Creating WOW experiences for clients is key to setting yourself apart from the competition. But to deliver these experiences consistently, Senior Director of Knowledge Labs^® Professional Development Lindsay Troxell says two steps are crucial: Defining your vision for the future and developing your ideal client persona.

As a consultant who has worked with financial professionals for many years, I’ve always found it surprising that individuals rarely come to me for help with a specific issue in their own practice. Instead, they want to know what other firms are doing to be successful.

The answer to that question is pretty simple: Financial professionals who truly stand out in this industry are constantly creating what we on the Knowledge Labs^® team at Janus Henderson call WOW experiences. These are experiences that surprise and delight the client – experiences that they tell their friends and family about for weeks or years to come.

When I explain that it’s this type of highly curated, innovative type of client experience that can set them apart, virtually everyone is on board with the idea. Then comes the part where I explain the preparation that needs to be done to pull this off.

The good news is that anyone can create WOW experiences. But it’s the preparation that is essential to making these experiences part of your “business as usual.” Put simply, you can’t WOW your clients consistently without doing two things: Define your vision for the future and develop your client persona.

Define Your Vision for the Future

Have you ever thought about what you want your practice to look like next year, or in five years? Revisit those thoughts. Give yourself time and space to develop them into a full vision. Chances are, a lot of the work has already been done, but you may need to block off an hour on your calendar or dedicate a long walk to think more in depth about this.

Once you have formed your vision, write it down. In my opinion, this is the most important part. When we put our thoughts down on paper, they become more “real” and we tend to hold them in our minds on a deeper level. By writing down your vision for the future, what you need to do to get there will become clearer.

I want to point out that this exercise is directly related to your mindset. It isn’t some magical skill that some people are better at than others. If you believe it will be too difficult, it will be. Hopefully, you will find that setting a clear direction for the future feels good on its own, but it’s also key to your ability to consistently WOW your clients.

Develop Your Client Persona

Now that you have a vision for the future, you need to become clear on who you’re building it for by seeking out the types of clients who align with that vision. This is your super-niche client base, otherwise known as your Unique Business Tranche (UBT), which we discussed in a recent post.

Think about this niche group of clients: What do they value? What are they afraid of? What is the problem you’re helping them solve for? We can’t create a curated experience that will surprise and delight and WOW them if we can’t answer these essential questions. However, it’s important to note that knowing the answers to these questions and isn’t a one-off exercise; it’s an ongoing process through which you are constantly learning about what motivates and inspires the clients within your UBT.

When your clients are hyper-specific to your business, they become infinitely easier to provide WOW experiences for. For example, if your unique business tranche is Gen X social media influencers with multiple streams of passive income, you might be able to share their content or send them an interesting article on social media algorithms. These are WOWs that can be individualized but also replicated across your client base.

Remember that it’s always okay to go back and revisit your vision for the future and your client persona if you feel they are not working for your business. In fact, sometimes it’s actually better to fail and pivot so you can find what serves you and your clients best.

Once you’ve completed these two crucial steps, you are well on your way to becoming known for delivering exceptional client experiences based on a specific set of interests and preferences, instead of becoming lost among the financial professionals who are following the same generic mission statement. In other words, you will know what other financial professionals are doing to be successful. In a word:  WOW…