Faces Behind the Letters campaign showcases Canada's top financial services talent
The key to building a client’s trust is ‘sweating the small stuff,’ according to a Canadian Securities Institute alumnus, featured during this year’s Faces Behind the Letters campaign.
Helping clients out with trivial issues shows you are committed to working on every aspect of their financial future for the long term, says Lampros Parousis, wealth advisor with TD Wealth Private Client Group. It’s a tactic he has used to build trust with clients over his 15-year career as a wealth advisor
“If you are going to put that much effort into the smaller issues…,” explains Parousis. “…the client can only imagine how much effort you will put into the larger ones.”
Parousis – who holds a FCSI, which is considered the most senior credential in Canadian financial services – is one of nine CSI’s alumni chosen to share their professional success stories during the Faces Behind the Letters campaign. The purpose of the campaign – which runs October 2013 through January 2014 – is to highlight leaders in Canada’s financial services industry, while showcasing what it takes today to be a successful financial advisor.
“All of them (the alumni) would say that they’re business starts and ends with customer trust,” says Dylan Fedy, CSI’s director of marketing strategy. “The (CSI) designations help them stand out a little bit … they are able to service more complex needs. Those are additional benefits they can bring to their customers.”
Parousis – who believes CSI’s work helps professionals gain a foothold in the industry – says a common industry ailment is that advisors are often seen from just one side of the box – solely providing clients with advice on investment products. This, he says, is a limited view that needs to be rectified. To do so, Parousis believes advisors must prove to their clients that they encompass all four sides of the box, which he outlines as trust, experience, education and care.
“Caring leads to trust and trust builds from experience and education,” Parousis says. “(We must) take a look at the advisor from different angles. It is this multi-faceted. There are more sides than just one.”
