Get more out of your meetings — top tips from Jim Rogers (Part 1 of 2)

As a financial advisor, the best possible use of your valuable time is meeting with clients and prospective clients. But are you getting the most out of these meetings? Top advisor Jim Rogers, chair of Vancouver-based Rogers Group Financial and an Advisor’s Edge Career Achievement Award honouree, shares some of the tips and procedures he uses to hold more effective meetings.

1. Always prepare a meeting agenda. You should never start a meeting without having a series of objectives for the meeting. It is therefore important to plan the steps you want to take in the meeting to ensure you meet those objectives. "I’m more likely to go where I want to go in a meeting because I have a simple road map to follow," explains Rogers.

Meeting Guide Template Jim Rogers uses a meeting guide in preparation for and during meetings with clients. It allows him to set down his objectives, make sure he has any relevant support material needed for the meeting and make notes—all in one document. To download a template of his meeting guide, please click here.

2. Review your notes. Review the notes from the last two or three meetings you’ve had with your client. This will help "reorient you to who the client is, what their issues are and what’s important to them." It will also ensure that the meeting will be about what you said it would be about at your last meeting. Reviewing client notes also helps you prepare your meeting agenda.

Meeting tip: Client files may be large, particularly if you’ve had a client for a long time, full of forms, copies of forms and regulatory documents, often making it difficult and time consuming to go through. Rogers recommends a system whereby meeting notes are written on a different colour of paper then tabbed and dated so that they are quickly and easily accessible when going through the client file.

3. Gather any required support material. Make sure that you have all your research material ready and on your desk before you start the meeting. This may consist of Morningstar reports, research on stocks or bonds that the client may hold or calculations and projections of their retirement income—basically any support material needed to cover the items on your agenda.

Meeting tip: Rogers requests this information from his assistants. He recommends hiring assistants with knowledge and education in the financial industry so that tasks like these can be delegated without worry. Both of his assistants are formally educated, have industry licences and CIM designations.

4. Send clients a reminder. In advance of the meeting, send a letter that reminds them of the day, place and time of the meeting.

In addition, remind existing clients what the meeting is about (based on your last meeting with them). This is also an opportunity determine if there are any other concerns the client would like to discuss. Any such items that arise are added to the agenda.

For prospective clients, remember to also ask them to prepare and bring three documents on three separate sheets of paper: 1. A balance sheet 2. An income statement 3. A list of their top three financial concerns in order of importance to them

These three documents will allow you to quickly ascertain what their issues might be.

Meeting tip: Terms like "income statement" and "balance sheet" might be confusing to a prospective client, so Rogers uses descriptions that are easier to understand. For the balance sheet, he asks prospective clients to make a list of everything they own and owe. For the income statement, he requests a list of their full income by amount and source, along with their normal monthly expenses.

5. Confirm your agenda. At the beginning of the meeting, it’s important to confirm that the agenda you’ve prepared based on what you think they want to discuss is indeed what your clients or prospects actually want to pursue. There could be an issue that they haven’t talked about before or that is suddenly top of mind with them. "Whatever is top of mind with them had better be top of mind with me," Rogers notes, "because they are not going to listen to anything I say on my agenda while something else is nagging at them."

Meeting tip: Rogers suggests asking an opening question like, "Mr. and Mrs. Jones, if this meeting is to be worthwhile for you what has to happen the next 45 minutes to make it so?" Their response will allow you to either confirm what’s on your agenda, or revise it based on what the prospect or client tells you.

Click here for five more of Jim Rogers meeting tips including how to get as much information from clients and prospective clients as possible, a painless way to keep detailed file notes and more!

(04/15/05)