Distraction-Proof® Advisor Ideas

Prospects and clients need to hear your conviction for what you do, how you do it, and why. This one word will help you communicate that.
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The word is “most”. Most. It’s most important you get comfortable using this word.

It’s a superlative, and when you use it, you define what matters most. They may be working with an advisor who presents everything as though it’s just as important as everything else, which means nothing gets highlighted, and, therefore, nothing gets prioritized. They may want to talk about stocks and about market returns. However, you want to clarify that you work with families regarding what matters most, which is not equity returns or market ups and downs. Those are pieces of what you pay attention to, but that’s down the track from this initial conversation.

“What we help people with most is initially building a firm foundation, and that begins with a financial plan. We talk with our clients about the issues that we want to get right the first time because to have do-overs and have to repeat things becomes incredibly expensive and very inconvenient.

We focus on what matters most when it comes to protection, to understand how to manage risk, be it health insurance, be it disability insurance—frankly, some more mundane, even boring-sounding stuff for most people. However, we’ve seen by experience, these are the items of the financial plan that you want to have in bedrock. They don’t move regardless of what circumstances are going on around that plan for that family. They have the peace-of-mind because they know where we’re going next.”

So by using the word “most”, you get to define, actually, here’s what really matters most; this is what’s most important.

“We want to take care of these issues because when you are looking to have the choices you want, we want you, most of all, being able to enjoy them without a fear in the world—to know that we’ve worked diligently together for you to experience those opportunities. That’s what’s most important to us.”

When I was advising, that’s how our team predicated every relationship we built. So get comfortable using the word “most”. As soon as you do that, you define exactly what it means. Regardless of what that person’s heard before, you’re now going to say what’s most important.

So to do this most effectively,

1. Identify what you do that’s most important for your clients. These are the non-negotiable, structured ways you work with clients because you know this is what is most important for them, even if they don’t.


2. Practice it. You want to have these words ready and know exactly how you’re going to use them to have the most impact.


3. Use them. Use the words you have prepared every opportunity you have to let the person you’re speaking with person know, regardless of who they’ve spoken with, what they’ve read, or what they’ve heard previously, you are defining what’s most important for them, what they most need to keep top of mind, to make sure they set down a plan that’s going to successfully give them the most choices later on.

I look forward to bringing you another Distraction-Proof Advisor Idea next week.