How Passion and Love for the Business Helps Financial Advisors Succeed

Ok, it’s the moment of truth. Answer this question honestly. Do you love what you do? Wait, I didn’t say “like”, I said “LOVE”.

Hopefully, you answered with a yes!

Now, let me ask that same question a little differently. Are you passionate about helping your clients achieve their financial goals?

Again, I hope the answer is yes!

These are important questions that I ask the many financial advisors whom I coach. All of these financial advisors desire to be extremely successful. Unfortunately, not all of them are able to say that they love the relationship part of the business. That presents a major problem for them to achieve the success that they are looking for.

Generally, if an advisor can’t honestly say that they enjoy the relationship part of the business, I will suggest that they stop trying to succeed in this business and go do something else that they love to do.

This is a business that is all about caring for other people.

It's about helping them, listening to them and teaching them. This is a relationship business first, and a financial business second.

This business is not about loving math or finance. It’s not about loving the investment process or economics. This business is all about helping people accomplish their goals. It’s about caring for your clients and their families. It’s about doing the things professionally that will make a difference in your clients' personal lives.

If you love helping people, you will be passionate about the parts of the business that make all the difference.

You will be excited about meeting with prospects and clients on a daily basis. You will be excited to learn about their dreams and goals. You will want to listen to them and then give them meaningful advice. You will take extreme satisfaction in helping them make decisions. You will do whatever you can to prevent your clients from making the wrong decisions.

Passion and excitement are strong forces.

Not only will they be well received by your clients, they will help you to stay committed to doing the right things in your business every day. It is so easy to get distracted in this business by the markets, product information, staff issues, technology, etc.

If you truly love working with clients and you are passionate about them achieving their goals, then you will make sure that everything you do, and your staff does, will generate positive results for your clients, and ultimately your business.

If you love this business, you will be excited about doing the things that you need to do in order to be successful.

If you are early in your career, this excitement should drive you to talk to, and set appointments with, at least 10 to 15 prospective clients every week. If you are well established, it should be your motivator to invest into your staff and your technology to deliver superior service to your clients.

Your passion to help your clients achieve their goals will make it easier for you to manage your staff. Either your assistants will have the same passion, or you will need to make a change. There can’t be any exceptions. The guiding rule is to only make decisions that will result in better service to your clients.

Virtually all very successful financial advisors have a deep rooted love for the business.

This love causes them to work long hours with energy. It causes them to be constantly learning. It causes them to invest into the business via staff and technology. It drives them to do their very best in helping their clients succeed.

If you have a true passion for the business, you should see positive results every week; results such as thank you notes or gifts from happy clients, as well as a regular stream of referrals. You should also see staff members that go out of their way to help you succeed. Your passion should make it easy for you to ask prospective clients to meet with you. Your passion should result in an overall satisfaction that you are succeeding and that you are proud of your life’s work.

Achieving the success you desire is not just about being smart, working hard and understanding the financial markets.

It is all of that PLUS being passionate about spending time with clients and helping them achieve their goals. If you love working directly with prospects and clients, they will sense it and want to work with you. If you organize your business around meeting your client’s needs, instead of your staff’s, you will end up with the right staff. If you can truly focus on serving the goals of your clients, you have a very good shot at achieving your own goals too.