Lots of great ideas and techniques shared during Friday's Master Class about using CoreValue with your client’s senior management team.

Begs the question... What is the fundamental goal for senior management?

'Senior Management' is CoreValue Driver #15, about which the CoreValue assessment asks “Does your company have a leadership team/individual in place to realize the company's vision and mission while helping the owner achieve his/her objectives?”

This question has two parts: a company mission and the owner’s personal objectives. This linkage goes well beyond earning a comfortable living, as the company is the vehicle that will fund your client’s retirement. Want to know something shocking? Of the +10,000 companies analyzed using CoreValue, 86% cannot answer “Yes” to question 15.   

By asking how the senior team is doing, you will have succeeded in starting a conversation, awakening your client’s awareness of the long game.  This idea was hammered home recently by Todd Fithian, who's spent over 20 years training senior advisors how to win long-term relationships using consultative techniques.  Todd's approach is to discover a client’s real goals, and then use these goals as the basis for the engagement.  In his book he writes:

"[The relationship between goals and strategies] directly correlates to the dynamic that plays out at the [client’s] planning table. Forward progress requires clarity. Clarity requires trust. Trust earns an adviser the right to sit at the table. When the ideas shared at the planning table solve a problem unique to the wealth holder’s thinking, he or she will confidently engage in consideration and execution."1  (emphasis added)

Are you working to get a seat at the planning table --or better yet, to help manage the planning table? Would you become a Trusted Advisor by helping your client define their long-term personal goals, and then connecting their personal goals to their corporate strategy? Experience tells us it could.  

We’d love to hear what you think, please post your comments here or email comments@corevalueforadvisors.com

1. The Right Side of the Table: Where Do you Sit in the Minds of the Affluent? by Todd Fithian, Scott Fithian. Todd has agreed to lead a Master Class about consultative selling on February 16, you can learn more here and register here (seats are limited).