Well, of course what your clients expect from their advisors is important.   And, it’s a worthwhile exploration for any advisor worth his or her salt.  But, is it the most important?

Recently, I had a conversation with a favorite colleague and friend of mine, Justin Anderson (JSA Advising), that has continued to intrigue me.  The question of the conversation was, what do clients expect from their professional advisors?

A worthy question, no doubt.  Yet, I think that even more compelling (and courageous) is the question, what do clients value from their professional advisors?

What Your Clients Expect

When your clients hire you, they expect that they are hiring the best.  They expect that you are the most technically proficient, the smartest in your field, a respected advisor among your peers.

They expect that you’ll deliver on time.  They expect you’ll have the right tools and systems to do your job.  They expect that you’ll operate with integrity.

What they expect is what you’ve put on the table as your offer.  It’s the intellectual, left-brained reason behind why they hired you in the first place.  But the reason they retain you for years and years?  The reason they proudly refer you to their friends?

It’s because of what they come to value in you.

What Your Clients Value

What your clients value is what they didn’t expect when they first hired you.  It’s what delights them when they think about what’s happened in their lives as a result of their work with you.  It’s the differentiators they talk about when they proudly refer you to their friends.

What they value is someone who isn’t afraid to tell them the truth.  Someone who is courageous enough to take a stand.  Someone who has enough faith in the abundance of their own practice that they drive to the best solution for their client, even if it means the end of a project or engagement.

What they value is someone who is willing and able to be a role model.  To illustrate leadership from the front, from the middle, and from behind.  What they value is when you show up clear-headed, confident, and present – as if they are the only client you have (because, when you’re with them, they are).

They value someone who is innovative in their own practices and can expertly navigate the roadmap of innovation for their clients.  They value someone who is willing to be wrong in the short-term in order to find the right solution for their clients long-term.

When you deliver what your clients expect, you look the same as every other advisor.

When you delight them with what they value (and maybe didn’t even know it), you quickly shift from a “commodity” to “indispensable.”

Do you know what your clients value?

Share your comments and ideas at What Clients Expect from Advisors… Is it Important?

You might also be interested in:

• The Trusted Advisor Paradox
• The Great Lie of the Divide
• The Freedom To Be Foolish

Maybe it shows up in…

• Your frustration with those clients who only see you as “one thing” and don’t see all of the other value you have to offer. (…But have you had the courage to invite them into a conversation that shifts what they see as possible in their work with you?)

• The compensation structure that keeps you working with clients in a way that feels schmarmy or inauthentic. (Which assumes that there is only one way to make good money, and it requires putting part of yourself aside to do it.)

• The job “security” that ties you to an organization whose client service philosophy doesn’t match yours. (Which assumes perceived security trumps authenticity.)

• The fear that clients wouldn’t trust you if they knew any other facet of you than just the confident, infallible, stoic, professional face you present to them.  (Pssst….here’s a secret… that’s the biggest lie of all!)

We ignore that dull ache, and then mindlessly numb the pain with the anesthetic of our choice – alcohol, work, food, consumerism, mindless media noise, emotional isolation.

All the while, maintaining the innovation-stopping, spirit-sucking divide that keeps us from doing our best and most inspired work, with clients who are – and continue to become – our raving fans.

But what if we assumed, just for a minute, that it is a lie.  A big myth that was fabricated by some lord of a fiefdom a zillion years ago to keep his workers “in check,” and we just continued to buy into it.

What if we assumed that, in fact, it is entirely possible to thrive financially, professionally, personally, and spiritually all at once.  And, in fact, by having the courage to question what it would take for you to operate from that undivided place — and the confidence to take action on it — that you would become more desirable to your clients.

More magnetic.

And absolutely indispensable.

Because, in fact, living that way is something your clients want too… and maybe they’ve just been looking for the role model to show them that it is actually possible.

What would you do differently in 2011 if you knew that your greatest success and fulfillment would emerge when you started live an undivided life?

Share your comments and ideas at The Great Lie of the Divide

As an advisor, your clients’ trust is the foundation of your business.  While your technical guidance and tactical execution are fundamentals of your practice, enduring client trust is built through your ability to connect deeply with those you advise.  In doing so, you increase your value to them by supporting them in opening to new perspectives, identifying the possibility present in a bigger vision, and helping them to define their goals and align their resources to support those goals.  It is through this client connection that your role transforms from the commoditized “technical resource” to the highly valued “trusted advisor.”

Most professionals who have chosen advisory-based fields—banking, financial advising, consulting, law, accounting, executive search, coaching—are drawn to becoming a trusted advisor to their clients.  And rightfully so.  Trusted advisors have deeper, more meaningful, more rewarding, and longer-term client relationships then their technically-astute-but-relationally-challenged counterparts.

Are you sabotaging your ability to become and remain your clients’ trusted advisor?

The Paradox

It may seem that the recipe for becoming a trusted advisor to your clients is to be the best at what you do—to have the greatest technical proficiency, be the smartest in the field, have the most respected network of colleagues and the most unrelenting dedication to those you serve.  Those components all have impact on client trust, but the most important and irreplaceable ingredient?  You.

In your best form, your combination of technical expertise, visionary intelligence, tactical execution, inherent wit (c’mon, of course you’re witty) and individual wisdom is a differentiator… it sets you apart from everyone else who, to the untrained observer, has the exact same offering that you do.

Feeling foggy-headed from too little sleep or edgy from too much caffeine? You’ll miss the subtle cue that your client is ready to shift his thinking from exploration to action, and the opportunity to illustrate your value by appropriately responding to that cue will be lost.

Show up to a client meeting with your thoughts still spinning on the 17 items on your “to do” list? Your clients know that you have brought only part of yourself to the meeting.  If you’re not investing time and full attention in them, they are not likely to invest money in you.

Feeling uncomfortable in your own skin? Diminished confidence in your physical or emotional being, for whatever reason, just looks and feels like  “lack of confidence” to your clients, and you begin to lose their confidence.

The Link Between Health and Client Trust

Physical fatigue, lack of mental clarity, stress exhaustion, and fractured focus diminish your ability to connect with clients, which is essential to building trust.

By honoring your health as a professional and personal asset, you not only fund a key element to the success and sustainability of your own practice, but you role model possibility to your clients and confirm their rightful choice of placing their  highest trust in you.

Share your comments and ideas at The Trusted Advisor Paradox