Latest / The Efficient Advisor: Tactical Business Advice for Financial Planners / 188: Ideas to Implement - How to Design an On-Boarding Process to Increase the Life of Your Client Relationships

Transcript

188: Ideas to Implement - How to Design an On-Boarding Process to Increase the Life of Your Client Relationships · The Efficient Advisor: Tactical Business Advice for Financial Planners

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: All right, happy Thursday.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: We are back with a Ideas to Implement Action Steps episode for this week's long format podcast, which was all about onboarding processes.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: So this week we really dove into the first 100 days and how to design an onboarding process to increase the life of your client relationships.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: So we got into why the first 100 days matter the most.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: What is an onboarding process?
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: How do we systematize and delegate parts of this process?
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: How do we lay down the law of how clients will work and interact with you and your team?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: We talked about how to surprise and delight your clients on any budget, and we talked about why every advisor isn't doing this and how important it is and how it will truly differentiate you.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: And then I went through the onboarding process that we actually used in my practice.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, so your action steps from this week are as follows it's really about putting the time on your calendar within the next week or so to sit down with you and the key people on your team that will be involved in this process and really sketch out what you want the first 90 days of your client experience to look like, what your onboarding process is, what are each steps involved and then what do you want that to look like for the first six months or for the first year?
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: What are some of those special extra surprise and delight, shock and awe that we talked about?
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: What do you want it to truly look like With the guiding principle of how do you want it to truly look like With the guiding principle of how do you want your clients to feel throughout this process?
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: We want them to feel organized.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: We want them to feel prepared.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: We want them to know what to expect.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: We want them to be excited that this is a different experience than they've ever experienced with a financial advisor in the past.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: We want them to feel confident and comfortable and we want it to come across in a professional, organized way, like you do this, even if it's your first time doing it, like you do this all the time.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: So be thinking with your team about what are the things that we get tripped up on, like we talked about in the episode.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Is it man?
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: We hate when a client calls and we can't release information to them because we don't have a spousal agreement on file?
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Like, what are some of these little things that we could just make sure are taken care of upfront to make sure that they have a seamless relationship.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I always said that I hated to say no to clients.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Like the worst thing in the universe was having to say no to clients.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Like the worst thing in the universe was having to say no.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: So what were all of the things that could potentially trip us up and give us a reason to have to say no to somebody?
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: And then, how do we build in a process to make sure that that never happens?
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: So sit with your team, talk about, like, what are the calls that we usually get from people?
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Is it the first tax season that a client is with us?
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: You know it might be nice to reach out to them and just make sure that they can find their tax forms online.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Offer that special assistance.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Do you want to go through their statement with them after they receive the first one?
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: If you do insurance, do you want to go through the contract with them at a very high level or in depth or whatever it is that you do, after they receive that in the mail?
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Like, what does that onboarding process really look like to you?
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Start sketching out a standard operating procedure for it, determining what it is when it happens, who does it?
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: What template do we use or what's our standard Like?
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: So, for the example I gave in the podcast, we sent a handwritten thank you card with Godiva bars.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: So that was our standard handwritten thank you process.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: So it would literally say here's the card.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Here's what the card says, like write this out.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: And then we order these chocolate bars.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: This is what goes in it.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: So obviously we had like a big box of chocolate bars sitting in the office, but that way we knew exactly.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: It had the link to Amazon where we got the chocolate bars in there.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: You know, I'll try to find that and link that in the show notes, but just so you have an idea of what a standard operating procedure looks like.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Those are all the things that matter.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: And then you're going to want to start building workflows in.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: So, for example, we have a new client, they sign up with us and they're going to now be an ongoing client.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: What happens next?
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Does Beth put in the you know customer service software or our CRM?
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: We're going to call them on this date, meet with them this date, do this on this date.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: You know what then triggers like what happens next.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: So that's where I want you to spend some time building out that standard operating procedure and putting it into play and I promise, I promise your clients will love it and the feedback that you'll receive from creating an excellent onboarding will pay dividends.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Like you will get this feedback, people will start referring you even more.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I think I said this the podcast.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many times people would refer other people to us within that first couple of months, like we really didn't even have a chance to show them other than our planning process.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: You know what we were made of from an investment management standpoint and they were already referring to us because it was such a different experience than anything that they had experienced before.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: So if you want to be in that top whatever percent of advisors who actually do this type of a thing, this is going to be what separates the cream from the milk, you guys.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: This is the stuff that matters when it comes to building a referral-only practice.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: So your action step really is just to sit down and do the thing.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: I hope this episode this week was really impactful for you and really helpful, and I'd love to chat more about it with you guys out in the Efficient Advisor community.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be out there this week just talking all things onboarding.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: So if you have any questions or you're looking for ideas, I'm going to hopefully get some advisors from the group to start contributing.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Like hey, here are the different things like different gifts, different processes, different like cool little things that we do to make that onboarding exceptional versus just kind of there, like we want, if you're going to put the effort in, let's make it.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and just put the effort in to make it exceptional, cool.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: So hopefully I will see you guys out in the Efficient Advisor community and thanks so much for being here and I look forward to bringing you something new next Tuesday.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Until then,