The ClientWise Blog

You’re the CEO of a successful RIA. You’ve grown the business from a fledgling operation to a thriving firm with a talented team of skilled planning and investment professionals serving hundreds of clients and managing hundreds of millions (or in some instances billions) in assets. So, why in the world would you possibly need to engage a professional coach?

Have you ever wondered why most Fortune 500 CEOs have an executive leadership coach? The answer is perhaps best summarized by Jack Welch’s oft-cited quote: “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”

With the onset of COVID-19, we’ve entered truly uncharted waters. Given the ongoing disruption to your business, how are you altering the ways in which you actively develop people? How are you building and managing interdependent accountability structures such as OKRs?

As the owner of an advisory firm, your most important job is to cultivate relationships with clients. But right after that, is your responsibility to develop the people on your team. Unfortunately, however, there’s no formal education that really teaches you how to do the latter.

Most successful financial professionals possess the technical skills and qualifications necessary to help their clients and colleagues maneuver in a fast-changing market and professional environment. However, in a business that is built upon relationships -- knowledge of communication skills is just as important, if not more so, than technical skills. Acquiring coaching skills enables advisors to listen at a higher level to their clients, prospects and colleagues, to ask incisive and challenging questions that will bring important issues to the surface, and empower others to become complete partners in creating their own success. 

We’ve all heard that genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Clearly, Thomas Edison knew that achieving genius goes well beyond just having an idea. Having the idea can feel like a breakthrough to the solution on it’s own, but it’s the actual execution that really makes the difference.

I recently heard an inspiring story about a former international tax lawyer. David (name changed for privacy) is currently working to build his own independent practice, after spending decades working with a large international accounting firm. I had the pleasure of learning about how he’s found success, which has everything to do with the power of listening. 

As coaches we always work in partnership with our clients. We are never, so to speak, one step ahead or guiding our client, because we are never thinking for them, only in partnership with them. There are of course times we are afforded (by our neutral perspective) the advantage of foreseeing things that our financial advisor clients might not. One such example of this is: Visualizing the future client and the impact that will have for the future of the business.

One of the most challenging aspects of coaching for those who are new to the profession or—as is frequently the case in financial services—those who are accustomed to consulting rather than true coaching, is adjusting the concept of partnership. The participants of our Certified Financial Services Coach Training Program hear about this concept over and over again throughout the course, because it is central to everything that happens in financial services coaching. It is also a huge part of what differentiates coaching from advising, consulting and mentoring, and, further, what differentiates a successful financial advisor from a salesperson.

Accomplishing Your Biggest Goals, which includes some really important points about the benefits of things like past failures, setting goals that seem unachievable, and being aggressive in your goals even when you are incredibly busy and feel overwhelmed doing simply the status quo. Unfortunately the replay has run out, but I managed to grab a listen in the final hours thanks to a relationship manager on the ClientWise team. A big shout out to John Moyer for giving me a heads up!

While his points are directed toward individuals for the most part, they are just as important to keep in mind for teams. Here are some of the key observations made by Hyatt that are really in line with our thinking when it comes to goal-setting as a team here at ClientWise: 

Have you ever experienced a “coaching moment” where an emotionally charged issue came up for the person you were coaching?

In a recent Certified Financial Services Coach Training Program course, Lyn Allen, one of our Master Certified Coaches at ClientWise, provided an example of one such coaching moment. In this example, the financial advisor being coached compared her interactions with her assistant to dealing with a “porcupine”. The assistant was incredibly difficult to be around and made the coachee feel as though she couldn’t approach her for help with even the smallest task. It was clear that the coachee had some negatively charged emotions surrounding her assistant that would continue to come up for her at work and during her coaching sessions. 

The Certified Financial Services Coach Training Program™, offered by ClientWise, LLC has recently been designated by the International Coach Federation (ICF) as Approved Coach Specific Training Hours (ACSTH). This 60-hour course is the only approved course designed specifically to assist financial professionals in obtaining the vital skills needed to become an accredited coach.

They say that the best leaders know how to delegate. At ClientWise we’d argue that the best leaders know how to collaborate. However, part of the challenge of transitioning to a leader is learning to let go of certain responsibilities to share them with team members. The same is true of partnering and collaborating with outside entities who can help you develop that team and gain an outside perspective for greater understanding of exactly how your team collaborates.

One of our latest blogs, 6 Essential Coaching Skills that ALL Financial Professionals Must Have I outlined the ways in which coaching is explicitly different from consulting, advising or mentoring. The skills that differentiate coaching from these other forms of professional development are also the elements that make it beneficial for financial advisors; not only within their own coaching as it works to improve their businesses, but also when working IN their business while interacting with clients.

As the premiere coaching company serving financial professionals, ClientWise has several key objectives to accomplish simultaneously. The first and, in many respects, foremost of these, is to disseminate knowledge about what coaching is and what coaching is not. This distinction helps financial advisors gain a clearer understanding of how coaching, different from consulting, advising or mentoring, can help them in the process of improving their practice and their relationships.

In business you can’t rest on your laurels; there are no guarantees.

Ethical standards and staying on one’s toes are a basic requirement to sustaining a competitive advantage for large and small companies alike.

Facilitating a strategic thinking and planning process every few years is an ideal way to make sure that you continue to pursue value- driven, forward-thinking strategies.

We’re thrilled to announce that we have recently partnered with ThinkAdvisor, a company equally committed to helping financial professionals access industry knowledge and grow their businesses. Together, ClientWise LLC and ThinkAdvisor will pool their resources to create one of the most compelling workshops for elite financial advisors committed to building billion dollar businesses. 

At ClientWise, we pride ourselves on the fact that every opportunity in which we engage is a learning opportunity. In fact, we provide the same opportunity for professionals who work with us to embark on their path as “journey learners.” Everything we experience, good or not so good, is never anything less than an opportunity to learn what we can do better. Journey Learners are constantly stopping to assess their successes and failures, and learn from those experiences to better their approach.