Financial Survivors Are From Mars, Financial Advisors Are From Venus

The title of this blog is a play on words from the title of John Gray’s 7 million copy bestselling book Men Are From Mars, Woman Are From Venus.

One example from Wikipedia of the theories Gray offers is that men complain about problems because they are asking for solutions while women complain about problems because they want their problems to be understood.

Gender aside, I’m taking the same theory and extrapolating it to suggest the following about Financial Survivors versus Financial Advisors.

Financial Survivors never stop long enough to understand their business problems because of their unmet need of security. The unmet need of security drives them to be product salespeople to medicate their need to get the next sale which is all about their need and not about adding value to their client in the form of a financial plan as an example. The unmet need of security also fuels the Financial Survivor’s inability to create a business plan or a financial plan for themselves or for anyone else. Financial Survivors just want a quick fix to make their business problems go away, problem is, this approach never works.

Financial Advisors are driven by their values and vision and because of this, they take a more long term approach to understand all the aspects of their business and they take time to write a business plan so that they are taking a more focused approach working on both short term tactics and long term strategies so that they will be in a completely different 12 months in the future. Financial Advisors take a values based approach with their clients taking the time to deeply understand their clients so that they can meet their client’s needs.

For more, please find the following comparison of Financial Survivors and Financial Advisors:

• The financial survivor lacks focus.
• The financial advisor follows a written 5-year vision and business plan.

 

•  The financial survivor is not making as much money as they would like.
• The financial advisor is fully satisfied with the amount of money they are making.

 

• The financial survivor gets themselves pumped when they are selling.
• The financial advisor feels naturally excited about their work and enjoys the selling process.

 

• The financial survivor feels like they are not getting enough referrals.
• The financial advisor is getting many great, qualified referrals.

 

• The financial survivor feels like they are working too hard, with too many unqualified or C and D clients.
• The financial advisor is getting many new high-quality clients.

 

• The financial survivor tries to serve anyone and everyone.
• The financial advisor has branded their business and is focused on a niche market.

 

• The financial survivor does too many favors and sells too many products.
• The financial advisor is focused on profitable products and services.

 

• The financial survivor feels completely overwhelmed, doing things they don’t like to do.
• The financial advisor does what they love to do and has a hiring system to delegate everything else.

 

• The financial survivor has a lot of conflict in their business relationships.
• The financial advisor manages their business relationships extremely well.

 

•  The financial survivor beats themselves up when things don’t go right and they have lost their enthusiasm for their business.
• The financial advisor always celebrates their successes and learns from their setbacks. They are achieving their true potential as an advisor.

 

Having said this, Financial Survivors are stuck:

• Stuck attacking change
• Stuck doing what worked in the past
• Stuck in the actions that you took during the bull market
• Stuck hiding from the fear of leading
• Stuck and failing to change
• Stuck and feeling drained, exhausted and frightened
• Stuck because we were taught in school to the test
• Stuck believing that we must follow authority
• Stuck ensuring compliant behavior
• Stuck doing the same thing treating everyone the same
• Stuck following archaic rules that we help to create
• Stuck blaming the agency or the manager that you believe abandoned you
• Stuck wanting independence but fearful of waking up unemployed
• Stuck pushing products versus ideas
• Stuck believing the creative are punished
• Stuck because of fear of criticism
• Stuck in fear about what someone might say
• Stuck because we are afraid that we will get into trouble
• Stuck feeling the organization watches everything we say
• Stuck believing in a BIA – Bureau of Idea Approval
• Stuck believing your mistakes will make the media
• Stuck wanting stability and the absence of responsibility
• Stuck wanting an organization to absorb the responsibility
• Stuck believing we can’t make change because that is not our job
• Stuck maintaining the status quo
• Stuck doing the most to prevent change from happening
• Stuck believing if we change we might lose our clients and jobs
• Stuck because fear was used as a motivator
• Stuck with mental programming that fights change
• Stuck feeling that nothing is safe
• Stuck in a lot of rationalization
• Stuck brainwashed into thinking that it is safe to do nothing
• Stuck doing nothing and hiding
• Stuck in a career and we plan to spend 30 years of retirement avoiding the stuff we had to do in the 40 – 50 years when we had a career
• Stuck wanting big ideas to happen in a flash
• Stuck requiring success before commitment
• Stuck giving into your fear
• Stuck settling to follow

Financial Advisors are natural Leaders:

• Leaders understand it is rare when it is obvious when to lead
• Leaders don’t have things happen to them, they do things
• Leaders crate change before change happens to them
• Leaders have extraordinary thinking and a cause worth fighting for
• Leaders commit to a vision
• Leaders create a future that does not exist
• Leaders have faith that leads to hope and positive beliefs; sun, gravity, air
• Leaders have faith that they don’t have to outrun the Bear, just better strategies
• Leaders have faith that they can do it
• Leaders have faith that it is worth doing
• Leaders have faith that failure will not destroy them
• Leaders create rules to sustain their faith
• Leaders don’t allow the practice of the rules to destroy their faith
• Leaders create rules that will not destroy their faith
• Leaders change the system to reinforce their faith
• Leaders grow versus falling in love with the system
• Leaders demonstrate by what they do versus getting stuck with a system
• Leaders understand that imagination is more important than knowledge
• Leaders understand that the barriers to leadership have fallen
• Leaders understand that one person with a persistent vision can make change
• Leaders making things happen and it makes them feel productive and happy
• Leaders are curious about change
• Leaders have an obligation to change the rules
• Leaders change the status quo
• Leaders change the spec because they have no idea what it is until it is reinvented
• Leaders make problems go away
• Leaders don’t care about how and structure
• Leaders don’t care about the norm
• Leaders don’t care about the official blessing
• Leaders don’t seek approval, they ask for forgiveness
• Leaders take responsibility and change the rules
• Leaders expect resistance
• Leaders create something that critics will criticize
• Leaders have a willingness to be not great along the journey
• Leaders turn things into what they could be
• Leaders go out and do it
• Leaders know what they can’t compromise on
• Leaders involve others
• Leaders connect others
• Leaders communicate their vision
• Leaders use passion to lead
• Leaders seek to give more than they get
• Leaders understand that charisma is created by giving
• Leaders use charisma
• Leaders ask what I can do for my clients versus what can my clients do for me
• Leaders listen and understand that clients are more focused on being
• Leaders take action – no should lists
• Leaders make themselves exclusive to their best clients
• Leaders are generous
• Leaders inform their clients that they build their business on referrals
• Leaders research what interests their clients
• Leaders have nothing in common except the decision to lead
• Leaders are lucky enough to have a job where they get to make change
• Leaders understand that the only one that says no is you
• Leaders don’t wait, waiting doesn’t pay, saying yes does