The last week I have spent considerable time speaking to senior leaders about their attitudes and outlooks as we close out 2008 and enter 2009.
Each of these individuals is uniquely qualified to comment as they are at the very center of the action. They are leaders in the industry at the vortex of it all – financial services.
Their titles are Presidents, EVPs, SVP, all in the sales world.
While my account of the more detailed story is still to be written, I did want to share some early observations.
Each interviewee was asked to describe the conditions at their firms using one word adjectives (note: not all descriptors are adjectives – who am I to correct?)
They offered:
anxiety
uncertainty
challenged
exhilaration
grateful
stressed
hopeful
anxious
edgy
worried
trust
transparency
integrity
fortunate
uncertain
optimistic
concerned
self-doubt
exhausted
shocked
stable
growing
Emotions are all over the board- for every concerned, anxious, and distracted person I spoke to, there is another person who is hopeful, grateful and optimistic.
Trust has been lost by the industry – regaining the trust will take years of work.
Clients, analysts and employees take every message with a grain of salt – not at all sure who has the true and correct story to believe.
Transparency is the new black – almost every interviewee used the descriptor, and as stated in an earlier post, it seems to be the current watch word.
In fact the velocity of ‘transparency speak’ is increasing everyday.
Plain English takes center stage – those that have the ability to simplify difficult concepts into easy, bit size chunks will win. Clients have no reason to believe the jargon speaker.
The days of the ‘I’m a hero because I sell a lot’ are gone. The tide has gone out and the bones of the marginal sellers are left on the shoreline.
The folks that did well because all ships were rising on the road to Dow 14,000 are soon to be unemployed. They have been found out.
There is hope though. If they commit to upping their game and get more deeply educated in the business they might survive.
The common theme of leaders today is ‘back to basics’.
Teaching clients the fundamentals, setting out the proper plan, increasing the level of hand holding and communication. There is also the need to get clients, and brokers, re focused on long term objectives versus short term moves.
While you are creating the plan, make certain you are operating from your position of strength. Introverted money managers make lousy seminar speakers.
Client defections have not started to effect brokers – yet. Most folks are too shocked to expend the energy to move their accounts. The shock is wearing off though, and if you are not proactive in your outreach your client is good as gone.
The outlook for 2009 is mixed. All believe the first half will be ‘sloppy’, ‘choppy’, ‘challenged’ and ‘hard’.
Most believe that the second half will improve.
A few see dark clouds for the next year as well.
The data is still being collected will continue to shared – please stay tuned for more.
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