As I caught the train into the city a few weekends ago and walked through Flinders Street Station I was repeatedly struck by the diversity of the passengers around me and how, whilst we were all largely anonymous, we were easily identifiable with particular groups, clusters or “tribes” that were unique in their own way.
The race goers on their way to the Caulfield Cup were well dressed, full of confidence and looking forward to a day on the track. They were easy to pick, as were the teenagers dressed in their favourite Manga character or super Hero costume on their way to Comicon at the Showgrounds. There were also large groups of “punks”, “goths”, “gym junkies”, “fashionistas,” “tech-heads” and so the list went on.
When I walk through Flinders Street Station during the week I find it less easy to identify these groups, or tribes. But on the weekend, these normal weekday commuters were now showing their true colours, displaying their values and broadcasting their interests.
Unfortunately many of our clients wear their “weekday gear” when we work with them and are less forthright when it comes to discussing their personal situation, financial matters, beliefs and attitudes with us.
A key component to long-lasting client engagement is to understand our clients in their “weekend” gear.
Understanding our clients, segmenting them properly and ensuring we are delivering advice and product solutions that align to their true belief systems, attitudes to risk and ultimately what is important to them has never been more critical.
With this in mind, it is no longer appropriate to simply group people into life-stage or into a specific risk profile – this is not how people behave. Although these segments provide some direction as to an individual’s wealth needs, they miss out on deeper attitudinal, psychographic and behavioural influences that are the emotional drivers of why a person will behave. These emotions often drive purchase decisions and are often the foundation of deeper relationships.
The emotional connection has been the foundation of many great businesses. These businesses realised that by establishing an emotional connection with their customers it will have profound impact on their business.
So, instead of just using a traditional “fact-find”, you can try and learn about a clients’ interests in investments, how they spend their leisure time, where they like to take their holidays, whether they like technology or not, how important success is to them and what role they play in the home.
This line of questioning will take practice and will have to be woven into your typical questioning, but with practice, you will be able to determine more succinctly their attitudes, motivations and what success (or failure) looks like to them.
There are no right or wrong questions but the responses will often surprise you and will help you better understand what drives their decisions and actions and to identify what “tribe” your client really belongs to.
By having this understanding of our clients and the segments they belong to, we are in a better position to deliver advice and product solutions that align to their true belief systems, attitudes to risk and ultimately what is important to them.
And before you ask – I wasn’t heading off for a day at the races or to uncover an original first issue of The Phantom…. Unfortunately I was just heading to the office to catch up on some work and hopefully start this article, which I didn’t!
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of netwealth Investments Limited.
