By Kasey Dean, Simplicity Lone Beacon’s Senior Director of Accounts.
According to a 2023 NASDAQ study, nearly 50% of clients with $500K or more considered or actually switched advisors in the past 3 years. This represents a huge opportunity to capture new prospects and ultimately, clients.
With this type of clientele change occurring, Simplicity Lone Beacon conducted a more granular study that reveals insights for financial advisors that can help turn that information into actionable next steps. This survey of over 1,000 respondents aged 50-75 with at least $500K in net investable assets revealed a couple of key areas that we recommend diving into with your team. In addition, this article will point towards actionable ways to steer your business efforts to capitalize on where your competitors may have fallen short.
So, let’s dig into these key results:
Only 50% of people know what they are looking for and feel confident in their ability to make an informed decision.
With this in mind, how are you and your team structuring your calls and events to quickly identify these people and uncover their concerns before the 1st appointment? What types of questions are you asking and what is truly important for you to be able to emotionally connect with the person sitting in front of you?
What this says is that you may need to dig a little deeper in the initial phase to help this cohort of people truly understand what their concerns may be in the first place! If you detect that a prospect isn’t looking for answers to a specific question, they may fall into this category. So don’t expect them to come to you with questions about taxes, retirement accounts, pensions, etc. Instead, make sure your process allows you and your team to ask questions that reveal key factors of someone’s financial situation in those initial meetings.
Next, let’s get into how to address that other 50%.
Of the other 50%… 37% of people feel like there are too many choices
In such a highly commoditized space, you have to articulate your brand and unique value at 1st touchpoint to make an impact. If you can’t articulate to someone in 60 seconds or less what makes you different you leave room for your competitors to win their business.
So, what next? If you detect that a prospect is looking for answers on a specific topic, they might be in this category and need a highly focused approach that addresses that financial topic and how your firm can help.
15% of people feel financial advisors are too expensive and only for millionaires OR don’t understand finance and don’t want to look foolish.
This means that if you detect someone is nervous or isn’t confident in financial subject matter and their decisions, how can you incorporate more education as part of your marketing, whether it be in short videos, on-demand webinars, classes, etc? With more educational resources, you can direct these prospects to digestible insights that prove to them they understand it more than they know, and that you are a source of stability and knowledge they can count on to make sense of confusing information.
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In addition, you want to make sure that these types of prospects have opportunities to educate themselves before walking into your office. If you force your prospects to come in and chat retirement finances when they aren’t confident about that topic, they might go to a competitor that allows them to grasp financial subject matter first before having to come in and answer questions.
So, ask yourself this: once they are in your office, what environment do you create for the person in front of you? Subtle things like body language, eye contact, and the ability to ask meaningful questions to the person in front of you will help to create an atmosphere where prospects feel comfortable being vulnerable with you.
At the end of the day, prospects need your help and it’s important to be self-reflective on what you and your team are doing that may be contributing positively or negatively to their understanding of how you can support them. They need your help, but you must meet them where they are and build connections with them on why they should choose you over your competitor.
About the Author: Kasey joined Simplicity Lone Beacon from the sportswear industry where she was a marketing manager overseeing the strategy, content creation, execution and analysis for New Balance Athletics’ first-ever customer rewards program. She has also managed a million-dollar media budget, creating content and measuring performance for paid and organic marketing campaigns. Kasey graduated from Brandeis University with a double major in Business & American Studies, where she was also two-year captain of the Varsity Women’s Basketball team. In her free time, Kasey enjoys being active and traveling as much as possible.
