The essence of the talk was that the process of selling integrated wealth advice should be skewed more towards convincing clients that they need to change their approach to wealth management, and not start by focusing exclusively on them buying a firm's services.

“People have to recognize that there is a problem with where they are today. It’s a process of getting them to realize that the place they’re in isn’t perhaps the optimal place to be,” Rogerson said. “But how do you move them from where they are to where they could be?”

You show them what’s wrong with the industry in general and then relate it to them and their family, some 150 attendees heard and Family Wealth Report can exclusively report on.

It boils down to establishing what their needs are, differentiating your firm and demonstrating the value you can and will deliver, Rogerson continued. The message was that, ultimately, the most successful sales person is one who can sell change.

Rogerson noted that at many of his firm’s offices the bulk of year-on-year revenue increase is from expanding existing client relationships - but the biggest opportunity out there entails bringing new clients on board, he said. In doing so, the definition of success should be highlighted to prospects early on by defining failure as a contrast to what success should be.

The Challenger Sale - teaching for differentiation

Rogerson used a sailing analogy to make one of his main points about integrated wealth management.

“Although it is important to have a jib and a mainsail, the helmsman sits on the leeward side of the cockpit so he can see how the sails are working together. It’s the slot gap between the sails that can really drive the boat forward,” Rogerson said.

He emphasized the crucial difference between hiring “incredible people” from unique fields and putting them together in a group before a prospect or client, versus having these people actually present as a group of people who work and communicate as a team.

“A group of really smart people is not a team by itself,” he said. “If you take service delivery people and encourage them to participate in a culture of sales mentality, they often don’t know how to do it.”

Rogerson went on to talk about how, during the economic downturn, Matthew Dixon and Brend Adamson for their book The Challenger Sale carried out research in the US and globally to find out which individuals in sales continued to be successful in the rocky financial climate. 

They looked for around 65 different attributes or abilities and categorized them into five sub-categories: the hard worker; the challenger; the relationship-builder; the “lone wolf;” and the problem-solver.

“Then they looked at the results in terms of simple sales versus complex sales. I think we in this room are looking more at complex sales,” Rogerson said, noting that there was a clear winner and loser: the challenger and relationship-builder, respectively.

He stressed the importance of this for the industry because he finds that the leadership of organizations often posses a very services-orientated mentality.

“Those kinds of leaders, when they’re looking to hire sales people, are very often hiring relationship-type sales people. The challenger definitely builds relationships as well, but they’re willing to use the relationship to move the person along,” he said. “The relationship-builder wants to join a prospect in their comfort zone; a challenger wants to drag that prospect out of their comfort zone.”

Challengers keep a “constructive tension” on the conversation with the client going forward; they teach for differentiation, “tailor for resonance” and then take control of the sale, he said.

Rogerson later noted that he was amazed at how many sales managers don’t set up joint calls with sales staff, saying: “How are you going to mentor the younger, newer people and really bring them in?” Likewise he highlighted the significance of “pre-call planning” among team members, which would allow them to ascertain how they can work together and drive growth collectively. 

Teaching, practicing and encouraging

In a crowded industry such as wealth management, Rogerson pointed to the importance of teaching to differentiate, highlighting how using index funds and mutual funds to manage family wealth forecloses the ability to optimize return by management of tax losses and gifting appreciated securities, for example.

“They are focusing on performance and fees when they should be focusing on integrated wealth management solutions,” he said.

Among failures of the “conventional approach,” Rogerson said that by sharing monthly account statements a truly integrated advisor will come across as a broker or investment advisor in nature. An emphasis on reporting the status of the family wealth strategy overall - and providing a family wealth statement - is therefore crucial.

He also touched on the notion of selling from a blueprint, rather than a spreadsheet, so as to convey holdings in a way which contextualizes each family member with the family’s wealth goals and life ambitions. “Tailor the presentation for resonance,” he said.