When we entered lockdown in the U.K. on March 23, 2020, I realized how lucky I was. Lucky? 

• I didn’t work in corporate hospitality, which has seen its business fall off a cliff.
• I didn’t work in travel and tourism, in which two of my dear friends do — and have sadly seen their livelihood and business stopped overnight by the impact of COVID-19.

So, yes, really, really lucky!

I saw that, as a professional financial advisor, I had not only the ability to earn a living, but also the ability to help all of the families we represent. This crisis could in fact turn into an opportunity.

But we had to take a practical approach. The Stockdale Paradox, which is featured in Jim Collins’ excellent “Good to Great” book, talks about realism. He tells an amazing story about a prisoner of war who was captured but decided that, despite the horrifying beatings and torturing, he was going to use this as a defining moment of his life. When interviewed by Collins, Stockdale said he survived because he was a realist, not an optimist. The optimists thought they would be released from their prisoner-of-war camp by Easter or the following Christmas or the following Easter. But they died of a broken heart. His stoic realism, he said, was the key to his survival. So, when the pandemic started, I knew I had to focus on each day as it came.

But what could I do? What could I influence? I could not change the way the stock markets were going, and I could not change the way some of my clients were being impacted by COVID-19. But I could approach each day with realism about the future. This approach also gave me an amazing opportunity to turn my business on its head.

Could I use this crisis and turn it into an opportunity? Could other crises we face in business and in our personal lives also be turned into opportunities?

When I joined MDRT, it took me out of my comfort zone and shook me to the core. The events of 2020 have certainly defined my approach as a financial advisor and indeed our industry as a whole. When I spoke to other advisors, they were devastated that we could no longer see our clients face-to-face. But perhaps this could turn into an opportunity. How many of you listening to this have to get on planes? Or rather, did you have to get on planes as well as trains, or drive two to three hours to attend meetings? We now have many new options. By training on Teams and Zoom, we are able to see all of our clients, stay in touch and save hours of valuable time by not traveling like we used to.

I also realized that we had to stay in more frequent contact with people as well as in a totally different way than before. Would our quarterly newsletter be sufficient? I didn’t think so.

So, this crisis has turned the way we engage with our clients on its head!

How many of you listen to TED Talks? Or tune in to motivational podcasts?

From March 2020, we recorded and broadcasted 10 professional podcasts, something we had never done before. We felt at the time these were not very successful until we spoke to clients who said they really enjoyed them, and the podcasts in turn led to a new piece of business every month. The podcasts, which seemed costly at first, had become incredibly profitable.

Since January 2021, we are continuing to post podcasts to our clients on the first Friday of every month, apart from our summer holiday season in August, just to reach out to the clients.

During 2020, we used WhatsApp and texts to leave regular personal voice notes for each client. This year we continue doing this on a quarterly basis. We ensure these messages are personalized for each client. By making this extra effort to reach out to people who may have needed us, our clients felt they were being thought of personally and individually, but this was in fact very time efficient.

Our MDRT study group proved to be an enormous support. We set up weekly Zoom calls to stay in touch. And by supporting each other and sharing success stories, it spurred us all on to write more business, attract new clients and generate new business from our existing clients.

For our elderly clients who perhaps didn’t have access to this kind of technology, we wrote personal handwritten cards to tell them that we were thinking of them. We had always held the belief that making clients feel special is essential, but we had never reached out to them on this scale before. So I say again: This crisis presented us with an opportunity. 

We posted videos of myself on YouTube. I recorded these in my home to show a more personal side and present myself as never before. It was amazing, and the clients loved it, often commenting on how badly I needed a haircut! I just used my phone, sometimes changing the videos to black and white to mix it up a little.

We sent video messages following initial Zoom and telephone meetings telling them what we needed or just to say it was good to meet them and what the next steps would be.

I was able to do all this for our clients from day one. Previously, I would have been in a car or on a train, but now I could do all this from the comfort of my office, communicating on an individual basis with things that were personally relevant to each client. Was this easy? No. It took me right out of my comfort zone. Having to do videos of myself and being interviewed by a journalist for a podcast was all new to me. I’d always felt my strength was face-to-face meetings, and yet now here I was using technology that six months ago I hadn’t even heard of, or at least thought previously was extraordinarily difficult. This was now becoming the new normal. An added advantage was how easy it became to regularly contact many of our clients who live overseas (South Africa, Australia, France, USA, etc.). They hugely appreciated being kept in touch with about what was going on in the U.K.

With the lack of traffic on the roads and in the skies, we started to see a different planet emerging. This was a great opportunity to talk to existing clients about environmental, social and governance portfolios (ESG). Interest was growing, and they were becoming highly popular as the change in the world’s pollution levels was all over the various news media.

A crisis was again giving us an opportunity.

So, for the clients who have or expressed interest in or already invested in ethical or ESG portfolios, we organized a webinar with one of the most influential speakers in this area, Dan Kemp, the chief investment officer of Morningstar`s Europe, Middle East, and Africa regions.

Was it stressful? Absolutely! This was the first time I had hosted a webinar of more than 10 people. But was it a success? Absolutely! Did it take me out of my comfort zone? Without a doubt!

This crisis had presented me with an opportunity to invite over 20 of our clients who shared an ethical approach to investing on a screen together — something that would never have happened before. These clients enjoyed hearing from an external speaker who is at the top of his game all from the comfort of their homes. We also realized that there was no carbon footprint for the meeting. A win-win!

I have managed to turn this crisis into an amazing opportunity, and I hope I have inspired you all to do the same.

Andrew William Maher has been a financial advisor for more than 30 years. As a former teacher, he tries to educate the families he represents so they can make better decisions financially now and for the legacy they wish to leave. A passionate sports fan who learned to ski in his 50s and rekindled his love of playing football after a 35-year gap, Maher has proved you can get out of your comfort zone at any age.