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CLIENT ACQUISITION IN TURBULENT TIMES (2024 Best Time ever)- 02/14/2024
Mark Little emphasizes that turbulent financial times present the best opportunities for acquiring clients. He shares insights from his long career, starting in the late 1980s, illustrating how market downturns create moments where clients seek new advisors who can offer stability and a confident plan.
Video Transcription
this should be your best year in the
business right now if you are a retail
financial advisor serving individuals or
families coordinating all their
financial
affairs uh I tell you turbulent times
like right now are the best times to
acquire clients and to acquire them
quickly so are you currently catching
the opport Unity to pick up clients uh
or are you missing the opportunity I’m
Mark little let me go through this a
little bit uh how my experience has been
in this business uh I started in the
business in the N late 1980s um and so I
can tell you with authority that when uh
the financial markets are turbulent that
those are the best times to acquire
clients uh they’re nervous they’re not
sure if their advisor knows what they’re
doing and uh they are more likely to
fire their advisor on the spot and hire
you if you have a better plan for them
in these turbulent times and right now
what makes this so great is that there
have been very few opportunities like
this in my career and I’m I’m saying
maybe three I’ll go through them in a
minute but uh where all all three areas
of the client’s Financial life are
making them nervous and they may even be
losing sleep over them so uh what are
the three things that are turbulent well
the financial markets themselves you
know uh they’re overpriced uh there
there’s question as to whether companies
can increase profitability to keep the
financial Market Rising uh then there’s
political turmoil so we’re facing a uh
an
comfortable political season and um it’s
it’s only going to get worse or better
depending on how you look at it so uh
the markets are in turmoil Pol political
uh landscape is in turmoil and then
world events I mean for crying out loud
we’re at War and we’ve been at War for a
while and uh and it’s just a big fat
mess and this is the time when clients
need a truly skilled advisor the most
and one of my business coaches uh bill
backrack I used to laugh when he would
he would tell other advisers you know uh
look at Mark little the way he sits down
with potential clients and lays all this
out for them they are willing to fire
their advisor on the spot and hire Mark
little well I want you to be in that
same position so um let let me let me
just go through it and kind of tell tell
you uh how this has worked in my career
so there have been three times in my
career that uh the that the financial
markets have dropped considerably uh it
was in 1973 I was in high school back
then but I was actually managing money
for our family at that time so I noticed
it uh we had Oil Embargo you had high
inflation it was a mess back in the 70s
so that was the the big decline in the
market number one it got my attention
and it had me think about this in a in a
totally different level uh then I got
licensed in well I entered the industry
in 1981 April of 1981 but then I didn’t
get licensed in Securities until
early March of
1987 um so I’ll skip over for now the
fact that the year I was licensed 1987
was the biggest one of the biggest stock
market crashes since the Great
Depression and they called Black Monday
it was it was qu quite attention getting
as a brand new adviser I’d only been an
adviser for a few months when that hit
but that wasn’t the big decline that I’m
talking about so you had 1973 had three
of them then you had the year 2000 so
what happened in my career in the year
2000 so I’d been in the business for a
little while and then it hit so you had
the.com bubble for those of you that are
uh weren’t around at that time it was
the tech Bubble Burst and so yet
high-flying technology stocks sound
familiar uh were overpriced and boy the
market fell out from under them then we
had Y2K that was the turn of the century
and we won’t go into it now but that was
very nerve-wracking for clients at that
time we had clients calling me saying
hey when the clock turns over in the New
Year in the year 2000 are all my
accounts going to get wiped out because
the computer got confused and uh we had
to deal with uh so we had the tech
Bubble Burst we had the Y2K dilemma and
then we had
911 and then we had a three-year
recession so uh the market went down at
every client progress meeting with all
my existing clients their values of
their accounts were less every time I
met with them than the last meeting I
had with them for three years in a row
so imagine meeting with clients and
every time you meet with them you’re
looking at their accounts their accounts
are going down in value every time you
meet for three years well that’s the uh
the the time that I was um you know that
was the the the in my career that was
the most significant one and so I
acquired most of my ideal clients in
that three-year period uh they fired
their adviser their current adviser on
the spot and they hired me because I
could make better sense of this for them
I acknowledged what’s happening and I
had uh faith in the future and I was
able to convey that to them in a way
that g gave them confidence so what what
was the third one well 20078 n that was
the global financial crisis man was I
ever prepared for that one but okay so
you had these three big drops in my
career 1973 the year 2000 let’s call it
2008 is that the only time you can
acquire clients is those three times
when people were nervous
no remember we’re talking about the
headlines world events the economy and
markets there is always some headline
that is driving clients crazy making
them think that oh it’s different this
time everything’s going down the drain
because of whatever’s in the headlines
no in my career there have been nine
recessions and every time there was a
recession meant that there were these
disastrous headlines made clients
nervous I picked up lots of clients in
every single one of those so my advice
to you is this don’t be intimidated by
these turbulent times and don’t sit
there at your desk not interacting or
rubbing elbows with non clients out
there in community no this is the time
to get out there with confidence to to
basically show up for both your clients
and your potential clients to show that
you have confidence in the future that
very few financial advisers had have and
you’ve got a process for helping clients
get control of this environment at least
to focus on the things within their
control to establish enough elements in
their plan to create the greatest
probability that they’re going to be
just fine and they’re going to
accomplish the objectives that they
share with you so this should be the
best year in your business and my reason
for cutting this video is that many
advisers that I’ve talked to these days
are the opposite of confident they are
afraid of this market and they are a
little bit tentative when it comes to
reaching out to potential clients
thinking that oh my gosh everybody out
there thinks uh you know the markets are
going to decline in a big way in the
next 12 months well so what if they do
this is exactly the time where if you
show up they are likely to fire their
advisor and hire you so with that I wish
you all the best and make this make this
your best year it should be
business right now if you are a retail
financial advisor serving individuals or
families coordinating all their
financial
affairs uh I tell you turbulent times
like right now are the best times to
acquire clients and to acquire them
quickly so are you currently catching
the opport Unity to pick up clients uh
or are you missing the opportunity I’m
Mark little let me go through this a
little bit uh how my experience has been
in this business uh I started in the
business in the N late 1980s um and so I
can tell you with authority that when uh
the financial markets are turbulent that
those are the best times to acquire
clients uh they’re nervous they’re not
sure if their advisor knows what they’re
doing and uh they are more likely to
fire their advisor on the spot and hire
you if you have a better plan for them
in these turbulent times and right now
what makes this so great is that there
have been very few opportunities like
this in my career and I’m I’m saying
maybe three I’ll go through them in a
minute but uh where all all three areas
of the client’s Financial life are
making them nervous and they may even be
losing sleep over them so uh what are
the three things that are turbulent well
the financial markets themselves you
know uh they’re overpriced uh there
there’s question as to whether companies
can increase profitability to keep the
financial Market Rising uh then there’s
political turmoil so we’re facing a uh
an
comfortable political season and um it’s
it’s only going to get worse or better
depending on how you look at it so uh
the markets are in turmoil Pol political
uh landscape is in turmoil and then
world events I mean for crying out loud
we’re at War and we’ve been at War for a
while and uh and it’s just a big fat
mess and this is the time when clients
need a truly skilled advisor the most
and one of my business coaches uh bill
backrack I used to laugh when he would
he would tell other advisers you know uh
look at Mark little the way he sits down
with potential clients and lays all this
out for them they are willing to fire
their advisor on the spot and hire Mark
little well I want you to be in that
same position so um let let me let me
just go through it and kind of tell tell
you uh how this has worked in my career
so there have been three times in my
career that uh the that the financial
markets have dropped considerably uh it
was in 1973 I was in high school back
then but I was actually managing money
for our family at that time so I noticed
it uh we had Oil Embargo you had high
inflation it was a mess back in the 70s
so that was the the big decline in the
market number one it got my attention
and it had me think about this in a in a
totally different level uh then I got
licensed in well I entered the industry
in 1981 April of 1981 but then I didn’t
get licensed in Securities until
early March of
1987 um so I’ll skip over for now the
fact that the year I was licensed 1987
was the biggest one of the biggest stock
market crashes since the Great
Depression and they called Black Monday
it was it was qu quite attention getting
as a brand new adviser I’d only been an
adviser for a few months when that hit
but that wasn’t the big decline that I’m
talking about so you had 1973 had three
of them then you had the year 2000 so
what happened in my career in the year
2000 so I’d been in the business for a
little while and then it hit so you had
the.com bubble for those of you that are
uh weren’t around at that time it was
the tech Bubble Burst and so yet
high-flying technology stocks sound
familiar uh were overpriced and boy the
market fell out from under them then we
had Y2K that was the turn of the century
and we won’t go into it now but that was
very nerve-wracking for clients at that
time we had clients calling me saying
hey when the clock turns over in the New
Year in the year 2000 are all my
accounts going to get wiped out because
the computer got confused and uh we had
to deal with uh so we had the tech
Bubble Burst we had the Y2K dilemma and
then we had
911 and then we had a three-year
recession so uh the market went down at
every client progress meeting with all
my existing clients their values of
their accounts were less every time I
met with them than the last meeting I
had with them for three years in a row
so imagine meeting with clients and
every time you meet with them you’re
looking at their accounts their accounts
are going down in value every time you
meet for three years well that’s the uh
the the time that I was um you know that
was the the the in my career that was
the most significant one and so I
acquired most of my ideal clients in
that three-year period uh they fired
their adviser their current adviser on
the spot and they hired me because I
could make better sense of this for them
I acknowledged what’s happening and I
had uh faith in the future and I was
able to convey that to them in a way
that g gave them confidence so what what
was the third one well 20078 n that was
the global financial crisis man was I
ever prepared for that one but okay so
you had these three big drops in my
career 1973 the year 2000 let’s call it
2008 is that the only time you can
acquire clients is those three times
when people were nervous
no remember we’re talking about the
headlines world events the economy and
markets there is always some headline
that is driving clients crazy making
them think that oh it’s different this
time everything’s going down the drain
because of whatever’s in the headlines
no in my career there have been nine
recessions and every time there was a
recession meant that there were these
disastrous headlines made clients
nervous I picked up lots of clients in
every single one of those so my advice
to you is this don’t be intimidated by
these turbulent times and don’t sit
there at your desk not interacting or
rubbing elbows with non clients out
there in community no this is the time
to get out there with confidence to to
basically show up for both your clients
and your potential clients to show that
you have confidence in the future that
very few financial advisers had have and
you’ve got a process for helping clients
get control of this environment at least
to focus on the things within their
control to establish enough elements in
their plan to create the greatest
probability that they’re going to be
just fine and they’re going to
accomplish the objectives that they
share with you so this should be the
best year in your business and my reason
for cutting this video is that many
advisers that I’ve talked to these days
are the opposite of confident they are
afraid of this market and they are a
little bit tentative when it comes to
reaching out to potential clients
thinking that oh my gosh everybody out
there thinks uh you know the markets are
going to decline in a big way in the
next 12 months well so what if they do
this is exactly the time where if you
show up they are likely to fire their
advisor and hire you so with that I wish
you all the best and make this make this
your best year it should be
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