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Wealth Management Advice

Two Surefire Ways to Irritate Your Customers

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This is my shortest post ever. I have sat in numerous financial services conference sessions over the past several days as I try to contemplate all of the ways that the megatrends of  social, mobile, analytics and cloud might impact the future of the client-advisor relationship. One of the biggest things for me is to figure out is how strongly Generation Y‘s current preference for self-service will prevail as they face new life stages and increasing financial complexity in the future.

There are lots of conflicting research, opinions and predictions, and I struggle to assimilate all of the data, but I think I can safely say that either of these two methods will irritate the wealth management clients of the future as much as they do today:

  1. Force your clients into self-service options when they want someone to help them.
  2. Force your clients into getting someone to help them when they want to do it themselves.

You’re welcome. My consulting bill is in the mail.

Five Lessons from the Oracle of Cincinnatus

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Update: Terry Crilley passed away November 9, 2014. He will be missed by his friends, his family and the thousands of co-workers and clients he impacted during his career. I wrote this on the occasion of his retirement in April 2012.

Last week I traveled from Seattle to Cincinnati to celebrate the retirement of my colleague, friend and mentor Terry Crilley after 31 years of service. I once dubbed Terry the “Oracle of Cincinnatus” because I declared him to be the font from which all wealth management knowledge flowed.

 

It’s not that much of an exaggeration, and no one who knows him has disagreed yet. Terry was the primary driving force that began the transformation of an indistinguishable regional bank trust department with stocks, bonds and a few of its own mutual funds into a full open architecture platform of best-in-class investment managers.

No less than two American Banker “Banker of the Year” award winning CEOs (Richard Davis, 2010 and Jerry Grundhofer, 1999) took to the microphone to celebrate Terry’s contributions to the company, his clients, his employees, his community and his family.

I won’t even try to capture his 31 years of positive impact, but I will attempt to offer a few of the best lessons he has passed down over the years.

Ask great questions

Terry never tried to display his considerable intelligence by asking long and complex questions, but often his deceptively simple ones were far more unsettling. “Let me make sure I understand… we’re trying to encourage our clients to use this service right?” He would say. “Then why are we making it so hard for them?” When working with Terry on a project, I often thought of Hubert Humphrey’s famous quote “Never answer a question from a farmer.”

Grow leaders, not followers

Terry was never a farmer, as far as I know, but he sure knew how to grow leaders. He was explicit about that. One of his direct reports told me a story about how he asked Terry for his input on deciding between two difficult business choices, one of which contravened Terry’s direct request. Terry listened quietly as the employee explained the seemingly no-win set of conflicting choices, then replied simply: “I expect to grow leaders, and this is your decision to make. Just let me know what you decide.” Not what the employee wanted to hear at the time, but ultimately a response that did help him become a better leader.

“This stuff doesn’t just happen”

Even though Terry preferred not to micro-manage, he knew that sometimes he had to be more prescriptive in his leadership style. He was often quoted as saying “This stuff doesn’t just happen”, which was his way of saying “We have done a lot of work on this. This is the right thing to do, and I expect you to ensure it gets carried out.” He delegated well, freely and often; but he knew that merely delegating would be an abdication of his responsibilities as a leader.

“Learn to dribble with your left hand”

Terry is a lifelong learner, and he expected the same from those around him. While he was adept at helping people figure out their unique strengths and how to play to them, he also expected people to learn new skills and to practice them. He was a patient but insistent teacher, and he often encouraged others to “learn how to dribble with their left hand” so they could be more effective in more situations.

Disagree without being disagreeable

Terry and I agreed on many things, but when we disagreed he always listened and debated respectfully. He never made it personal, and he never took things personally. He was interested in getting to the right answer, and sometimes we ended up agreeing to disagree. But we always ended the conversation as friends, usually talking about our families.

Thank you, oh wise Oracle, for your dedicated service and your many lessons. I look forward to seeing how your future chapters unfold.

Are you a coach… or just a caddie?

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Last week I had the chance to collaborate with some great minds in management and leadership at a leadership conference for the firm that pays me for my day job.

I have been a “Strengths Geek” for several years, as I often note, so I was excited to work with Paul Berg and Diane Obrist from Gallup as they led 130+ wealth management leaders through their StrengthsFinder results.

I have also long been a fan of the work of Tim Freeman from Efficient Marketing, so I was happy to finally meet with him in person. I also discovered a great new source of thought leadership in Kristie Van Leeuwen from The The Next Stage Group, LLC.

The closing keynote speech was from General Stephen Lorenz, USAF (retired), CEO of the United States Air Force Academy Endowment.

A senior leader is responsible for self, people and results.

— General Stephen Lorenz

It was a great blend of leadership and management. A mix of doing the right things, and doing things right, as Peter Drucker would put it.

But my takeaway headline was actually from my colleague Jerry, who said something to the effect of:

You know, I’ve always thought of myself as a coach, but if I’m honest with myself, I’ve really just been a caddie. I know the course, and I know which clubs to use, but I’ve really been letting the players play their own games when I should be helping them get better.

Jerry is brilliant, successful, frenetic and sometimes prone to pontificating as he thinks aloud, but he is consistently sincere in trying to make himself and his team better.

He captured in a well-turned phrase the thread running through it all, and something I have seen a lot– the mistaken notion that a good manager simply  ‘hires good people and stays out of the way’.

In my experience, managers who cite that as their overarching principle often aren’t that good at hiring, and ‘staying out of the way’ is usually an excuse for not holding people accountable.

…there’s an enormous difference between leading an organization and presiding over it. The leader who boasts of her hands-off style or puts her faith in empowerment is not dealing with the issues of the day. She is not confronting the people responsible for poor performance, or searching for problems to solve and then making sure they get solved. She is presiding, and she’s only doing half her job.

— Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, Execution, The Discipline of Getting Things Done

This is not to advocate micromanagement, no one likes to be micromanaged. But great coaches hold their players accountable. More importantly, they cultivate teams of people who want to win and a culture of continuous improvement.

Great players seek coaching because they want to get better.

Are you a coach… or just a caddie?

How to Rebuild Trust in Financial Institutions

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I always enjoy reading Ron Shevlin‘s work. He is a senior analyst with Aite Group, where they say he is

“…a recognized thought leader for his pioneering research on right-channeling consumer interactions, the impact of customer advocacy on future purchase intention, and developing sense-and-respond marketing capabilities to improve sales and marketing efforts.”

I’ll buy that.

I also read his provocative and funny insights on his blog Snarketing 2.0 , so I was pleased that he linked to my March 27 post Why Should Your Clients Trust You? in his April 3 post on The Financial Brand, titled 9 Critical Ways Financial Institutions Should Rebuild Trust With Consumers.

In his post, Shevlin says that he has concluded “…that “trust” is too complex a construct to boil down to a simple formula. Trust is multi-dimensional, comprised and influenced by many attributes.”  I agree– I cited David Maister’s formula for trust in my post not because it’s the complete mathematical computation, but because it’s great shorthand for thinking about the way your (and your firm’s) behaviors impact how your clients perceive and trust you.

Shevlin cites Aite Group’s research that found nine critical areas that financial firms must address. It’s only fair that you read his entire post in context to get the whole list, so I will only quote the top three here:

  1. Have friendly and helpful service reps
  2. Listen to problems and concerns
  3. Empower employees to fix issues

None of the items on the list are any more complicated than that. So why is it so difficult for financial institutions to drive trust and brand loyalty?

The simplest concepts are sometimes the most challenging to implement. And the larger your firm, the harder it is to do it consistently.

I still go back to the whole “divided by self-interest” part of Maister’s formula.

If you can only implement one great idea– make it creating and nurturing a culture that really understands client needs and delivers what they want and need, in their best interest.

It’s usually easy to figure out “what’s in it for the firm” in any given interaction. Focus on “what’s in it for the client”.

Why should your clients trust you again?

When Your Accountability Exceeds Your Authority, Increase Your Influence

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When I graduated from college and entered the workforce, I received some good advice from an older executive: “Make sure you don’t end up in a job where you have accountability without authority“, he told me. I nodded sagely as I drunk it in.

I even repeated the advice from time to time to other friends as they interviewed for jobs.

It took me quite a while to understand that as well intentioned as it was, it wasn’t always possible to follow.

It’s actually great advice to keep in mind in your discussions when you’re receiving a new job or a new assignment. You should ask questions to understand how your success will be measured and what the limits are for your authority. Can you replace team members if they don’t perform? Will you have a budget to acquire needed resources? What decisions can you make independently, and which ones do you need to defer to someone more senior?

But ultimately, every job has accountabilities that exceed its authority.

There will always be resources you don’t own, people who report to someone else and circumstances beyond your control potentially standing in the way of your success. Even your CEO can’t control the analysts who opine on your stock, your regulators, your customers, your competitors, or the economy; no matter how important any of those might be to your company’s success.

So what can you do?

Influence.

The best you can do is influence those around you.

Steven Covey talked about the circle of concern and the circle of influence in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People . Your circle of concern can be vast– the economy, existing competitors, the threat of new entrants, your family members’ health, peace in the Middle East. And your circle of control is always smaller than you want it to be. Spend your energy trying to expand your circle of influence, rather than trying to expand your circle of control.

Your formal “authority” is limited to your circle of control. Your “accountability” is your circle of concern. If you’re a financial advisor with the accountability to grow revenue on your book of business by 10% this year, it would be easy to be overwhelmed by the the huge gulf between the relatively few things you can control and the huge amount of things that concern you.

Focus on increasing your influence…

…on your cients.

…on your co-workers.

…on your boss.

…on the world around you.

“The greatest ability in business is to get along with others

and to influence their actions.”

–John Hancock

Best of Bank Innovation 2012- Part 2

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Yesterday I brought to you some of the best thoughts from Day One of the Bank Innovation conference held last week in San Francisco.  It was a great event filled with some of the sharpest minds in financial innovation. Today, I bring you  some of the best ideas from Day Two, plus a few of my closing thoughts.JJatBI2012

Channel Agnosticism: Being Everything to Every Customer

“Multi-channel strategy is solving issues that exist in a single channel world…Think full service vs. self service, not traditional vs. alternative (channels)”

—Ginger Schmeltzer, SVP, Digital Channel Management, SunTrust Banks

“Be the right things to the right people in the right channel…Focus on optimization, not migration…” Think in terms of an analogy to eating:

  • Snacking- wherever, whenever = check your balances, transfers
  • Lunch- diverse, habitual and regular = online banking, bill pay
  • Fine dining- staff assisted =  important and meaningful decisions”

—Geoff Knapp, Vice President, Online Banking & Consumer Insight, Fiserv

“Mobilize and optimize– don’t miniaturize…Continuously evolve the experience as devices change…so many mobile capabilities to leverage– maps, GPS, messaging, speech input, camera, video, etc., etc.”

—Brian Pearce, SVP, Head of Retail Mobile Channel, Internet Services Group at Wells Fargo & Co

My Closing Thoughts

  • There continues to be a tremendous amount of innovation in the payments and transaction space, both from within the banking industry and from disruptive forces outside the industry.
  • Several speakers talked about moving beyond the efficient utility of flawless execution to creating more engaging experiences.
  • There was also increasing talk of creating more consistency in functionality and experiences across multiple channels (web, mobile, apps, mobile web and “real life”)– what Steve Jobs would have called an “ecosystem”.
  • Accordingly, financial institutions are beginning to integrate Big Data into the ecosystem (and vice versa), but most have a long way to go.
  • Most financial institutions are still in the early stages of integrating digital marketing and social media into their overall strategies, and many are still struggling with more basic concerns of sales and revenue growth, talent management and trying to figure out how to take market share from one another.
  • As far as I know, I was the only person in the room with a background in wealth management. I continue to be energized by how much white space there is to explore at the intersection of leadership, advice and technology.
Related articles

Best Ideas From Bank Innovation 2012- Part 1

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Last week I attended the Bank Innovation 2012 Conference in San Francisco. I met a lot of great people and picked up some new ideas. Here’s what stuck out for me (in a good way):

What Is “Banking” Today?  A Debate on the Future

“We need to marry the online experience to the real world experience– especially for high value transactions, while lower value transactions need to get more efficient.”

—Noah Breslow, Chief Operating Officer, On Deck Capital

“In essence, banking is a utility. Removing pain is a win. You need to give clients a reason to care…The key is to use data to predict what customers want, not dictate it.”

—Shawn Budde, Co-Founder & Chief Risk Officer, ZestCash

“We’ve reached the tipping point on electronic banking, but people need a better reason to go with a direct bank.”

—Dan O’Malley, Founder & CEO, PerkStreet Financial

“We should be trying to build brands that people want to be associated with. They should want to wear our logo because it says something about who they are.”

—Jeff Stephens, Founder, Tribed and CBC

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New Product Strategies & Possibilities


“We don’t have an ‘innovation department’. All 2500 associates are responsible for innovation.”

—Todd Sandler, Head of Product Strategy & Deposits, ING Direct

“Consumers want a lot of help, and they still look to banks for it. They are moving past transactions and history, and they want help and advice for the future.”

—James Shanahan, President, Shanahan & Associates, LLC

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Social Banking Without Being Insecure or Annoying

“Companies don’t blog, people do…we replaced logos with faces for our twitter responders and we expanded our 6AM-6PM coverage to 24×7…We pay more attention to sentiment rather than number of followers.”

—Darius Miranda, VP, Social Business Strategist, Wells Fargo

“We actually sat down and wrote 20,000 personalized emails…We got a 40% response rate”

—Josh Reich, CEO, Simple Finance Technology Co. / BankSimple

“You have to think anywhere/anytime and you have to be authentic…You have to connect your brand to employees first. You have to work inside out.”

—Eric Rinebold, Industry Principal — Digital Engagement, Infosys

Coming Up Tomorrow: 

Best Ideas From Bank Innovation 2012- Part 2