The 7 questions to ask yourself to know your value
Ask yourself the following 7 questions:
1. Who am I?
2. What do I do?
3. Why do I do what I do?
4. How do I do what I do?
5. Whom have I performed services for?
6. What makes me different from other advisers?
7. Why should clients do business with me?
Have a trusted friend ask you the questions in a coaching style, audio record the answers you give and transcribe these into a value proposition or elevator pitch or sound bite. It doesn't matter what you call it, just get it clear, succinct and valuable.
Then carry out some belief change work if you still don't believe in your value. Email me and I'll suggest some belief change exercises for you and some assertion work. Whatever we do, you simply have to be your own number one fan.
Now with your Inner Game settled in your head, let's take a look at how experienced and successful advisers handle the fee issue with clients. First, we need to head back to the most fundamental requirement of any adviser/client relationship - trust.
Trust - fundamentally has to be there
We know that don't we but were you aware that trust is built from three elements and your clients will instinctively look for these before they learn to trust you.
They are your competence in knowing what you're doing, your intentions and ethics and finally your empathy and ability to connect with them as a human being.
Rather obvious but worth highlighting. Here's a few new takes on the three elements to consider.
Competence
Your competence comes over time, and is probably something you've gained over years of study and experience. Don't assume the client knows you're competent. Don't brag but focus on showing them that you are a safe pair of hands.
Explaining things simply and clearly has been recognised to be the best method of proving your competence.
It's easy to make something simple become complicated but it's very skilful to make something complicated appear simple. That's the mark of competence.
The other point about competence is the impact of the team around you. Approximately 20% of your client's contact will be with you; 80% will be with your support team. So do they demonstrate competence? Exams are one thing, being able to relate and explain things is another.
Empathy
Empathy and relationship building is for another day, intentions and ethics link straight to the fees handling issue, so we need to secure this.
Ethics and intentions
Ethics are how you do things naturally, honesty, trustworthiness. All essentials.
Your reputation, your brand comes in here - your underlying intentions are key. The problem is that not handling the fee issue can cause terminal damage to how your client sees your intentions; they'll begin to see a chink in your integrity if we gloss over fees, procrastinate and put off the conversation.
Being up-front and clear, very transparent about your fee structure builds trust. Not being clear can damage irrevocably the relationship you need.
Openness and transparency are key.
So how do we make sure we do this?
By Paul Archer
Image by Adam Borkowski
Paul is an international speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. His expertise and experience is in selling and sales coaching, his books and articles focus on rapport selling which puts the customer at the heart of the sale. Visit his website http://www.archertraining.co.uk/Sales_tips.htm to sign up for his Weekly Sales and Coaching Tips or visit his blog at http://www.paularcher.com where you'll find his unique style of weekly blog posts for you to enjoy. paul@paularcher.com
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Explaining things simply and clearly has been recognized to be the best method of proving our competence. 70-703 exam dump
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