Other popular articles dealt with capital markets and, on a lighter note, one even featured an advisor urging his clients to prepare for social chaos by loading up on guns, cash and food.
Regarding communications, the articles “How to Make a Winning Elevator Pitch” and “How to Win Clients with a Successful Career Story” specifically focused on tips for generating new business.
Quickly piercing prospects’ misconceptions can be a powerful strategy for elevator sales pitches and much opportunity exists for doing so. For example, many Americans are basing their retirement savings projections on unreasonably high expectations for investment performance, so advisors can craft a sales pitch that discusses helping individuals prepare for their golden years by using more realistic expectations for portfolio returns.
The sales pitches can also touch upon the likely potential for retirement savings programs to fail to generate sufficient assets if unreasonably high investment return expectations are used. Advisors should also explain that with lower expected investment returns, clients will need to defer a larger portion of their paychecks into retirement savings programs to reach their savings goals.
When meeting with prospects, it’s also important for advisors to provide a concise overview of their careers. The presentations should include personal events that have motivated advisors to become financial planners. For example, some advisors may have observed family members struggle with finances and as a result have decided to dedicate their careers to helping individuals by offering financial planning services. Among other points, career stories should also emphasize why advisors are motivated to engage in ethical behavior and the presentations should highlight the appeal of services being offered.
Maintaining existing relationships was another popular communications topic for readers in 2014. Virtually every advisor eventually comes across unreasonable clients, so it’s not surprising that top read articles included “Handling Difficult Clients: Easy Steps to Improve Those Relationships.”
With such clients, returning telephone calls promptly, acknowledging mistakes, expressing empathy over individuals’ frustrations and explaining what actions are being taken to prevent similar problems in the future can go a long way in smoothing out disagreements. In cases when clients are being highly unreasonable, severing relationships may be needed.
Advisors also have the difficult job of providing clients with portfolio performance reviews when market volatility rears its ugly head. With emerging markets equities being volatile this year, the article “How to Discuss Emerging Markets Volatility with Clients” generated strong interest among readers. When volatility soars, it’s important for advisors to convince their clients to avoid making hasty kneejerk reactions. Clients should instead focus on maintaining their target asset allocations and keeping a long-term view of their portfolio performance.
A handful of top-read stories addressed capital markets. With expectations for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates next year, the article “Equities Typically Climb with Fed Rate Hikes” generated strong interest among readers. Other capital markets that generated strong reader interest included “Are ‘Smart Beta’ Funds a Wise Choice” and “How to Use Muni Bond ETFs.”
Perhaps the quirkiest article of the year was “Advisor Urges Clients to Stock up on Food, Guns.” It reported that financial advisor David John Marotta was urging his clients to gather food, funds, guns and ammunition because the chances of a social and fiscal disaster are increasing. He maintained that the implementation of Obamacare and the NSA spying scandal had increased the possibly of the country falling into social disorder.