Do you struggle to ask for money?
At a recent Morningstar conference, Head of Behavioural Insights Ryan Murphy shared research on the adviser behaviours that clients disliked the most. Top of the list was:
Not explaining fees
The rest included:
Taking more than a week to complete tasks
Not considering a client’s values
Not providing enough details
Not providing holistic advice
The common thread here is around communication issues, but I’m going to focus on the fees issue because it comes up so often and it’s also common in many other professions.
At the heart of fees, charges, etc is the question of value and self-worth. Asking for money is difficult and feels vulnerable. It’s tied to early childhood experiences and a host of subconscious feelings about ourselves and about money. Many people struggle with this and it’s a consistent theme in my work with entrepreneurs and small business owners. It provokes great discomfort and fear about what the other party will think.
Can I ask for that?
What if they object?
What if they think it’s too much?
Will they think I’m greedy?
And for advisers, asking for money is not limited to fees.
Deep down, the real fear is usually to do with rejection. It’s not about the fees themselves. As a coach I have also been on this journey to getting comfortable with asking for my full value, not some discounted version of it.
Most clients are happy to pay fees when they feel confident that you will support them fully. They need you to be confident in order for them to feel confident.
There are two parts to building this confidence:
- Focusing on the human side of money. Clients primarily want to feel safe and when you know how to build trust and connection with clients, then asking for fees becomes much easier.
- Overcoming any personal challenges with asking for money. We all have subconscious beliefs about what we can do, be or have with money, and most of them are self-limiting.
The good news is that coaching gives you a path to freeing yourself from those beliefs and behaviours, as well as showing you how to build trust and connection. It will also help you with all the other behaviours that clients dislike.
I recently worked with an IFA to overcome his lifelong fear of the fee discussion and turn it into something that he looked forward to.
You can read about my work with business owners here.
And if you’d like to have a chat about any aspect of money, please use the link below:
