The Advisor's Sales Academy and Mastermind Growth Group are the latest efforts from The Collaborative that it believes will create a new breed of highly motivated and productive financial advisors.

The Collaborative, a New England consulting firm, has created the Advisor's Sales Academy to help advisors of all sizes boost their “soft skills” such as behavioral knowledge and ultimately become better sellers.

The ASA is an online program offering lectures, webinars and other practice management materials all centered on building strategic client relationships.

These tools “have been proven to increase sales and improve a firm's bottom line,” according to The Collaborative, which is run by investment industry author and sales consultant, Beverly Flaxington.

“The goal we set for The Advisor's Sales Academy and the Mastermind Growth Group was to teach financial advisors those skills which will enable them to become adept at delivering what we call 'high impact communication'," Flaxington said.  

(The Mastermind Growth Group was created for advisors who are "doing a lot right," but who want to get better at adding AuM as well as boost client referrals and train the next generation of advisors, for example.)

“High impact communication is what drives sales and increases margins,” Flaxington added. “The whole point of this project is to take everything we offer in our consulting package and replicate it within an educational framework.”

During the Family Office Exchange 2014 Wealth Advisor Forum, Tom Rogerson, senior managing director and family wealth strategist at Wilmington Trust, spoke about how family office advisors can differentiate themselves by enhancing how they communicate as a team and - most crucially - with prospects and clients. The essence of the talk was that the process of selling integrated wealth advice should be skewed more towards convincing clients that they need to change their approach to wealth management, and not start by focusing exclusively on them buying a firm's services (see more here.)

The Collaborative's division, Advisor's Trusted Advisor, provides tools specific to financial advisors and wealth managers.