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The Client-centred Blog

Welcome to The Client Centred Blog; Free content that shares a fresh approach to thriving as a financial professional in a rapidly changing environment.

This blog has its foundation in a new understanding of the human mind that gives you the ultimate platform for creating better results, thriving under any circumstances and living the life you want.     

I invite you to explore the materials, reflect upon how it relates to you and your business and enjoy the benefits.

The twelve client-centred mind shifts – part 1
You have worked hard to become a qualified financial professional. You are making a difference in the lives of your clients and your business is steady. This is a big, well-deserved success and there is much to celebrate. Yet at this stage you might also pause, reflect, and ask yourself,...
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Do you ever get in your own way? Here is how to stop
What is it that gets in the way of accomplishing your most desired goals and objectives? Of course, there are often external obstacles to navigate, maybe things that you did not anticipate, tasks you do not yet possess the level of skill for, or creating the time required. But these...
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The timeless wisdom of Charlie Munger
Charlie Munger (now 97 years young) is a billionaire businessman, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and business partner of Warren Buffett, one of the greatest investors of all time. He is asked about the secret to a long and happy life, and he replies: …
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How to have bigger impact with clients
How much impact am I having? This is a great question to reflect upon when it comes to your client relationships. Whether you have just met someone new or have been working with someone for a decade or longer the amount of impact we are having in that person’s life...
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The two styles of selling and why one of them is toxic
Although you could fill a small library with books on selling it seems to me that there are two distinct styles. You could call these pushing and pulling and here is how they contrast. Pushing is based upon trying to persuade, convince or entice someone into buying a product or...
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Who are the financial advisers of the future?
Going back to when I became a self-employed financial adviser in 1991 it was a sales role. I had my one week of training and then was expected to go out and make money immediately. This is why the attrition rate was so appallingly low. Oh, how things have changed!…
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Getting the impossible things done
Do you want to get things done? By this I do not mean your day-to-day routine work. I mean projects that are significant accomplishments in your life. What is on your ‘impossible’ list? Writing the book you have always wanted to write? Completely re-engineering your business? Learning a new skill...
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How do you measure your success when life is completely unpredictable?
If there was one thing we learned in 2020 is that life is unpredictable. None of us really know what is going to happen in the next hour, day, week, or month, do we? We can make plans, set goals, have expectations and yet just as we have all recently...
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Do you love what you do?
Going back a while I was invited to speak at an event for advisers at The Etihad stadium in Manchester. I spoke about creating better client engagement through being curious about what it is that clients want from life rather than just focusing on products and investments…
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Getting out of your own way
I was recently in conversation with a client and he said to me that the next month at work was going to be difficult. So, I asked him why he thought that and he explained that several staff were due to be away on training and this was going to...
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Keeping your hand out of the jar
In Africa there is a technique that hunters use to catch monkeys. Ordinarily, because monkeys are intelligent and cunning, they are extremely hard to trap but there is a way. A small jar with a certain size neck is placed where the monkeys frequent and inside the jar are placed...
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Shoulder Taps
The impact you can have on another human being has a lot to do with how much you realise you can impact them. How do you see your role as an adviser? You can operate at the level of arranging transactions, you can see yourself as providing a service or...
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Why regulation will never improve the public’s trust in Financial Services (and what can)
Most people I come across in Financial Services are caring, dedicated and highly professional people who do great work for their clients. On top of this a great many of those, like you, continually strive to improve and I have huge respect for this because it takes time, effort and...
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Which screw to turn
There is a famous story about FedEx, the delivery company. In the US the central hub of the business is in Memphis, so all overnight packages go through here. One night the conveyer belt system suddenly stopped working bringing the business to a halt. It meant that the packages could...
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What has spirituality got to do with financial planning?
A while back I was speaking with a financial planner and our conversation turned to what it is that clients really want. Although I had not used the ‘S’ word he suddenly looked at me like I had grown three heads and said in an aghast tone, “Are you talking...
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Dealing with difficult people
Have you ever encountered a difficult person? Maybe you have a client, co-worker or employee who you think about in this way? I was on a coaching call with a client recently and he recounted a situation with an employee. This employee had behaved in such a way that there...
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How do you know if a client meeting is going well?
Have you ever wondered why young children are able to indiscriminately enjoy almost everything and anything they do? Whatever situation they are in they seem to find a way to be absorbed in the moment and have fun. As adults we often tend to lose this capacity. Business can be...
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Living your life’s purpose
I was an enthusiastic devourer of self-help and personal development material for well over twenty years, although I have now been in healthy recovery for nine years. During my addiction I always noticed how much material there is on finding your life's purpose and it continues to be a popular...
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Why mental clarity is the biggest game in town
Imagine someone who absolutely needs to be in the moment. For safety's sake. Say someone like a surfer who is out there in the ocean hanging ten. Picture this surfer riding a huge wave. Can you see how thoughts don't help the surfer? What's the surfer doing? Paying attention to...
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Never be derailed by adversity again
There is no question that many, if not most, businesses have been severely affected by the lock-down. For instance, if you are a retail outfit then you have had no choice but to keep your doors shut. A similar situation with restaurants and bars. Advisory firms have been unable to...
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The power of simplicity in a world of complexity
The human intellectual mind loves to make things complex. And this is just as true in the financial world as anywhere else. We could have a much simpler tax system - but we choose not to. We could vastly simplify pensions - but we choose not to. We could make...
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There is an easier way to do life
The world we live in consists of the visible and the invisible. The form and the formless. The finite and the infinite. The business world focuses almost exclusively on the visible, the form and the finite. If you want to improve results in any area – marketing, sales, leadership, management,...
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Where is the opportunity in forced change?
It is said that a week is a long time in politics. Well, that saying seems to apply to just about everything right now! If the lock down (only!) lasts a few weeks, then my guess is that most of us will be tempted to get back to 'business as...
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The biggest Megatrend of our time
Last year at one of my events at Henley Business School, Kimberley Hare, our speaker for the day, put a poster on the wall that read: "Uncertainty is inevitable, insecurity is optional" We humans have a fascinating relationship with certainty, don’t we? So often we try to desperately hang on...
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The little understood power of the present moment
When we truly understand the power of the present moment, then it becomes the most important thing in our life. I learned that to truly connect with others I had to be fully present with them. I learned that happiness and contentment are not circumstance dependent; they are a function...
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The most dangerous word in the English language
When we were little kids, we never knew what limitations were, did we? In fact, when we are kids the very idea of a limitation is absurd. Our imaginations know no boundaries and we live in a world of pure possibility. Our life was full of curiosity, joy, and wonder....
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There is only one thing blocking you
I was delivering a workshop to a business a couple of weeks ago and I asked the question… What gets in the way of what you want to accomplish? Each person present had some important business and personal goals and I wanted to know what they perceived as the obstacles....
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The surprising truth about happiness
“If you are doing things in order to be happy… you're doing them in the wrong order.” Michael Neill Although happiness is something that is hard to define it is something that we seem to want more of in our lives. There are dozens of books written on the subject...
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Twice the productivity, with half the effort and none of the stress
Is twice the productivity, with half the effort and none of the stress a realistic goal for you and your business? And whether you think it is realistic or not, how much difference would this make to you? Many business people, if not all, are on the lookout for edges...
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What does a reformed prison inmate have to do with us?
Last weekend I attended my favourite annual conference, the 'Life 2.0 Three Principles Conference'. It was my 7th conference and in that time the number of people attending has tripled to around 900. On the drive home afterwards the friend I attended with asked me if any moment stood out...
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Are you ready for a new normal?
'All truth goes through three steps: first, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; finally, it is accepted as self-evident' German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer Imagine you were about to have a medical procedure that involved 'opening you up'. What would be your reaction if you knew that the instruments...
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Without the fear, what would you do?
Fear, if misunderstood, is such a debilitating emotion. When I began my coaching practice it soon became obvious that the business and personal challenges that people experienced were almost always some kind of fear in disguise. I noticed that when people were stuck or struggling - to get clients, build...
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Giving up the illusion of control
I am writing this piece whilst on a train back home from meeting a valued and trusted client in London. An idea for a new programme had occurred to me and it had been percolating in my mind. I had met with my client to ask, "What do you think...
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Is some stress good for you?
I was reading an article by a psychologist just recently and he was putting forward the idea that some stress is good for you. He was suggesting that in the absence of stress we would find ourselves sitting around, doing nothing and completely unmotivated. His theory was that you need...
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What it really takes to conduct exceptional client conversations
The quality of your client conversations is the most important part of the relationship you build with them because they form the foundation of everything else that follows. You could think of it like this… Poor conversations = poor (or no!) relationshipAverage conversations = average relationshipsExceptional conversations = exceptional relationships...
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Is over-thinking your barrier to a more wonderful life?
My good friend Alex Manzi created a popular podcast called Dreamers Disease where he interviews inspirational guests about what they do, why they do it and their motivations. A few weeks ago we met up for a coffee and came up with idea of sending his subscribers a couple of...
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The biggest lie that holds you back
Do you know what the biggest lie we tell ourselves is? I cannot change. This false belief is at the core of why so many people get stuck in a rut, living out the same old thinking and behavioural habits, often for years. It is also apparent that one of...
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Your ultimate competitive advantage
I recently read about a study that revealed that most businesses lose, in profits, around 25 to 30 percent of their annual sales figure due to something called 'COPQ' - the cost of poor quality. Where does 'COPQ' originate? It comes from good, caring and intelligent people making mistakes, errors...
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The information delusion
I moved offices recently and it was a wonderful opportunity to have a proper clear-out and throw out what I no longer needed. On one shelf there was a large pile of notes and papers and as I began to go through them I realised they were all from the...
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Who pushes your buttons?
One fine sunny day Theresa was driving down the M20 towards the south coast with her friend Gavin, enjoying the conversation. That was until another car, driven by Jean-Claude, overtook and cut dangerously across Theresa causing her to brake hard. Theresa was not going to let him get away with...
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Quick guide: Get more of your best thinking
There are many factors involved in the process of creating, running and continually improving your business. Getting clients, servicing them, building an infrastructure, innovating, responding to changes... Success in any of these activities is under-pinned by the quality of thinking that is brought to each one. A client and I...
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No pressure selling and influence part 2
“If the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world.” Sydney Banks Being a powerful influencer is a vital aspect of your role with clients and yet it is something that advisers can be uncomfortable with. In part 1 of this...
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No pressure selling and influence part 1
“This is what it means to serve: improving another’s life and, in turn, improving the world.” Daniel H. Pink, To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others Being an effective influencer and confidently selling your services are essential skills if you want to build a thriving practice based upon...
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Good advice is useless without leadership
There is a famous story about a woman visiting Gandhi with her young son. She and her son had travelled a long way and when they eventually got their chance to speak with him he asked how he could help and the woman said "My son eats far too much...
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Qualified Financial Planner – but holding back?
About 18 months ago I published an article titled 'Qualified Financial Planner - but holding back?'. The inspiration for the piece was actually a friend of mine who's an adviser. He had work really hard to get his financial planning qualifications and yet he wasn't putting into practice any of...
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My favourite Einstein quote and why it matters
There aren't that many true bona fide geniuses, past or present, but Albert Einstein was certainly in that category. Apart from his work in the field of physics his insight and clarity into how the human mind works were extraordinary too. My favourite quote attributed to Einstein's is: “We cannot...
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What can we learn from doctors who get sued?
Would you like to build even stronger, more productive relationships with your clients and deliver more value than ever before? Although technical knowledge seems to have taken precedence over everything else for advisers in recent years, what use is it if an adviser is not able to combine what they...
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Qualified financial planner – but holding back?
Just recently I had lunch with an adviser friend of mine and he revealed to me that despite becoming a certified financial planner five years ago, regularly attending meetings and events for planners and wanting to only offer a financial planning service he is not actually doing it. He said...
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The real problem with fee charging (and it is never about the money)
Fees and fee charging are now a fact of life for financial professionals and yet it seems to be an area that creates far more challenges than is necessary. Common questions that come up for advisers are: What to charge for? What to actually charge? How to charge? When to...
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Selling your services – are you pushing or pulling?
'To effectively engage someone, you must be operating from a higher level of consciousness than the other person at that moment'. Garrett Kramer, Stillpower At a time when consumers have more choice, are more demanding and less tolerant of being placed under any kind of negative pressure it has never...
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Do you want more of the right clients?
An area that many advisers seem to find challenging is finding and engaging enough of the right clients. Naturally, there is a great deal of information and advice available in this area, however, if you feel you have diligently tried to find out what to do and yet continue to...
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The hidden secret of effective business building
"Why is it that with all the information available today on how to be successful in small business, so few people really are?" Michael Gerber When it comes to building a better business and one that provides more of the rewards that you want there are two kinds of change...
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The inner game of trust
          Many people experience a great deal of insecurity around money and feel apprehensive when faced with talking about the future. Therefore, engaging the services of a financial adviser is not something that most people will take lightly. From an advisers perspective gaining sufficient trust to...
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Dashfield spent 14 years as a self-employed adviser. Since 2006 he has been a coach, mentor and author helping advisers create transformations in their business and personal lives.

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john@clientcentredadvisers.com

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