How do your clients judge you?

Clients judge you not so much on investment performance, which is often out of your control, but on other things, which are typically within your control. Executing well on the details they both care about and understand are paramount to establishing and maintaining trust.

Many years ago, when we were a small shop, we began producing our own quarterly newsletter. The newsletter was initially written by a couple of advisors and contained both information on the financial markets as well highlighting something interesting about our firm or staff. The newsletter certainly wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t too bad, either.

Comments from a particular client regarding our newsletter not only caused us to change how we did the communication piece, but it caused me to revisit every touchpoint a client has with us.

The client told me she did not really understand the financial markets and was always a bit intimidated by money. She was a good saver and had accumulated a nice chunk of assets, but she really didn’t like to think about money or deal with it. Her passion was reading English poetry and she was fascinated by languages.

This woman told me that, from a language perspective, she rated our newsletter a C-. We had grammatical errors from time to time and, while the writing communicated facts, there was nothing that enticed someone to continue reading and engage with the piece.

What she stated next really got my attention: “I don’t know how to judge you as a financial advisor, but I certainly know how to judge you as writers. When you put out something that is a C- in quality, I assume that your financial advice is C- as well.”

I was grateful for her comment and the conversation that ensued because it caused me to think about all of the ways our clients judge us. The reality is, most clients don’t really know if their financial advisor is awesome or not. Their accounts tend to move in the same direction as the financial markets, so their returns aren’t markedly different than that of their neighbors. The advice offered on Roth conversions, asset placement and the like might be brilliant, but how are they to know whether it’s the best advice? Perhaps a different financial advisor could provide superior advice.

The reality is, people judge us by what they know and understand, which is often quite different from what we provide in the way of financial advice and money management. They pick up clues by how we answer the phone, what we wear, the tidiness of our office, the speed in which we respond to their requests, the ease in which they do business with us.

If your office is cluttered and messy, they may assume that your portfolio construction is also messy. If you are slow to return their call, they may assume that, if you’re too busy to return a call, perhaps you’re too busy to monitor their portfolio. If you dress like a slob, they’ll likely assume that you are apathetic about your business.

I’d encourage you to take a step back and think about all of the ways in which your clients interact with you and your business and map out a path to be excellent in those areas where clients may judge you. If their entire experience is A+, they’ll assume that you are an A+ advisor and trust you implicitly.