Great Partners Can Help You Increase Trust with Clients!

For professional advisors it’s critical to know how to build successful partnerships with other firms with complementary capabilities. The net worth of your practice is directly proportional to the network of qualified, professional partners you have. Successful advisors can build trust through their partnerships!

Can you build trust with partners while growing your business? When was the last time you referred a client to an external partner? If the number is less than one recently, you might be missing a great opportunity to build a stronger relationship with your best clients.

This is the key difference between sales and advising. Successful advisors make it a practice to understand their client’s needs outside their core service offerings. These additional conversations can increase your understanding of what  your clients are going through both inside and outside the organization.

It’s interesting. I’ve found that many of my clients have similar challenges. From bad suppliers and lousy service to dealing with funding growth and insurance challenges. I’ve introduced successful partners to help increase my clients’ success and growth.

I add extraordinary value to clients by having a proven network of partners I can introduce them to. It’s a triple win, my clients win, my partners win, and I win. As bonus, when I approach potential partners, I know that I can introduce them to my clients.

This is because my clients see this as one of my unique value propositions. I begin sharing this at the start  of our relationships. I’m often asked how I find my best partners. I share my partnering process at How can financial advisors build successful partnerships in 2019?

Trust is critical to your success to as an advisor. As the world continues to get more complicated, its critical you increase your trust with clients and partners. Very few organizations can deal with all their clients’ challenges in today’s fast changing markets.

Trust can provide your organization a great edge in dealing with clients. How do you build trust with people you’ve just started work with?  Start early and always work to improve your relationships with your clients. Here are six simple ways to build trust with your clients.

The first way to build trust is to understand your client’s world. It sounds easy, but it’s not. I’ve seen long term relationships go down the drain simply because something changed in the client’s world and the advisor missed it. Are you watching your clients and their businesses closely? As importantly, in today’s global economy, its critical you watch your clients and their customers more closely to make sure you keep up with changes in their markets.

The second way to build trust is to create a custom driven solution for their unique situations. Have you ever talked with someone who could provide you a solution without knowing your unique situation? The more we get to know about clients, the more we must ask questions to make sure we don’t jump to solutions too quickly.

My wife describes it this way; sometimes I just want to be heard and sometimes I want you to solve my problem. Do you know which is which when talking with clients? Knowing which can help you build trust.

The third way to build trust is to learn to be consistent in how you communicate with your clients. I have a friend who is a consultant who communicates aggressively when they start with a client. But over time, he assumes they’ve built a certain level of trust with their key clients.

The problem is the client is used to hearing from the consultant on a regular basis. When they don’t hear, they get nervous. Want to build trust?  Find out what your client wants and then match their requirements to how you communicate.

The fourth way to build trust is to avoid using jargon when talking with clients. It’s easy when you first learn new things to want to use jargon. It sounds cool, it makes you more confident. It makes you feel like an insider.

Sometimes it breaks down the trust between you and your clients. I think this has changed over the years, because we are exposed to so much jargon.  Most clients trust you more when you find better ways to communicate ideas simply.

The fifth way to increase trust is to understand that most clients do not want to be your first client using a new tool or approach. Find ways to share new ideas with clients in a way that provides them an advantage. Every one of my executive clients is looking for an edge in their markets. Showing them examples of other people using the new approach is a great way to build trust.

Finally, get more comfortable with ambiguity and change. These two things can lead to a break down in trust even among the best of friends.

Next week, we will talk about how you can leverage these two disruptive forces to build stronger relationships with your best clients and partners.

See you next week.