7 Ways to Get Clients Comfortable with Junior Advisors

Editor’s note: Bryce Sanders is a longtime columnist for Rethinking65. Read more of his articles here.

Everyone despises “bait and switch.” You think you are getting one thing but are stuck with another. Years ago, when people still used VCRs, a guy on the street might offer to sell you one that “fell off a truck.” They would pull out a box, open it and show you the VCR. You handed over your cash and they handed you a box. You felt smug until you got home and discovered the box had wood or something heavy inside, but not a VCR. The financial advisor industry can feel similar to clients if assigning or transitioning them to junior advisors isn’t handled well.

When a financial planning or wealth management firm cultivates a relationship with a prospect, often the head of the team, the “name on the top of the ticket,” closes the deal. The new client assumes this is the person who will be handling their account. But once onboard, they may discover their designated point of contact is a junior advisor. They think “bait and switch.”

This problem also develops for other reasons. Perhaps a small investor was one of your first clients. But now you’ve risen to great heights within your firm and are listed on a “top advisor” ranking published by the financial press.  Your client is proud, they were with you since the beginning. But you’re now reassigning them to a junior team member because you’re focusing on more profitable clients, rainmaking or running your firm.

Or maybe you’ve always taken your clients’ calls but you recently announced your upcoming retirement. You inform your clients that a junior advisor will be their new point of contact going forward, but some of them have already expressed their concerns and anxiety.

Here are seven ways you can bring junior team members into the relationship without alienating clients.

1. Bring the Next Generation into the Business Early On

This could be your children, your extended family like nieces and nephews, or young professionals with whom you’ve established a good rapport. Get them licensed. Put their bios into your newsletters. Introduce them at client events.

Strategy: Train your junior advisors well. Your client understands the “family business” concept. They might be doing this themselves. They should not mind working with the next generation if they perceive they are competent.

2. Include Junior Advisors in Client Meetings

It is very difficult to suddenly end advisor-client relationships. Instead, transition your junior team member into the planning picture early on so they can become familiar with working on your clients’ accounts and your clients become comfortable with them. Let them and their high-quality work become a known quantity.

Strategy: Over time, bring the junior team member into client reviews. The junior team member is introduced in the first meeting, sitting quietly and respectfully.  At the next couple of meetings, they might introduce an idea. Another strategy is for the senior advisor to ask the opinion of the junior advisor in front of the client. Gradually, according to your timeline, the junior advisor takes over the majority of the speaking role at meetings. The transition takes place.

3. Position the Expert

Let us assume your junior team member has a specialty that aligns with your client’s situation.  Both of you attend the client meeting. When the client’s situation is discussed, you defer to the expert. Once this junior advisor shows their competence, the client will likely prefer “talking directly with the expert” instead of you acting as the middleman.

 Strategy: Show your clients that one of the benefits of working with you is access to expertise relevant to their situation. The client should like that.

4. Be Available, But Not Always Immediately

When I transitioned from financial advisor into management, I also moved from advisor to client.  (At my previous firm, managers could not have client accounts.) I chose the advisor for our family and quickly learned how her workflow operated. She has handled our accounts for 30 years. I know she will return my call if I reach out, but I also know her fully licensed assistant is the one who gets things done.

Strategy: Tactfully explain your workflow. Tell clients that you’re happy to speak directly to them if they have a question or issue, but that it might take you some time to get back to them. Suggest that they reach out first to the junior advisor. If the client directly explains the problem to the junior advisor, the issue will probably get fixed a lot faster. Assure the client that the junior advisor will speak with you if it’s a matter that they’re unsure how to resolve without your input.

5. Assure Clients You Are Still in Charge

When a junior advisor becomes the primary point of contact, the client might assume they have lost your expertise and are now advised by a new person who is still learning the business.  However, you are still choosing the investments.

Strategy: This is a good opportunity to introduce the “team concept. When private banks cultivate a new prospect, they bring several people to the meeting. One might be the relationship manager, the others are specialists. The message is, “Your relationship is very important to us. We are assigning several people.” You may position your junior advisor as the relationship manager or first point of contact.  Direction still comes from you, the team leader.

6. Encourage Junior Advisors and Clients to Mingle

You host client recognition events from time to time. This is an opportunity to make clients feel special. It’s also a time for them to get them to know your junior advisor. Make up a seating chart that pairs some of your clients with your junior advisor.  Or take your client and your junior advisor out to lunch.  Mingling in a more social setting rather than just across a desk or conference table gives clients and junior advisors the opportunity to get to know each other better and develop a bond.

We experience this, too. in our personal life. My wife and I are donors at our favorite hospital, and the hospital invites us to great events. The hospital’s head of development knows who we are and always greets us, but a junior member of the development staff sits at our table and gets to know us better. When we have an issue, we call the junior member first.

Strategy: Encourage junior advisors to remember personal details about clients, to ask them questions about their families and interests, and to treat clients as VIPs.

7. Respect that Clients Also Have a Succession Plan

Many HNW clients are active in their community.  Their paths have crossed with other financial advisors who made a good impression.  Your client is likely to have your replacement lined up if they feel you or your junior advisor are ignoring them or not meeting their needs.

Strategy: Always let clients know you appreciate their business.  Let them know that you and your junior advisor are there to serve them, and let them know all you are doing to build your junior advisor’s skills.  Let your clients know they have two people looking out for their best interests – You and your junior advisor.

Remember This

You may feel your long-term client is sticking to you like Super Glue. It appears they will not be happy working with a newer advisor. Now think back to the start of your career when you were new to the advisory business! Your client stuck with you, although there were more experienced advisors seated around you. You gave them lots of attention. Bringing the junior advisor into the relationship is simply the next step in your longstanding relationship. It is a way for you to continue providing that high level of attention that set you apart.

Bryce Sanders is president of Perceptive Business Solutions Inc. He provides HNW client acquisition training for the financial services industry. His book, “Captivating the Wealthy Investor,” is available on Amazon.