The Practice Doctor is IN

Al Depman, CLU, ChFC, CMFC, BH

Practice Management Consultant

A Simple Touch

What do all the following have in common?

• Jay Leno starting the Tonight Show by high-fiving audience members who mob him on the apron of his monologue circle.
• Politicians in a parade working the parents and children along the route.
• Concert-goers rushing the stage to get as close as possible to the band.
• A child snuggling close to a parent during a thunderstorm.

Answer: the yearning for touch; the desire for physical contact to complete the circuitry of a relationship.

As the world becomes “hotter and flatter” (per Thomas Friedman) in the information age, I get the sense that we may be evolving away from true relationships. This is an odd notion considering the explosion of networking opportunities provided by Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. My basic premise is this: a true relationship doesn’t exist between two people until they “touch.” 

There is the ever-popular question, “How many touches should I provide for my clients?” My answer is simple: you should literally “touch” your top clients once a year––an in-person handshake, hug, or slap on the back. Everything else can be passive: newsletters, e-contacts, birthday calls, updates, reports, mailers, statements, and the like. The number of these non-touch “touches” varies by advisor. I come down more on methodical quarterly contact with a couple of others in the mix, usually on a birthday and for an annual review.

Some advisors I work with have their clients receiving weekly e-mail feeds from a purchased service. These 52 contacts a year are augmented by e-statements, e-prospectuses, and e-proxies, e-blasts introducing new products and email threads about service issues.

However, let’s not forget the simple touch. It continues to cement the relationship.

No matter how many times you’ve spoken to, emailed, or even Skyped a client, until you actually touch them, it’s not a relationship. Let’s take a good client of mine, Scott.

Scott was referred to me in 2007. We began our consultations in November, going on a monthly teleconference schedule. The calls were fun, friendly, and informative. Over the phone, through the US Mail, and via many emails, we got to know each other, sharing information about families, faith, philosophy, and eventually Scott’s assistant Fran became part of the conversations.

Scott and Al – now this was a very strong relationship, one would think. 

Then came my invitation from Scott’s District Manager to address their August, 2010, meeting in Red Bank, NJ. Scott works in West Chester, PA, and suggested I fly into Philly, get a ride to Scott’s home, and we’d drive together to the meeting. I agreed. After picking up a rental car and following Scott’s directions, I arrived in front of his house. 

I’d seen his photograph, talked with him at least 30 hours over the years, had extensive notes on his practice, his assistant, his family, knew his likes and dislikes, and had a vague mental image of him based on his voice, laugh, and interactions with Fran during the calls.

Yet I was hesitant to actually meet him. I flashed back to a similar situation in the early days of the Internet, circa 1990, when I was on the dial-up service Prodigy. Being an old Trekker, I participated in a Star Trek group, the Observation Lounge. There were 20 of us, exchanging Trek opinions at first and eventually evolving to a generally freewheeling open forum. After a year or so of exchanging posts, one of the members, Bev, contacted me and said she was going be in my area for a Star Trek convention and asked if I would like to go with her. Yes! (Nerds have to stick together.) 

I thought I had a pretty good cyber-relationship with Bev but the person who arrived to pick me up was not anyone I expected. I was anticipating a demure, ponytailed 30-ish bespeckled woman in a Honda. The Bev that showed up was a wild-haired blonde with a broad smile driving a cherry-red Corvette. That was the real Bev, the person whose company I enjoyed for a day at the convention. Our subsequent on-line personas adjusted to that reality.

So in August, 2010, Scott came to the door––and yes, he was a different person than I had imagined. We shook hands and the relationship began anew on a totally different plane. I stood in his workspace, met Fran, observed the pictures on his desk, and had that one additional sensory input: touch. That’s been the difference ever since. Our work together since that road trip has had a deeper resonance. How? Before the touch, we just assumed I was working for the betterment of Scott’s practice––after all, he was paying for it. After the touch, there has been a more emotional investment in our interactions which goes beyond the dollars. We both care about each other’s success on a more intimate level these days.

I do much of my consulting work over the phone, webcasts, and Skype. Most of my clients are, as-yet, untouched in person. For better or worse, we have created cyber-versions of ourselves through which we interact, exchange best practices, and enforce a measure of accountability.  My feeling is that true accountability, like true relationships, may also only be achieved in real-life touches.  

Cameras and microphones enhance and detach our senses of sight and sound. Chemicals are able to fool our senses of taste and smell. Person-to-person touch remains the one sense we can rely on for cementing and maintaining relationships. Just like an email exchange can never take the place of a person-to-person (if not face-to-face) conversation, we all need that human touch.

If I were a top client of yours, I might ask: When was the last time we touched?

The Doctor is OUT!

Al Depman, CLU, ChFC, CMFC, BH, a.k.a. “The Practice Doctor”, is MitchAnthony.com’s Business Practice Consultant. He is the creator of “The Practice Management Assessment” tool and materials and has authored numerous articles in professional publications on practice management, and author of the book, How to Build Your Financial Advisory Business and Sell It at a Profit, now available from McGraw Hill. Al combined his Liberal Arts studies with 10 years of management experience with McDonald’s Corporation to enter the financial services world 25 years ago. Since then, Al has evolved from an MDRT-level sales rep into a full-time consultant specializing in helping others engineer their business practices to the next level. Contact him at al@mitchanthony.com.

© 2011 Al Depman