s not uncommon for successful people like yourself to be served by more than one advisor.

How have you handled this sort of situation? Any best practices to share? I’d love to hear your thoughts and continue the conversation.  BILL

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Building Productive CPA Alliances

Featuring Jonathan Kuttin – Barron’s Top 100 & Hall Of Fame Advisor

Hosted by Bill Cates – Referral Coach International

Tuesday, October 20, 2020
1:00pm EST / 12:00pm CST / 11:00am MST / 10:00am PST

Now is a great time to start developing relationships with CPAs, many of whom can become productive sources of new clients. If you’ve struggled with this in the past, perhaps you didn’t have the right approach.

You need to hear from someone who has cracked the code on what it takes to meet and develop results-producing relationships with CPAs and tax professionals.

Jonathan Kuttin currently has created over 70 formalized relationships with accounting firms around the country that provide hundreds of inbound referrals to his team every year. Through his unique relationship process, Jon has created long lasting referral sources and has essentially solved the hardest problem in our industry as financial professionals… “Where is my next client coming from?”

In this high-content session, you will discover:

• the common CPA concerns and myths about partnering with Financial Advisors.

• how to speak the CPA language and earn their trust.

• the art of conducting an effective CPA initial meeting.

• how to avoid common mistakes made by Financial Advisors when approaching CPAs.

• how to effectively lead your CPAs to uncover active-referral opportunities.

• how to develop your CPA relationships into truly prosperous, long-term, and mutually beneficial partnerships.

SPACE IS LIMITED

Click Here to REGISTER

P.S. — Don’t Keep This a Secret! Tell Your Colleagues