Why financial planners must make a good first impression

First impressions count in both social and business situations, says Ray Griffin. For generations many people have known this intuitively, but for others it can be a difficult lesson to learn.

Many aspiring and new financial planners will have spent much of their time preparing for the role with academic training, with a central focus on core knowledge and skills development.

While this is a fundamentally essential aspect to becoming a financial planner, few, if any, classes will formally prepare the new recruits for making the best first impression.

In the financial planning world, many would simply assume that the skills required to make the right first impression are a standard inclusion in a planner’s toolkit.

However, such an assumption is flawed.

Whether it be preparing a new planner, or preparing a whole business so they can make the correct first impression with a potential new client, it is no easy task.

Getting the business ready to make the right first impression is about both people – how they look and sound – and the physical presentation of the business and associated presence such as websites, brochures and Financial Services Guides.

However, before all that it really is vital to understand what the potential new client is expecting to see and hear when she first makes contact with the business and its services.

The challenge is to meet that expectation in every way possible.

By meeting the first impression expectations of the potential new client, the individual and the business will have eliminated one of the barriers that could have otherwise acted to prevent the person from engaging the firm.

In thinking about these issues I keep casting my mind back to seven or eight years ago when it became fashionable for professional men to do away with wearing a tie – and we’ve seen evidence of the trend having made its way into financial services.

While it might be of little importance in the head office of a large institution where the tie-less professional has no contact with the clients who in effect pay their wages, front line financial planning is an entirely different setting.

In my mind it is a trend that has always let the wearer – or I should say non-wearer – down. The absence of a tie always appears half dressed and ill-prepared.

It almost looks like the non-wearer has just jumped off the train and run into the office because he was late for work.

I have wondered what impression that would make on a potential new client – a retiree, say, who has many hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest and is intently running her first impressions ‘radar’ on the younger person she has moments ago met.

What would she make of the non-wearer?

Would it impede her capacity to recognise the otherwise high-level professional skills the planner held?

I suspect it could, because while that early interaction is taking place, her mind could keep retracing to the sight of a tie-less professional and inhibit or limit her capacity to absorb other information.

However the answer to that question would be entirely dependent upon what, in her mind’s eye, she had envisaged the person who might be entrusted with her life savings to look like.

Whether we like it or not, human beings have preconceived notions of what someone should like in terms of occupational dress.

Mention the word bricklayer and we instantly conjure an impression of what that person wears on the job.

Similarly, people have expectations of what professionals (and their businesses) should look like.

The very essence of the potential new client’s first contact is to search for confirmation that the financial planner she has just met is trustworthy.

This is true of all relationship first impressions – not just business relations.

“First impressions matter when you want to build a lasting trust,” claims Robert Lount of Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business. “If you get off on the wrong foot, the relationship may never be completely right again.”

Commenting on medical research published in 2009, Harvard University’s Robert Graham notes: “Visual information flows from the retina of the eye up through a hierarchy of visual areas in the brain, finally reaching the temporal lobe. The temporal lobe, which is ultimately responsible for our visual recognition capacity and our visual perceptions, also signals back to earlier processing areas. This cross-talk solidifies visual perception.”

At every stage of the potential new client’s contact with the financial planning firm, the first impressions ‘radar’ is being run.

From the business name and logo, to the appearance and functionality of websites; from the sound and manner of the receptionist’s voice to the physical appearance of the business premises and even to the way in which you shake hands – it is all being received, processed and evaluated by the potential new client.

A first impression that falls short of what was expected is quite difficult to recover from. It is interesting to note that so-called ‘speed dating’ is a perfect example of how quickly people can exercise first impression assessments of a potential partner.

Sitting back and objectively identifying all the areas where those first impressions are made with clients is a crucial first step in seeking to improve a firm’s chances of making a good first impression.

It follows then that attending to any weaknesses that are found should be addressed. It is important to do this on an ongoing basis in the business, and annual business planning retreats are a good time to assess how the firm is performing in the first impressions area.

People get busy, lazy or bored, and appearances and performance can wane.

The warm professional tones of the person answering the phone might drift to a casual parlance or the reading material in the reception area will become untidy, out-of-date or damaged.

Websites can become stale and tired – and what were once shiny new shoes can be in desperate need of a polish.

Ties that have drifted down to half-mast need re-hoisting and the poppy seed stuck between teeth from lunch just has to be removed.

All these things and more count in making a good first impression. The fact remains that financial planning businesses only get one chance to make a good first impression with a potential new client – there are no second chances.

Ray Griffin is principal of ConsultGriffin.