How to increase your job satisfaction
Nothing is more critical to the careers of financial advisers than the satisfaction that they derive from their work.
Nothing is more critical to the careers of financial advisers than the satisfaction that they derive from their work.
This can be said of every profession, of course, but being an adviser is one of the few professions that offer such a sharp double-edged sword: opportunity and failure.
The good news for advisers is that our research indicates that career satisfaction has increased to 39%, from a paltry 29% last year. To put that into better context, imagine if 39% of physicians expressed satisfaction with their careers at this time, rising from 29% during the swine flu scare.
Through our research, we were able to determine a direct correlation between an adviser’s current level of career satisfaction and his or her marketing activities and results — not service activities, not the number of financial plans completed and not the effectiveness of their practice management efforts.
Here are the top five strategies that improve advisers’ career satisfaction:
1. Travel in affluent circles. Advisers should seek out introductions from top clients and find a way to penetrate the centers of influence of their most affluent clients. Although this requires a mastery of the art of selling (and prospecting) in affluent circles, advisers who have done so feel better about their profession. It appears that being able to travel in affluent circles and successfully being able to sell your services within those circles are the No. 1 criteria for strengthening career satisfaction.
2. Build strong alliances. Getting referrals from accountants, estate planning attorneys and the like is enough to spark any adviser’s motivational juices. Yet this goes beyond simply doing a good job. Establishing healthy strategic referral alliances is hard work. It requires an adviser to invest the time, energy and resources into developing personal relationships with these professionals first. Why? Because everyone in the world of financial services is targeting this group for referrals, and they are as guarded and skeptical as today’s affluent investors.
Potential partners will quickly reject any pedestrian overture about establishing a referral alliance. It takes persistence and a thick skin to develop a successful referral alliance, but without a doubt, it is worth the effort.
3. Be the talk of the town. Developing such a strong reputation that puts you in the enviable position of having your name being bandied around in affluent circles is every adviser’s dream. Word of mouth leads to indirectly generated referrals — it is a matter of cause and effect. It is no wonder that this is a major contributing factor to an adviser’s career satisfaction. Although indirectly generated referrals are the ultimate adviser turn-on, they still trail the more proactive activities — getting introductions and developing strategic referral alliances — when it comes to career satisfaction.
4. Combine strategy and schmoozing. Although this is a variation of penetrating affluent client centers of influence and getting introductions, it is also a category unto itself. The beautiful aspect of this activity is that it allows an adviser to combine business with pleasure. Whether it is a social activity at the club or a local sporting event, successful advisers are able to combine schmoozing with their best clients and meeting affluent prospects in a non-threatening social environment, all of which leads to acquiring new affluent clients.
5. Host and toast. This activity is actually a hybrid of No. 1, 2 and 4. It involves hosting a small social event or small market update for a select group of clients. Invite a guest from their center of influence whom you would like to meet and turn into a client and a referral alliance partner. Our research shows that these small events, both social and business, are preferred by affluent clients and are the type of event that they are most likely to attend and bring a guest. It is fun for you, your client and their guest — hence the correlation to financial career satisfaction.
Who would have thought that the “yellow brick road” to career satisfaction for today’s adviser would be all about marketing? Then again, it is hard to feel good about your business if you aren’t in growth mode.
What is fascinating to us is that these activities are the “high-impact” activities used by top advisers.
My recommendation: prospect, prospect, prospect.
But make certain you do the right activities the right way. As your sales skills improve, so will your results, as well as your career satisfaction level.
Matt Oechsli is an industry speaker, researcher and writer. E-mail him at [email protected] or visit oechsli.com.
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