Next-level client care: How connecting holistically with clients builds trust

By Antoinette Tuscano

Significant life experiences — such as the death of a loved one, marriage, divorce and the birth of a child — impact your clients’ lives and finances. Financial advisors often have a front-row seat to many seasons in their clients’ lives.

While cards and flowers are kind and thoughtful gestures for these life changes, some advisors go the extra mile and offer connections to additional services as a next level of client service and care. It can help clients feel understood and cared for by their financial advisors, which leads to trust and referrals.

Here are a few of the ways you can build strong bonds with clients while helping them through some of life’s biggest transitions.

During a divorce

Elke Rubach, LL.M., CLU, an eight-year MDRT member, provides resources for divorcing clients, which includes helping them list their priorities for what they want from the divorce. She guides them to prioritize harmony with their children. “Material items can be replaced, but children are more important. You’re always teaching kids. Even in a divorce, you are teaching kids that they don’t have to stay in relationships that are no longer positive,” Rubach said.

For clients considering a divorce, she’ll help them look at different scenarios for cash flows, thinking through long-term financial decisions and budgets. If needed, she’ll also provide them with referrals to lawyers and family therapists. When clients are divorcing, though, you must be aware of conflicts of interest, which can mean referring one of the spouses to another advisor, Rubach said.

Before getting married or having a baby

For clients considering marriage, Rubach advises putting in place prenuptial or cohabitation agreements.

“It’s all about being of service to clients and making things easier at times when life feels more complicated,” she said.

Rubach also provides clients with additional assistance when they’re expecting their first child. She counsels new parents-to-be about the ins and outs within her local area in Canada for finding a pediatrician before the baby is born or leaves the hospital as well as signing up for day care before the baby is born. She also talks to them about getting or refreshing wills, purchasing life insurance while they’re still insurable, life insurance for children and education savings plans for children.

“Clients appreciate the information, and I get introductions from this,” Rubach said.

Success fundamentals

MDRT members have shared and refined the key fundamentals that drive their long-term success as financial advisors. There’s no secret formula — just six essential principles they consistently follow. Discover what these fundamentals are and how you can apply them to grow your business, strengthen client relationships and elevate your career.

1. Set a plan. Plan for today, this week, this month, this year, five years, 10 years. Include your spouse in the plan so they understand that all the hard work is short-term pain for long-term gain.

2. Put timetables on the plan. In this way, plans become goals. Don’t just plan to lead the company in production or become Top of the Table. Plan to lead the company in production this year or achieve Top of the Table in three years. Always set goals that are a little beyond your grasp. Then attain them by breaking the goals down into smaller monthly goals, then smaller weekly and daily goals.

3. Lead disciplined lives. The most successful people in any field have the ability to endure the unwelcome to achieve the desirable. In most cases, financial advisors become successful because they are willing to do things that unsuccessful advisors are not willing to do.

4. Maintain enthusiasm. Understand that your highest to lowest enthusiasm levels are directly proportional to the length of time since your last sale. Keep your activity level high to shorten the gap between sales.

5. Stay positive. Never allow yourself to get down. When you ask a top advisor, “How are you doing?” you always receive a positive response. Top financial advisors have setbacks like everyone else, but they have the innate ability to turn negatives into positives. They learn from their mistakes and come back even stronger because of them.

6. Work hard. The successful advisor believes, as the late U.S. professional football coach Vince Lombardi said, “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” In any walk of life, the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.

Members and experts from around the world share how they step up their productivity, find inspiration, and balance life and work in the MDRT Blog. Get their insights sent to your email two to three times a week by scanning the QR code to subscribe or visit mdrtblog.org/subscribe.