Theodore Roosevelt
“People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”
This saying, often attributed to the 26th President of the United States, Teddy Roosevelt, speaks to me due to some eye-opening experiences at a recent internship in New York City. I feel it has high relevance for the world of investing, as an open and trusted relationship between advisor and client is key to success.
Boomerang is an HR Tech startup based in Union Square. It builds software that helps companies stay in touch with their former employees, so when the company has hiring needs, it can better tap into that pool of great candidates, who already know the company and ramp up into the new position much faster. In the HR industry, these hires are called “boomerang hires”, thus the name of the startup.
When I arrived for my first day, Jeff greeted me with a big smile: “Ready to go?” As a highly successful serial entrepreneur and Co-Founder/CEO, I was surprised to see his cubicle right in the middle of an open floor plan, with no privacy. He sat adjacent to his COO and offered me a desk right across from him, not unlike the ones in my high school library.
Jeff passed me to his COO, who was talented in organizing people and processes. The buzz began, the phone calls and headsets, an undertone of typing, and intermittent joking. I was invited to interview the staff one by one and learned not only about each of their respective functions (technology, sales, operations, marketing) but also how each of them related to Jeff, where everything connected. “It” became obvious.
Jeff gestured for me to join him around a speakerphone or to attend an in-person client meeting almost every day. I was an ever-listening fly on the wall, and the “it” became clear. Jeff had a way of communicating and connecting with people that dictated the structure and tone of each meeting. He didn’t jump right into numbers, analytics, or his pitch. Instead, he found a way to first connect with his counterpart on a meaningful personal level - their kids, interests, or hobbies. He built a relationship before pitching the sale.
During my internship, one of my key discoveries was that while the inherent talents of staff across multiple functions are vital to business operations, connecting on a human level is what permits leaders to lead their employees and salespeople to make the sale with their clients. For sure this insight carries over to investing, and the way financial advisors could (and often do) relate with their clients. Clients don’t care about all the technical expertise of the financial advisor until they know how much that financial advisor cares about them!
Further Reading:
Teddy Roosevelt – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt
Book on Behavioral Finance: Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work
Book: Selling with Emotional Intelligence - 5 Skills for Building Stronger Client Relationships
