5 Reasons Financial Advisors Fail and Ways to Avoid Them

 

DISCLAIMER: This is not a post pertaining to anyone in particular. This is a post that helps identify problems and might provide solutions in helping Financial Advisors succeed in this career.

Being a Financial Advisor for eight years, which began as a side hustle and eventually became my profession, is a very rewarding career. As my mentor would often say, "Love this business, and it will love you back a hundredfold." 

And when you love what you do, like loving a person, you would do everything for this "relationship" to grow. But it is not always rainbows and butterflies. There will be days of rejection and "seenzones" that trigger the mind to withdraw from this situation and seek comfort. This is a basic human trait built upon our experiences and will to survive. We consider the easy way of giving up, telling ourselves that this may not be for us, and would rather try another path.

But believe it or not, we can overcome these challenges. And remember that failure happens the moment we stop trying. Below are the 5 reasons why Financial Advisors fail, and ways we can avoid them.

1. Lack of Process

This is the number one reason why Financial Advisors fail. We become REACTIVE instead of PROACTIVE in our daily routines. Many of us just wait for clients to reach out to us. Unfortunately, this rarely happens.

You must have a process for

• Prospecting
• Follow ups with prospects
• Closing cases
• Serving your current client base, and eventually become referable
• Answering message inquiries, calls and emails
• Training new Financial Advisors

Make a list of what consumes most of your time and build a process around dealing with it more efficiently. Delegate work if necessary. 

2. Lack of Prospecting

Remember those days in training when we were asked to list 100 names as prospects? While we can pick names from our list of Facebook friends, there is no sugar coating that prospecting is hard. 

When you go out of the training room, you first talk to your natural market. After which, who do you talk to next?

While you can do ads on social media, I think it is better to create leads organically. Instead of spending money on ads, spend money on paid trainings that will help you become a better Financial Advisor. Implement the following:

• Determine your most energetic time of the day. Block that time off to do prospecting. Write a sign on your door that says "Do Not Disturb" so that you remain in focus.
• Make a call or send a message to a prospect within 5 seconds. I read that it takes approximately 5 seconds for the brain to turn you off to an uncomfortable task. Use this time to accomplish your task.
• Focus on the successes, like getting a reply email from your prospects. One of my latest clients is someone who replied to my email. This encouraged me to build an email list and learned how grow this list.
• Repeat this process everyday. Expand your prospecting time and think of this as planting more seeds, and ultimately convert theses prospects to clients.

3. Lack of a Great Mentor

A great mentor in this field is not easy to come across. Find a successful advisor who is willing to share how they prospect, willing to caddy you during your first couple of client meetings, and willing to share their strategies with you. 

And when you find a great mentor:

• DO make their time worth it. Only come up with good questions. Tell them about your open cases and opportunities that you need help with.
• DO ask if there is anything you can help them with, even with the little things. Ensure that there is adequate compensation or something for the time they give to mentor you.
• DO be respectful, obedient and show gratitude for their mentorship. Be an asset of the team, not a liability.

4. Being Too General

Because there are so many generalists Financial Advisors, making this a reason to be on the list of why Financial Advisors fail.

If you are selling to everyone, you are selling to no one. Go after a particular market and focus on that market.

To identify your target market, check the questions below:

• Have I worked with this market before? Did you enjoy working with this market and likewise? How was the experience?
• Is there enough money in this market? Because this is a business you are in, if there is little to no money to target, pursue other opportunities.
• Is the market growing? It is important that your target market is meeting or exceeding growth, so as you, too, can grow with them. 

5. Not Knowing Anything About Your Prospect

A friend once shared a story that during the first lockdown, she received a number of random messages on Facebook, from people she doesn't know, offering insurance and investment. Obviously, these people who sent messages did not even bother to look at her Facebook profile. Because if they did, they would have known that my friend is also in the financial industry with her cover photo. 

The lack of information about your prospect will kill a conversation before it gets going. Thanks to social media, people openly divulge their life, careers, hobbies and everything else on the internet. Make the most out of this valuable information in connecting with people with similar hobbies, backgrounds, education, etc.

Final Note

Winston Churchill said, "Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts." As we are on the second month of 2022, may this post be helpful in your journey towards success as a Financial Advisor.

Connect with me HERE. Be very blessed!