{"id":8492,"date":"2024-11-24T14:14:56","date_gmt":"2024-11-24T14:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/from-necessary-evil-to-integrated-strategy\/"},"modified":"2024-11-24T14:14:56","modified_gmt":"2024-11-24T14:14:56","slug":"from-necessary-evil-to-integrated-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=8492","title":{"rendered":"From Necessary Evil To Integrated Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I\u2019ve been in the financial advisory business for roughly 28 years\u2014and for 28 of those years, I\u2019ve had a challenging relationship with the notion of \u201cbusiness development\u201d\u2014or the shadier moniker by which it is also known, \u201csales.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Relational business development sure beats sales, eh?<\/p>\n

<\/fbs-accordion>getty<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This has been such a tenuous relationship because many of us in the industry\u2014and all of the advisors at my firm\u2014consider themselves high-level professionals, not salespeople. Yes, without business development, there is no business, but many, if not most, professional advisors would much prefer to do great work, have that work recognized, and have prospects lining up to request being clients.<\/p>\n

Even most professional advisors with a great record in business development don\u2019t love\u2014and some hate\u2014the act of sales, but recognize it as a necessity. This relegated the sales part of our work to a disconnected tangent\u2014a necessary evil\u2014rather than a fully integrated part of who we are and what we do. And that\u2019s not because we consider ourselves above it. It\u2019s because we are trusted fiduciaries by trade and struggle to reconcile a practice that feels inherently selfish with the seemingly loftier pursuit of helping people translate their hopes and dreams into goals and plans. And this is not just a challenge for professional financial advisors, but also for skilled professionals in many fields\u2014accounting, consulting, law, and even medicine. Maybe you, too, have struggled with this.<\/p>\n

BUT\u2014what I\u2019ve found in Mo Bunnell\u2019s work is something truly different. He turns the gem and flips the notion of selfish sales on its head, providing an approach to \u201cwinning the work\u201d that is no less virtuous than \u201cdoing the work,\u201d and he does so through a lens that is just as professional as the professions that we serve, especially in his new book, Give To Grow<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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One of the primary reasons Mo\u2019s work hit me differently is certainly related to his background. He\u2019s not a \u201csales guy\u201d by trade, but instead, he was an actuary turned consultant who left that world as a senior partner to start the Bunnell Idea Group 20 years ago. Perhaps Mo is so compelling and convincing in sharing his business development expertise precisely because he doesn\u2019t come across as a salesman.<\/p>\n

And there are three other central reasons why Mo\u2019s insight, shared liberally in Give To Grow<\/em>, resonated with me on a deeper level:<\/p>\n

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  1. It\u2019s evidence based<\/strong>. While much, if not most, of the sales training out there is anecdotal schtick, Mo grounds his counsel with more than 140 studies from behavioral science, finance, and economics.<\/li>\n
  2. It uses genuine generosity as its key feature<\/strong> (with an emphasis on the word genuine). One of the many bases of research Mo draws from is Adam Grant\u2019s work, most notably his book, Give And Take<\/em><\/a>, which asserts that giving isn\u2019t just a good act, it\u2019s also good business.<\/li>\n
  3. It prioritizes relationships over sales.<\/strong> In Bunnell\u2019s world, business development is simply the professional fruit of highly personalized relationship management.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So, are you curious to know some specifics about how financial advisors can ditch the notion of sales as a have-to and transform it into a fully integrated relationship-management practice that aligns with a fiduciary ethic? I spoke with Mo Bunnell recently about his new book and how we can apply its wisdom for just that purpose. Here are three of my biggest takeaways, followed by three steps we can take to activate this approach:<\/p>\n

    3 Biggest Takeaways For Financial Advisors<\/h2>\n

    First, we must fall in love with our clients\u2019 problems.<\/h3>\n

    We tend to fall in love with our financial planning solutions when we should be falling in love with our clients\u2019 problems. \u201cI think every vector or force within a firm is causing us to fall in love with our own solutions,\u201d Bunnell told me. This isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing, as it hopefully leads us to perpetually evolve our client experience and offering, but it can lead us to adopt more of an inward, rather than an outward, focus.<\/p>\n

    Worse yet, this inward focus can become \u201cearned dogmatism,\u201d referencing Dr. Victor Ottati\u2019s work, where the more expertise we gain, the more close-minded we become. In advisory work, this can manifest in prematurely assuming we understand a client\u2019s needs based on similar past cases and rushing to solutions without truly understanding the nuance of a client\u2019s problem.<\/p>\n

    But when we fall in love with our clients\u2019 problems, we\u2019ll ask more questions, leave more space for our interaction to breathe, and use the clients\u2019 language, rather than our internal or industry jargon. And none of this is to spite our great solutions, but to more adeptly connect them with our clearer understanding of the clients\u2019 problems.<\/p>\n

    Second, we must differentiate between \u201cdoing the work\u201d and \u201cwinning the work.\u201d<\/h3>\n

    This is one of the biggest challenges we have as advisors. It takes so much dedication to get the education and experience needed to do the work of wealth management at a high level that we tend to presume that the same skillset used to do<\/em> the work is the same required to win<\/em> the work\u2014but Bunnell suggests it\u2019s imperative to separate the two, and to develop a skillset unique to effective business development.<\/p>\n

    For example, let\u2019s look at how effective communication differs between the two: Once someone is a client and they are invested in the relationship, the response rate to our communication is relatively high\u2014whereas prospective clients are much less likely to respond quickly, if at all. Detail-oriented, longer communications make sense with clients, as we summarize meetings, goals, and solutions\u2014but Bunnell recommends limiting our email correspondence with prospects to no more than 50 words, so they don\u2019t have to scroll in the quick glance they give our email on their phone. Similarly, with clients, we can expect to find ourselves in answer mode often, while our work with prospects is frequently driven by improving our questions.<\/p>\n

    (For more information, you can find a chart contrasting \u201cDoing the Work\u201d and \u201cWinning the Work\u201d on pages 32 and 33 of Give To Grow<\/em>, or download a copy of the chart for free on givetogrow.info<\/a>.\u201d)<\/p>\n

    Third, we must be strategic with our generosity.<\/h3>\n

    While Bunnell insists on genuine giving without an expectation of reciprocity, he acknowledged that we can\u2019t give it all away and we can\u2019t give to all. We need to be strategic with our giving, adapting our giving based on the context and the scale of the opportunity.<\/p>\n

    So, what are a few traits that make up a good gift from Bunnell\u2019s perspective?<\/p>\n