Lesson 4 | Getting the Client Engagement (4:16 minutes)
Getting the Client Engagement
So, I want to cap this section off in talking about the engagement. Actually, the importance of getting the client engagement before moving forward. It's absolutely critical for you to be collaborating, and beginning these conversations with the other advisors, from a point of strength. And that point of strength is actually getting this client to engage you through the conversations that you're having around discovery, around the Planning Table, around really talking about the importance and the benefits to the client about effective collaboration, and really what that means to have a team working on your behalf all in sync with one another, the benefits and the outcomes that can really come from that. If you attempt, without having the commitment and engagement from the client, to move forward and start to have conversations with the other advisors, you're doing that from a point of weakness, and from a standpoint of weakness.
So we want to ensure that at the point you get to in the conversation here, the next step is to simply come back to the client and say, "Based upon the information that we share with you here today, how we've shared the importance around collaboration, the benefits that we're seeing with some of our other client relationships, the benefits that we're seeing from our colleagues and peers in the industry, and the outcomes that they're having by kind of bringing collaboration to the table on their client's behalf, is there any reason why you wouldn't want to move forward and engage us in this way to help facilitate and move things forward on this basis?" And that's simply how I would approach that conversation.Now, you've gotta think about your compensation models, and how you're gonna get paid for this, because the thing that you need to know is, this is clearly gonna require more of your time. Right? So, collaboration and doing all this work, it is gonna create time, and meetings, and things that you have to do. So, you have to really think about it from a business model perspective. You know, from an accountant's and lawyer's perspective, it's relatively more straightforward because you've got hourly wages that you bill for. If you're more on the insurance side, or the financial services side, it gets a little bit more tricky based upon how your business is set up.
And so, fees for a process around things of this nature, when you're spearheading collaboration, are not only something you should be considering if you're not already there, but these are things that are very welcome on behalf of clients. Because at the end of the day, if they're not used to paying you fees, and you're doing all of this other work, they're gonna feel a little bit of detachment from it thinking that there's gonna be some way that you've got to equalize or benefit from all the time that you're spending.So, if you're not in a business model where you're charging fees, really think about the role of fees in your practice, in your business, as a part of bringing this process to the clients. But, this would be the point where you really want to shift gears and you want to ask them if they would like to move forward and engage you on this basis, to re-discover with them, and to be able to bring that re-discovery to their key and important advisor relationships, to be able to come together and really bring the planning and the collaboration to a whole other level, to take their outcomes to a whole other level, and make sure that everything is on track and moving towards their dreams, their goals, their vision for that future.
So, this really concludes the engagement section, but we want to make sure that we have that engagement before we move to the advisor-to-advisor relationship or meetings.