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Thrive, Deny or Survive

Simon Reilly

Those that Thrive have a vision, business plan and goals. They treat their clients like clients, communicate their service offering, do what they say they are going to do, under promise and over deliver, have boundaries with their clients and leverage the relationships that they have. They have a strong sense of self and they are able to develop new and different pipelines and relationships.

Those that try to Survive do so by living each day just trying to get to the end of it almost hoping that the phone doesn’t ring because it could be another angry client which would compound their lack of approval, recognition and worthiness. Many get caught up trying to get their needs met through their clients … as in trying to save the client from the rigors of the market because the personal unmet needs of the financial advisor like approval, recognition and worthiness, are at stake.

To address the ones that Deny, I’m offering the Hebrew Proverb; Ten percent of the people make things happen, eighty percent watch things happen and ten percent don’t have a clue that anything happened at all.

Those that Deny are held captive by the unmet need of safety just getting by trying to survive. While it is good that they take the time to service their clients, they do little or nothing to attract new business which kills their inspiration.

Unmet needs also contribute to a crisis in confidence and the following challenges that senior advisors face.

  • Approval – not asking for referrals
  • Control – failing to delegate causing time management problems
  • Recognition – failing to hire a junior advisor or planning for succession because the advisor lacks an identity via their values and vision for the future … their clients, even the C & D clients are their identity and they will not let go
  • Safety – contributing to the belief that I have too much to do and I will never get it all done
  • Worthiness – having a should list of high net worth clients and never calling them
  • Worthiness – the plateauing out syndrome brought on by trying to get ones’ unmet needs met through the business and a lack of structure to their long term values and vision. An unmet need cannot be met from the outside, it must be met from within and when unmet needs are not met after years of trying, one eventually adopts the belief of; “is this all there is?”  When this happens, one starts to question; “why am I doing this?” – It is not about the financial advisor getting something for their efforts; it is about adding value to those that they serve.

The junior and intermediate advisors can experience issues that are similar and these are the issues that I am noticing; 

  • Entitlement – Gen X & Y having been sold that they can have it all and do it by working eight hours per day. I believe this correlates to the misuse of the unmet need of power.
  • Failing to call their warm market and starting with the cold – this dovetails into the unmet need of worthiness that generates the limiting belief of “I am not good enough” which fuels anxiety and fear … so they go and practice on someone they don’t know … problem is, they are projecting the worthiness and everything that goes along with it to the prospect.
  • Poor time management and overwhelm – this is a result of the unmet need of safety.
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