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Want to be prepared when a prospective client has a question for you?
41% of high-net-worth investors think that they don't have the right questions to ask a potential financial advisor. Because of this, the CFA Institute has put together an entire page of a website dedicated to providing investors, especially HNW investors questions that they might want to ask a prospective financial advisor. If you focus on serving ultra-high net worth investors then these are questions you want to be prepared to be asked. So I wanted to point out some of those to you today, share this resource which I think is incredibly valuable and also show you how you can turn some of these questions into a section of your website to be proactive in providing the information that investors are going to be looking for.
So the website is called therightquestion.org, you can see right here in my browser. What I love is that they divided it into a couple of different sections. So we have the background information, fees and expenses, the profile section, client experience, and then the investing approach. So with every question, you can peruse the questions in general or you can click on any one particular question and get a sense of what this question is supposed to be getting at or why the CFA is including it.
Investors Want To Know Your Fees
So a couple of things I want to point out. With the fees and expenses, so many financial advisors still do not include a fees section on their website. As consumers, we absolutely expect to know and be made visible to us in a very clear way what something will cost before we engage in the service. So if you do not already make sure you have a fee and expense section on your website that's very clear and lays out what somebody would expect to pay if they're paying for your services. We have many different examples of the way you can layout fee pages and we'll link to them below this video so that easily peruse them and see what a good layout would be for your own business. But just make sure that you're including them right on your website.
Investors Want To Know How You Will Communicate With Them
One of the other sections I want to point out is of your clients that are similar to me, how often do you interact with them and in what way? What kind of updates will I receive if we engage in a relationship? What type of reports will I get? So all of these questions are really about communication. Many people believe that most investors don't fire an advisor because of poor performance but because of poor communication. And these questions really speak to the heart of that. You want to have a communication plan in place, and not only have it in place but also clearly articulate what that plan is to new clients when they are seeking you out. These questions should not only be something you can answer quickly, but they should also remind you of the importance of communication with any of your clients.
Investors Want To Know Your Value Proposition
And then lastly, one of the questions I want to point out is under investing approach, there is the question, "What do you think your specific value add is? And how would I recognize that in our relationship?" I find that many people have trouble articulating a unique value proposition. They feel like most advisors provide the same services because they don't understand the differences between them. So making sure that you articulated the unique value proposition is incredibly important. If you actually head over to the Twenty Over Ten blog at blog.twentyoverten.com and search here for "unique value proposition," there is an entire guide that we have that you can reference all about how to create a unique value proposition or selling proposition, what the four steps are, there's a video outlining those steps, and it will walk you through all the steps so that you can easily create one and there are also some great website examples for you as well.
Now with all of these questions, you're going to go through those 23 questions that the CFA has outlined and write down your answers, be prepared to discuss them. Going back to my earlier point, rather than just being reactive, what I'd like you to do is create a FAQ page on your website where you take some of these questions and you answer them directly.
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