I’ve been thinking about the value of the services that we provide our Customers, especially from their point of view. It seems to me that we often don’t do a good job of communicating what our value proposition is or we don’t do a good job of matching our value proposition with those of our Clients.
Often there seems to be a disconnect between what our Clients expect and what we end up delivering to them. I’m not sure if this is because the product we provide can’t be felt and touched or if we don’t spend enough time trusting our gut feelings about Clients.
I recently have had two Clients that decided not to work with our firm. Both times I had a gut feeling that these were not the right people for us to work with. Both times I was right. Unfortunately, both times I felt terrible because instead of us saying we don’t want to work with you, I allowed them to tell me that I was unacceptable.
I think that when we don’t take a proactive stance towards not accepting Clients, we pay a psychic price for doing so. We allow ourselves to spend a significant amount of time trying to convince the Client that we are the right people for them. Often we do this because we know we can help them reach their goals. But, for whatever reason the potential Client never hears our message or we’re just not communicating well with them.
One of the tools that we often use is Financial DNA. I find this tool helps me understand who our Client is. More importantly, I find this tool helps me to know whether I’m going to get along with this Client and have a good chance of working with them in a collaborative manner. I haven’t been using this tool on all potential Clients, but I’m thinking about doing so. I believe using Financial DNA might just help us know whether the Client we are trying to work with is the type that we can get along with well and will accept our advice.
When you get right down to it, if a Client will not accept our advice or believes that you aren’t working in their best interest, there will be little chance for success. It also doesn’t matter what your belief is about the Client believing you are working in their best interest. It only matters whether they believe you are. In this case, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. If our Clients don’t believe we are producing value, then that is the only impression that counts.
One of the things we’ll be working on over the rest of the year is finding a method of checking in with our Clients to make sure they believe we produce high value for them. If there is any inkling that they may not be thrilled with our service, we need to either find a way to change those feelings or have the Client leave our firm. Having them stick around causes both sides pain we shouldn’t have.
Josh Patrick
Filed under: For Business Advisors, Marketing | Tagged: Financial DNA, trust, trusted advisor, value, value proposition
