Growing a client base and acquiring more ideal clients is a challenge all advisors face, regardless of how successful they currently are. And although almost everyone in the industry has heard that asking for referrals is an important way to grow a business, many advisors struggle with this. Which raises the question, as recently posed by Ron Carson at a recent keynote presentation: “Why don’t more advisors ask for referrals? Are advisors afraid to ask for referrals because they’re not proud of their own services?”
In this week’s #OfficeHours with @MichaelKitces, my Tuesday 1PM EST broadcast via Periscope, we talk about why it is so hard to ask for referrals as a financial advisor, and how the many barriers – including our pride (or lack thereof) in the company or products we represent, our confidence in our own value, or even shame about the industry we are in – can make it hard to ask for referrals.
Of course, when financial advisors get started, it isn’t feasible to ask for referrals, because you don’t have any clients yet to refer you; instead, the only choice is cold calling, “cold knocking” (walking the streets and knocking on the doors of small businesses), or some other cold prospecting strategy. In fact, arguably for newer advisors, the whole appeal of being able to ask for referrals to generate new business is the opportunity to get away from cold calling and other types of prospecting!
Yet the caveat is that it’s difficult to ask for referrals, if you’re not actually proud of your company and its products. Because if you know, deep down, that your solutions aren’t really the best for your clients, you’ll likely self-sabotage your own behavior – as I experienced myself when starting out as a life insurance agent, struggling to prospect and ask for referrals because I was embarrassed about the sales tactics my company was using at the time!
Of course, ultimately becoming a real financial advisor is not about getting paid for your company’s products, but getting paid for your own advice, knowledge, and wisdom. But that still means it’s hard to ask for referrals until you’re actually confident in yourself, and your own knowledge. And here, too, many struggle, because if we don’t actually know anything about financial planning, and we know that we don’t, then we can’t confidently convey our value. Which is why professional designations like the CFP marks are so helpful… because often it’s only after completing a designation that many will really start to feel confident that they can bring value to the table, and ask for referrals.
Although even once advisors have expertise and can truly add value as a financial advisor, it can still be hard to have confidence to ask for referrals, when telling people “I’m a financial advisor” risks making you a social pariah because so many consumers have had bad prior experiences with advisors! That’s the challenge of trying to do business in a low trust industry. When metrics like the Edelman Trust Barometer finds that fewer than 50% of all consumers trust financial services companies, it’s literally an odds-on bet that if you say “I’m a financial advisor” and ask for referrals, that the person’s first and immediate impression of you will be negative!
The bottom line, though, is just to recognize that there really are a lot of barriers that make it hard for us to ask for referrals, all of which are built around our own fears and discomfort in what we do, the value we provide, or the company/industry we represent. Our fears hold us back. And often our fears are quite well-founded. It really is uncomfortable asking for referrals when you’re not proud of the company and products you represent. Or you’re not confident in your own value. Or you’re ashamed of the industry you’re in. So, if you find yourself at one of these blocking points, figure what do you have to do to grow past it – whether it’s leaving your company, reinvesting in yourself and your education, or differentiating yourself from the rest of the industry – or you won’t have the confidence you need to ask for referrals!
source https://www.kitces.com/blog/asking-for-referrals-financial-advisor-referrability-confidence-proud-value-trust/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=asking-for-referrals-financial-advisor-referrability-confidence-proud-value-trust
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