best practice advice Archives - Page 8 of 9

It’s Prime Networking Time!

by Tony Vidler There are two types of advisers at this time of year: 1. those who begin finding it tough to close out the game 2. those who are already started on a new game. Typically in December & January most clients are trying to close out their own business games….get THEIR jobs […]

Question: What’s the worst that could happen if you asked this?

by Tony Vidler Great questions are integral to client engagement, but what is a really GREAT question? One of the keys to success for any professional is having strong sales skills, or to put it another way, the ability to influence clients to shift their thinking. Is that “selling” though, or is that just […]

Want Prospects To Open Up? Take a tip from the professional interviewers

by Tony Vidler Once upon a time everyone was taught the difference between open and closed questions as the key to engaging prospects…and it worked for a fair while. In today’s world with it’s much greater emphasis upon individual opinion and with our professional focus having shifted entirely onto what the client cares about rather […]

Why Lawyers sell more than Financial Planners

by Tony Vidler Why is it that everyone tells jokes about lawyers and begrudges their work, yet lawyers tend to do pretty well in business? How is it that lawyers who tend to be pretty awful at marketing their services get so much business? Why is it that so many financial advisers […]

The Top Challenge In Shifting From Product Sales To Advice Delivery

by Tony Vidler I was asked a simple, but loaded, question: What is the biggest future issue for financial advisers specialising in business insurance? I qualified my answer by saying that the biggest issue is the same one that faces all financial advisers regardless of their area of specialisation. The biggest issue […]

Professional Selling: It is a real thing!

by Tony Vidler Professional and selling are apparently 2 words which according to many just don’t go together these days…except they really do. I’ll go further in fact and say that professionals MUST be selling, but, selling must be professional. While there is an absolute requirement to place the clients interests above all […]

Time to get with the program on regulation

by Tony Vidler For all the distractions, downtime and inefficiency that comes with new (or more) financial services regulation it is very easy to see it as an imposition. Many advisers conclude that regulation is simply bureaucracy which in itself creates little to no value. I am no fan of meaningless bureaucracy, but […]

Why Professionals struggle to get referrals consistently

by Tony Vidler Getting referrals consistently is how many great advice businesses achieve systematic growth. “Consistently” is the key word that should be linked to “growth” here…and some research a little while ago in Australia highlighted why so many firms struggle with this. It is because they are not systematic in their approach […]

Complicated products have owners manuals, why don’t ours?

by Tony Vidler face it: our products are complicated as far as clients and prospects are concerned. The funny thing is, nearly all of the products we buy are pretty complicated these days. Even though we men folk tend to ignore them to begin with, most of the complicated products come with explanations […]

Great Advisers Stay Simple

by Tony Vidler One of my favourite quotes of all time is by Einstein: “If you cannot explain it simply then you do not understand it well enough” and nowhere is this more true than in providing advice in complex areas. Great advisers stay simple when handling complex matters. It is not easy […]

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