Aaron Grady, Advisor Consulting Director at USA Financial - Welcome back to another edition of The RARE Advisor. With me again today is my friend, coworker, and partner crime, Allan Oehrlein, Practice Management Consultant at USA Financial and now, recently certified, Pareto coach. I asked Allan to join me today because we were talking about what's been going on in the marketplace. In these moments of turbulent times, how do you continue to engage with your clients and how can we leverage a moment like this that we're going through today these times when the market is not really in our favor. How can we use these opportunities as a moment to 1) deepen the relationship with our best clients, 2) get a chance to highlight our value-added services, and 3) continue to drive advocacy. And so with those three things in mind, I'd like to spend a little time today with Allan, really focusing on what we see as some of the best practices, like what would we do? Well, first off, what are we seeing? What would we do? What do we recommend? And then kind of what would be the best practices around attacking those? And then through this, we'll spend a little time on the back end to talk about how can we leverage these moments to drive client advocacy? And so with this, I want to throw the ball to you with regards to what you're seeing your advisors doing. I know you've been having probably as many conversations as I have about this. What are you seeing advisors doing today trying to stay in front of their clients?
Allan Oehrlein, Practice Management Consultant at USA Financial - Well, the vast majority of the advisors are reaching out. They're reaching out to their current clients via phone call, some are doing emails or blast emails to their entire client base. Some of them even have assistants or personnel within the office and junior advisors reaching out to clients. So just like in any volatile time, it's a typical practice where you want to reach out and again, make yourself available, answer any questions, and reassure them that the plan that you put together is still a sound plan.
Aaron Grady - I like that you said that they're being proactive. I think that's an important distinction in all of this is they're at least making the effort to reach out. I know I personally have had some conversations with advisors who, when I've asked the question, are you having conversations? Are you hearing from your clients? And they're like, "No, no, no, I'm not hearing anything from anybody". And I'm like, well, are you reaching out and talking to your best clients? You know, it's the old "let the sleeping dog lie" kind of situation. And I think for advisors, I think that they're kind of missing the mark. They're missing the opportunity. And so I'm glad to hear that the advisors you're talking to are taking a proactive approach to engaging with their clients. I think there's a missed opportunity. If advisors don't call and there's a perception, "Look, hey, pat yourself on the back. Bravo to you. You've done what you needed to do. You've insulated your clients. You've prepared them. And quite frankly, you've given them peace of mind so they don't feel like they need to call you". What we know to be true is that just because they're not calling doesn't mean they don't have questions or concerns. More importantly, it's not that the people around them aren't talking about it. Real life example, I was talking to an advisory team just yesterday and one of the support members of the team had shared that she had been to church recently, and she was with a group of other ladies at the church. And one of the ladies at the church had asked the question, I bet your phones are just ringing off the hook, I bet you guys are crazy busy right now with all the stuff going on in the marketplace. And she said, no, actually, quite frankly, our clients aren't calling in. They've got peace of mind and our phone's not ringing. And it brings up a very important point that maybe your clients aren't talking about it, but the people around them are. It brings up another point. They've mentioned a couple of words, the whole phone call thing. So, Allan, you mentioned that people are being proactive, they're reaching out. Now, in your opinion - and it's kind of a loaded question because I know the answer - in your opinion, what's the most impactful thing that an advisor can do in this moment?
Allan Oehrlein - In my mind, by far and away, it's the proactive phone call. This is a situation that absolutely 100% warrants a personal phone call going out to especially your best and top clients. Keep in mind that these folks are being absolutely inundated from every direction with negative news about the market. Local news, national news, water cooler conversation, everyone at their job is probably asking what they're doing with their money. If they took a big of a hit as you did, is the 401k now the 201k and so on. Being able to proactively reach out and make that phone call even though you've set proper expectations with those clients so they know that the plan is sound and you build it for these types of events, it's still good to hear that voice of reason and just that reassurance at the same time.
Aaron Grady - You and I see eye to eye on this, 100%. Your voice as an advisor during these moments are, and to know that they're being heard, is more important than an email, than a social media post. And look, understand if you've got a client base that's so big that you wanna touch all of them, spectacular. If you want to send out an email, a smoke signal, a carrier pigeon, you do what you need to do. But for your best clients, for your AA, for your AAA clients, this is an opportunity to show them that you care. Now, this is a conversation I've had many times. Look, to be fair, Allan, you and I believe the same way. We're not big believers in making a lot of calls throughout the course of the year talking to your clients specifically about the market. That's your job as a financial advisor. You're the one who's supposed to be watching the market so that I have peace of mind and I don't have to think about it. Normally when we tell an advisor to make calls, make calls to your clients about building personal relationships, or FORM calls (family, occupational, recreation, less about the market and the money). However, that being said, today is an appropriate moment. And in this type of market volatility, it's an appropriate situation to pick up the phone and have a conversation. It's assuaging their fears. It's not about getting into, hey, we're concerned, or whatever. This is about, "Hey, look, you didn't call me, but I wanted to call you and let you know that we're thinking about you and whether you have concerns or not, you're top of mind. And so I wanted to reach out and let you know where we stand as an advisory practice on what's going on in the marketplace. But more importantly, I wanted to be here for you in case you had questions or concerns so that we can discuss those". Now, Allan, would you say that having a unified front is important?
Allan Oehrlein - Absolutely. And we've heard of different scenarios where clients might call in to the advisor before the financial or primary advisor reaches out. What the receptionist or the administrative assistant might relay on the phone might instill maybe a bit more fear or, depending on how they answer that message, could create more questions in the mind of the client. So having that unified front where everyone is on the same page, sharing the same message, is absolutely essential in this scenario.
Aaron Grady - And you know, it actually kind of makes me think back to the conversation I was having with that support person who was at church. And the fact that when she was asked by the other church members, hey, I bet you guys are really busy, you guys have been getting a lot of phone calls. And her answer was no. We built the plans for our clients so they have peace of mind and they're not concerned about it, and we're not concerned about it. So think about that - someone who's part of your practice that outside can still have those conversations apart from the advisor. I think it is probably one of the paramount things we talk about best practices. One, make the phone call because it creates an opportunity for you to create a personal connection and build and deepen relationships with your best clients. But two, have a unified message across the organization. If you've got a junior advisor, if you've got support staff members, you guys need to all be on the same page and carry the water together. Because yeah, the worst thing that could happen is someone's you know, we're so concerned and did you see what the market did, when the reality is we need to be, and what's the word? I heard an advisor say this actually today was, what are the things that people look for from us as advisors during times of volatility? It's reassurance, it's direction, it's...
Allan Oehrlein - It's positive leadership. That's what they're looking for.
Aaron Grady - Positive leadership. People are looking for reassurance during volatility. They're looking for direction and all the things. Positive leadership - they're looking for you. Your tone, your tenor, how you convey this message is as important as anything else. And so we encourage you to pick up the phone, get that list out today, start calling your best clients, reassure them, and answer questions or current concerns they might have. And if they have none, great, wonderful, you're doing your job. But this is an opportunity to build a relationship and show your best clients 1) that you value them - deepen the relationship and 2) this is a value-added service. Whether it's listed on your service matrix or not, this is an opportunity that you say to your clients, look, my job is not to make you look at the market or look at the portfolios, that's my job. But Mr. and Mrs. Client, if there's ever a situation that warrants me to reach out and have a conversation - and it's not because we're concerned - it's just because there's so much other noise in the marketplace that we want to make sure that your questions are answered. I personally will reach out and give you a call.
But let's talk about another value added service that we believe strongly here at USA Financial. And it's what we call the Sounding Board. And we're not going to get into the weeds of the Sounding Board service, but the short story version of the Sounding Board is the idea of positioning an introduction not as a favor you ask, but as a service you provide to your best clients. So there's an opportunity here during these moments, during these phone calls, that as you reassure your client, as you create positive leadership, and you get to the backside of this conversation, if the client hasn't volunteered that they've been talking to others about this, what we know to be true is that they probably have. There's a unique opportunity to transition the conversation, and here's probably how I would do it. "You know, Mr. and Mrs. Client, I realize that with all this media fervor or all the stuff going on that, you know, whether you have concerns or questions of your own that we've discussed today, I bet there's probably people in your life that if you had questions, I bet they do too. Or maybe you had conversations with people that maybe they're looking at the world through a different lens. Maybe they're concerned about the market. Maybe they're concerned about the volatility. Maybe they're concerned about their own portfolio. Maybe they're unhappy with their current situation. I want to remind you that as one of my very best client relationships that you have access to one of our value-added services. And that's what we call our Sounding Board. And the short version of that, Mr. and Mrs. Client, just to remind you is it's a gift of our time. So if there's someone who's important to you, just know that they're important to us. And if they're looking at the world with apprehension instead of anticipation, if they're upset or concerned about the marketplace, here's what I'd ask you to do. Share our information with them. Let them know with their permission that you'll reach out. Reach out to me and my team, share a little bit of the information, and I will make a call on your behalf". So this is a perfect way, and I know you've had some of these conversations. This is a great way to leverage an opportunity where it's appropriate, during times of volatility, to extend a service to your best client relationships and it creates a moment in time for advocacy. So with that, so Allan, any additional thoughts there? I know we wanted to kind of keep this to a short and sweet story today, but any thoughts from your side?
Allan Oehrlein - Just to kind of reaffirm the importance of offering this value-added service. This is something, if not the most important, it's definitely top three as far as value-added services that you can provide to your current clients. And you're letting them know that, you know, I'm giving you something that's my most valuable commodity - my time - to someone just because they're important to you to help put their mind at ease and again, positioning it as that service to their best clients. It's a great tool. We continually talk about bringing this up on a frequent basis to your top clients and reminding them that they have access to this service because they're one of your best clients.
Aaron Grady - I love it. If you'd like more information about this, about the Sounding Board or about how to position the Sounding Board during turbulent times, reach out to us here at USA Financial. We have some resources that we can provide to you, cheat sheets, scripts, and some tear pieces that you can use to help you prompt to those calls that talk about the Sounding Board itself and more specifically how to position this during times of turbulence.
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