July 9, 2021
Why it’s time to get creative with wealth management
Working in wealth management means juggling different clients with different needs – plus, there is constant pressure to both retain clients and attract new ones. Doing this day in day out can be stressful, and all too often wealth managers find their processes getting stale, their actions becoming rote, and clients looking more and more disengaged. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way.
Whether you’re struggling to find new clients or to keep the ones you’ve got, an injection of creativity is sure to put some “oomph” back into your daily work. Innovating is always a key asset to any successful work. With the implementation of the following tips and techniques, you can make your wealth management more creative and attractive to your clients. Keep reading to find out more!
Give up old systems and bad habits
No true inspiration ever came from a spreadsheet. In finance especially, spreadsheets can feel part and parcel of daily life, but they hardly present information in a rich or exciting way. From neverending email threads to the glazed-over expression clients get when you try to explain your latest vision, the tools and techniques we use in daily work have a huge impact on our overall success. Breaking bad habits is hard and we tend to fall into the trap of working in the way that is most comfortable, rather than the way that is most appropriate or exciting. So, the first step to truly getting creative with wealth management requires a total audit and overhaul of the ways you’re working in day-to-day life.
Consider everything from how you plan your week and handle each client account to the way you pitch to prospective clients and research for new leads. At every stage ask: is this the best and most creative way I could approach this task? If the answer is no, then it’s time to have a think about how you can inject more life and color into your work to get the great results you really crave. A few simple changes – like switching tools or making more time for brainstorming – can have a huge overall effect.
Find new ways of presenting information
As a wealth manager, you are regularly tasked with making complex information digestible for your client. The whole point of your role is to juggle ideas and manage the multi-faceted elements of each client’s wealth in order to maximize returns and ensure security. Of course, explaining your plans to clients can be something of a challenge as you cannot assume they have the same level of finance knowledge and expertise as you do (after all, that’s why they’ve come to you in the first place).
As I’ve already touched upon, spreadsheets aren’t exactly the ideal way of presenting complexity – especially in finance. Finding new, creative ways to show the same information may just have a huge impact on your overall client engagement. Take a tool like a mind map; not only does its structure mirror natural human thinking patterns, its visual layout also makes it the perfect way of demonstrating related pieces of information that are distinct yet also interconnected. This is the perfect way of displaying the complex web of information that so often lies at the heart of wealth management, and it allows you to do it in a way your client can relate to and understand. Plus, using an online tool like Ayoa means you can keep the overall presentation not only safe and collaborative but also professional-looking with standardized templates which blow bland spreadsheets out of the water.
Involve clients in the process
You don’t get true engagement without collaboration; your clients might be paying you because of your expertise, but generally, they don’t want to feel totally out of the loop (even if they don’t want to see all of the nitty-gritty of your daily work). Having a good working relationship with your clients is crucial to success in any career path, and in wealth management – in particular – clients want to work with someone who they can trust. After all, they’re literally putting their money in your hands.
The basics of good client management are universal: clear and honest communication, dedicated work, plus regular analysis of success and progress. Believe me when I say that your client doesn’t want or need long-winded emails with a million attachments. Plus, high-flying clients don’t want their already crowded calendar backlogged with meetings. To involve your clients in a way that keeps them up to date without leaving them overwhelmed, you should opt to make use of the digital sphere with a one-stop place clients can tap into for instant updates.
Whiteboards in Ayoa offer a great way of facilitating exactly this – with everything from sticky notes and visual displays of top-level info in addition to file attachments and mind maps for more complex work breakdown, your clients can jump into a shared whiteboard whenever they want a top-level update of your hard work. It provides flexibility for clients who can check in with surface-level information but also deep dive into attached documents and mind map plans when they want more detail. With the addition of collaborative features such as text, comments and lists, you can keep communication productive and on-topic in one simple place.
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