The Catalyst for Client Loyalty: How to hire the world's best office manager

In our role as consultants and coaches, Pam and I have visited many financial offices. We show up unannounced and grade everything we see, hear and experience from the perspective of a new prospect. That's a perspective advisors NEVER see in their own offices. The industry average is about a "C."

Why is it so low? Because most advisors don't know how to hire an office manager or assistant who can shift focus from paperwork to humans. Period. The result is an assistant who does more harm than good. The failures fall roughly into three categories. See if you recognize any of them:

The ones who want to be advisors, and are more interested in your job than the one you hired them to perform.
The ones who are simply going through the motions and collecting a paycheck, but not giving you the help you need. They like it best when you're out of the office.
The ones who just are not people-focused. They focus on the office management to the exclusion of your clients and prospects. It's as though the clients are a nuisance.

Is there a "perfect" profile for an office manager or assistant. Absolutely. It's a combination of two personality types - Amiable and Driver. In our travels, this profile is unquestionably the absolute best.

* By the way, we also base this profile on the best office manager we've ever met. Her name is Dawn Gouge, and she was the office manager for one of our clients in Texas.

The Amiable part focuses on people, so he/she would make sure the office environment was conducive to enjoyable (yet efficient) working relationships. The last thing any employee wants is to spend the day in an environment that is uncomfortable. The Amiable part would take care of that. The Amiable would also be proactive in focusing on the clients and prospects when they walked into the office. The last thing a visitor wants is to feel unimportant. This is exactly where a lot of business is lost. The clients feel unappreciated and even unwanted, so why would they continue to put up with that?

The Driver part would be extremely effective as an organizer and a delegator. The office would run like a well-oiled machine and become more efficient than you could have imagined. This Drive part is very bottom-line focused and will make sure all systems lead to income for you.

How can you spot those two Types in someone? This is always the question we get. Our clients say, "Great! I see the logic, now how do I find those characteristics in one person?" Here are some of the things you can watch for during your interview:

Listen for the topics of conversation. People with a high degree of Amiable will talk about other people. Ones with high Driver will talk about action, activities and decisions.

Watch for body language. The Amiable body language is that of a support person. It displays a deferral to you. The Driver body language is bold and decisive. It displays a great deal of confidence.

Look for facial lines. The lines you want to find are 1) smile lines at the outside of both eyes, and 2) no lines on the forehead. The smile lines inducate a people-focus. The forehead indicates someone who does not get "analysis paralysis" by over thinking or getting sidetracked. It shows the person is focused on the payoff from completing the job at hand, and keenly aware of anything that might divert energy away from the job at hand.

Pam and I have done more than ten years of research in this area of psychology. We fully understand that it might sound goofy on the outset; we were skeptical too in the beginning. But the results and findings prove otherwise. See, your face is merely a reflection of what's going on in your head. The lines are the result of the facial expressions you make most often. We learned what those lines mean, and we cataloged them. When you want to improve your profitability by improving the efficiency of your business, use this psychology to hire the best people.

The skills I'm describing are in our book Face Values. In fact, the new, improved and updated edition of Face Values is on its way to us from the printer right now, with an expected deliver of 10/27. Simply, it is without question the best resource you could hope for...

If you want to hire the best office managers, assistants and producers, this is exactly how you recognize them and then connect with them. It is the tool we teach to branch mangers who want to build a branch or office that can dominate their area.
If you want to build trust with new prospects early and quickly, this book tells you exactly how. It's how you build rapport and trust quickly and make yourself THE most logical and obvious choice as advisor.
If you want to use the right language to conduct the referral conversation with your clients, this book tells you the exact words to use. Notice that these three things are interconnected.
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The Psychology of Referrals

I open this discussion here because it is the one topic we get asked about most often as we speak at conferences across the country. In a terrible market, how can you get referrals? Obviously, you must do something different because all the rules went up in smoke a few months ago.

We've monitored the advice about referrals for years and have some bad news for you - most of it is just plain wrong. The psychology behind referrals is really simple, but it's different from what you've probably been taught.

Prime Point, you have to make the idea of referrals valuable to your client. For the clients, it's really a matter of risk-reward. In other words, what will they gain by giving a referral? If you don't understand basic personality types and their related values, then you'll have great difficulty connecting with your clients' values and getting referrals - especially in today's economy.

Second Point, asking for a referral shows you as less than confident, maybe even needy. So, don't ask for a referral. Instead, discuss the value that you have created for that client and invite the client to use the same description to describe what you do to his/her friends.

How can you figure out what language to use with your clients? Read Face Values. You'll learn how to read just about every person you ever meet. That includes how to determine their values and communication style - within five seconds! And, when you're in doubt, call us. That's why we're here.

SPECIAL REWARD. Buy your copy of Face Values before November 1, 2008 and we'll give you (FREE) the electronic edition of our book The Five Levels of Rapport (regularly $19). Find us at www.aboutpeople.com.

-- Michael Lovas

Find AboutPeople resources at:
http://secure.megatrans.com/aboutpeople/Catalog