20 Observations on Being a Successful Social Security Advisor

Jul 12, 2016 / By Chris Holman
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Horsesmouth has been helping advisors work with their clients on Social Security for many years through our various programs. Here we share certain trends we have noticed that lead to success for advisors specializing in the topic.

As I write this, I am winging my way to one of Elaine Floyd’s Savvy Social Security workshops. This will be the eighth such workshop that I’ve attended. Since their inception in 2014, Elaine, Sean Bailey, and the Horsesmouth team have put together 10 Savvy Social Security workshops, focused on helping advisors at all levels of skill and experience, and showing them how to improve their abilities as Savvy Social Security advisors in particular.

I also lead the Horsesmouth Savvy Social Security coaching groups, of which there have been 10 so far. The coaching groups help guide those advisors who want to dial up their Savvy Social Security achievements to even higher levels.

This is all to say that I’ve had a fairly decent vantage point from which to view what seems to work—and what doesn’t—amongst advisors who are implementing the Savvy Social Security tools.

Here, I have collected my observations regarding how to achieve Savvy Social Security success. I trust that many of you will find these comments helpful, and, hopefully, motivating.

An important note: I believe these comments are relevant for all Horsesmouth financial advisors who have clients and prospective clients of Social Security age, not just those who have joined the HM Savvy Social Security program.

20 observations for your consideration

  1. Social Security clients really need you. Clients are confused about Social Security now, more than ever. The elimination of file-and-suspend has not lessened their confusion. If anything, it has compounded it. But the real eye-opener with respect to client misperception lies buried within this recent Transamerica study on retirement well-being.

    Guess how many folks who qualified for Social Security have waited until age 70 to claim their benefits? 1%! Just 1% of all claimants have waited until their 70th birthday. Of course, if a retiree needs the money to survive, that’s one thing. But for long-lived retirees, of which there are more and more these days, claiming too early is a choice that can never be corrected.

  2. Being an expert is overrated. In the age of Google, it’s easier than ever to uncover “facts.” But knowing facts and data doesn’t automatically create wisdom. If your clients want just the facts, they can hire a robo-advisor. If they want insight, acumen, and perspective, they hire you. Becoming an expert on Social Security is a noble goal. Yet, in their quest for perfectionism, advisors often hold themselves back by failing to launch.
  3. Being an authority is underrated. In contrast to being an expert, why not frame yourself as an authority? As an authority, you may not know all the answers, but you know where and how to get them. As an authority, you step back from the micro, and provide the overall macro-judgment that moves clients forward in their retirement planning success.
  4. If you do want to be the expert, go for it! OK, if you truly want to be an expert in Social Security, don’t settle for half-measures. Start writing articles. Micro-specialize. Write a book. Get interviewed for podcasts and radio shows. Do public speaking and workshops. Do the three things that Malcolm Gladwell has identified as the steps to expertise: study, practice, and present.
  5. There are no “best practices.” I have spoken with about 500 Savvy Social Security advisors, and have seen about 500 ways of doing things. None of the approaches is inherently bad or good. There is no universally right way to adopt Savvy Social Security planning practices, but there’s a right way for you. Trust your intuition, and feel free to adapt other “best practices” to make them your own.
  6. Be open to exploring new possibilities. Social Security is a big topic that is of interest to every single one of the 75+ million baby boomers out there. There are a lot of ways to find success as a Savvy Social Security advisor, and the biggest inhibitor to your own achievement may lie inside your head. Don’t limit yourself by being closed-minded to new ways of achieving success.
  7. The first step can be the toughest. Lao Tzu saw this 2,500 years ago, when he observed “The journey of 1000 miles begins with one step.” We see that ancient challenge alive today in advisors who join Savvy Social Security, but then wait for months or years to take that first step.

    If getting started is an issue for you, try these moves. First, ask yourself if your inaction might be telling you something. For example, maybe this is the wrong time for you, or possibly this is not the right project.… If you decide to move forward despite your concerns, break down the first step as much as you can into mini-steps. Do what you can, and your first tiny steps will lead to the next. Voila! Before you know it, you have momentum.

  8. Clients can spot insincerity. The most successful Savvy Social Security advisors have a genuine passion to help others. There’s a flip side to this. The least successful don’t have this passion. They simply view Savvy Social Security as a plug-and-play new business development system. This doesn’t work…mostly because clients can see through the shallow deception.
  9. Do workshops, seminars, and presentations. Public speaking is a shortcut to building momentum. It gets you clear and focused on the subject. Also, because you’re out in the world speaking, clients presume that you know what you’re talking about.
  10. After your workshop, speedy follow-up is critical. The half-life of workshop-attendee memories about the workshop is very short. In the first place, the Forgetting Curve will dictate that most attendees will forget almost all of the facts of your presentation anyway. Secondly, they’ll forget all about you if you don’t follow up in a timely fashion. Horsesmouth Editor-in-Chief Sean Bailey tells a classic story about an advisor who had minimal success in getting follow-up appointments after his first workshop. Turns out that the advisor had done a fantastic workshop, only to follow it up with a two-week European vacation. D’oh!!!
  11. Advisors are overlooking CPAs (and their clients) with respect to Social Security outreach. Savvy Social Security has four off-the-shelf presentations that home in on four distinct populations: baby boomers, couples, women, and CPAs. For some reason, the CPA presentation is the least used by advisors. I suspect that what’s happening is that many advisors are fearful of looking “foolish” in front of a CPA audience. Interestingly, at Horsesmouth we hear that CPAs are not especially knowledgeable about Social Security, and would welcome having a trusted source for this know-how and expertise.
  12. Presentation skills are as important as knowing the facts. Workshop attendees forget the facts in a flash. But they will remember your self-confidence, personality, and presence. Presentation skills create rapport and trust with the audience. And it’s rapport and trust that gets you follow-up appointments that lead to new clients. Craig Judd is one advisor who has recognized this, and who went out and hired a speaking coach to build his public-speaking proficiency and boost his business.
  13. Get going. Make mistakes. Stick with it. The key to workshop prowess is making mistakes…and learning from those mistakes. If there is a commonality among advisors who become successful at workshops it’s that they don’t give up. Their first workshop might be below expectations, or it might even be a complete bust, but they don’t stop.

    One of the best advisors at learning and getting better that I know is a guy called Chad Henry. Chad has done 25-30 workshops and will raise $25-30 million in new assets this year from his Social Security workshops alone. Yet, Chad doesn’t rest. After every workshop, he debriefs with his team. “What happened? What worked? What didn’t?”

    And, notwithstanding Chad’s success, he’s not afraid to tweak his process in an effort to make it better. The inverse of this observation: The key failing of advisors who do not become successful at workshops is that they give up. They do one or two workshops that do not meet expectations and stop right there. This is no way to learn and get better.

  14. Create a marketing budget. Figure out what you want to spend on your workshops over the next 12 months or so. This amount might be $1,000 or it could be $100,000, but identify what you’d like to invest in marketing over a longer period and divvy this up by month. The point is, you don’t want to blow your entire budget on one or two events.

    Plan. Spread the entire budget amount over a period that is long enough so that you can learn, improve, and create success. Note: I know of one advisor who spends $170,000 each year on his workshops. I know another who spends about $1,700 annually. Both are equally successful. Neither approach is better than the other or a “best practice.” Just choose the budget that seems right for you.

  15. Don’t call them “plate-lickers.” Ugh! What a demeaning and cynical term! Here’s a question for you. Have you ever accepted a free lunch from a wholesaler when you had no intention of ever buying their product? Or taken swag from some product vendor peddling something that you won’t ever use? Know what I’m talking about?

    Here’s the thing. You are what you say. When you start calling certain members of the public “plate-lickers,” you risk becoming infected with a cynicism that seeps into your entire mindset. Stop worrying about those who are not so interested. Focus on the clients who like you—and really need and want your guidance.

  16. Expand the conversation. Social Security income accounts for just 40% of the typical retiree’s income. So, what are people doing about the remaining portion? You’ll want to develop a conversational pivot, prior to your follow-up appointment and after the workshop, that gets their permission to expand the conversation to include their entire financial picture. For example, you might say something like this: “For most of my clients, Social Security income accounts for just 40% of their retirement income. Would you like to restrict our conversation to Social Security income only, or should we expand our discussion to include your complete financial picture?”
  17. Seize this opportunity! In my 35 years in financial services, there have only been a few moments similar to the current one, where a single topic could get everyone’s attention. The other time there was a topic that automatically sparked conversations with every type of investor was in the early 1980s when interest rates were at stratospheric levels—and beginning to come down.

    The topic of Social Security is a guaranteed conversation-starter with baby boomers. This is a topic where people will engage with you. The essential point is this: Use that underlying universal interest in Social Security to begin conversations with people who are hungry for guidance. In your entire career, you are not likely to have many opportunities this rich.

  18. Attend one of Elaine’s Savvy Social Security workshops. There are two upcoming workshops in September 2016.
  19. Join a Savvy Social Security coaching group. Coaching is a tried and proven way to boost your success, and personalized Savvy Social Security coaching is no exception.
  20. Commit to your own greatness. Success is yours if you decide on it for yourself. Don’t underestimate yourself.

Chris Holman is the executive coach with Horsesmouth. His career in financial services spans 43 years as a financial advisor, a national director of investments, and an executive coach. He is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) as certified by the International Coach Federation (ICF). He can be reached at cholman@horsesmouth.com.

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