Advisor Insights

Cleveland: “I didn’t know what I was getting myself into” said Bill on a recent coaching session. He was referring to a conversation he just had with his neighbor, a prominent attorney in the area with a plethora of affluent connections.

Bill had been doing his homework. He found out that his neighbor was part of a running group that met every Tuesday. The group consisted of the attorney’s two law partners, several notable doctors and a few local businessmen – a Rainmaking goldmine.

With a little preparation, Bill was prepared to capitalize. He called his neighbor and asked to be personally introduced to some of his running group friends. He offered to treat them all to lunch or maybe cocktails after work. However, the attorney had a different path in mind.

He said, “Better yet, you used to be a runner, I’ll just steer the group by your house on Saturday morning and you can join us for a jog.” Bill quickly agreed, knowing the tremendous opportunity at hand. By the end of the call, he realized what he’d done – hence the call into our office. Bill had committed to a 15 mile run; the only problem being that he hadn’t ran in three years, much less trained for 15 miles.

Just when he had overcome the mental hurdle of asking for the introduction, a new, more physical challenge was staring him down. What’s the takeaway from this little vignette?

Simply put – comfort zones. It was uncomfortable for Bill to ask his neighbor for the introduction (he had never done this before). Yet he overcame this hurdle, asked for the introduction and now has connections to some very wealthy people.

It was just as uncomfortable, some might say stupid, for him to run 15 miles. Yet he agreed to the run, trained for it (in 3 days), and made it to the finish line so he’d have a chance to interact with everyone after the run.

It’s easy for us to conceptualize growth from a physical perspective, but not as easy from a mental perspective. If you want to become a marathoner, you research how others have done it, set very concrete goals, train regularly, and push yourself to improve.

The mental comfort zone, especially in business, rarely gets this type of attention. Lofty goals are set, robust business plans are created, but the training required is non-existent. Not much different than Bill attempting to run 15 miles without having run for three years. It’s no wonder that less and less advisors are reaching the elite levels of the business (only 1.3% were Rainmakers in 2009). The disconnect between intentions (goals) and the actual results is wider than ever, largely because the necessary actions (training) required to achieve these goals isn’t happening.

For that reason, we thought it might be helpful to offer a few tips for making 2010 the Year of Rainmaker Training:

• Set a Big Goal – This needs to be difficult enough to light your internal fires of motivation, but not so difficult that it’s unrealistic.
• Create an Activity Regimen – Fill your calendar with the activities directly linked to the big goal you’ve set. This is your training schedule.
• Deliberately Practice – Master the art of selling to the affluent by deliberately practicing specific sales skills. You need to be seamless in explaining what you do, offering second opinions on portfolios, socially networking, closing for appointments and so on.
• Push Yourself to try new prospecting activities – What you’re currently doing is likely to produce the same results. If you’re looking to raise the bar, try something new, even if it makes you feel a little uncomfortable at first.

This all boils down to good old-fashioned dedication and hard work. Today’s affluent expect nothing but the best, so make the commitment, push yourself (mentally and physically, and the future is yours!

Greensboro: “I’ve heard you speak about process when it comes to building elite financial teams. Can you help our team put the right structure in place? I feel like we just don’t have the right model for dealing with the affluent.” said Tina, an advisor who recently called our office. Her question hit the heart of a major issue; written procedures for critical team functions. Through our coaching, we've found that many teams fall into two very different traps:

• Having no process at all – essentially “flying by the seat of their pants”
• Having way too much process – having rules, processes and procedures for the simplest of tasks

Both of these issues take equal toll on team efficiency. Our current market crisis has prompted a flood of calls regarding our coaching services. Many advisors are inquiring about affluent sales training, but there’s another group who’s more concerned with creating a more efficient practice. The increase in client service required by this market crisis has forced many teams to re-examine their bandwidth, processes and support staff.

The ironic thing is that teams like Tina’s who come to us for help with "processes" are often those who already have too many in place. To be certain, there must be enough process to guide the daily actions of both advisor and support staff. Process should drive the signing of new clients, the scheduling of appointments and your service model. And those areas are simply the starting point.

However, process becomes too much when it becomes so cumbersome, so tedious, that team members spend more time minding the process than doing their job. For instance, we've worked with teams who've had one hour team meetings every day, procedures for triple-proofing outgoing emails, six page outlines after client or COI meetings, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. I’m not kidding; we’ve actually seen these procedures in action.

Process overload keeps these advisors buried in their office rather than in the affluent playing field. They have less personal time with clients, get far less referrals, and keep their affluent circles lean. None of which is good.

The Prescription

You may not be as overloaded with process as the team referenced above, but as we enter a new year and plan for 2010, everyone needs to examine where they stand regarding process.

For Teams Suffering from Process Overload

Just as we advised for Tina, plan a meeting and instruct each team member to come prepared with three ways to increase efficiency. This usually involves 3 ideas for eliminating redundancies. Not all of these ideas will be implemented, but all should be considered with an open mind. You’ll be surprised at the good ideas this tactic can generate. The idea is to come away from this meeting with concrete action items for both reducing non-essential workload and increasing client and prospect schmooze time.

For Teams with Too Little Process

Commit yourself to adding some structure to your team. You can’t afford to go “half-cocked” into one of the biggest prospecting opportunities of our lifetime. As part of your 2010 business plan, create a simple guideline for each of the following team functions:

• Bringing on new clients
• Holding client reviews
• Conducting performance reviews
• Monitoring regulatory compliance
• Delivering comprehensive wealth management solutions
• Conducting effective weekly team meetings
• Delivering personalized client service
  
  

This is all about balance. Teams need structure, but not micromanagement. Tina took the initiative to re-examine and in some ways rebuild her team’s operations. They’ve streamlined their practice, eliminated wasted effort, and created a concise practice manual that provided the structure within which the team could operate. This did more tan improve overall efficiencies; it provided a welcome bit of peace of mind to the team leader. The end result was certainly worth the effort.