If you are a successful financial advisor you want to grow your business. but sometimes lack the resources and the data to make the best decision going forward. You tried to manage to service all your existing clients while having enough time with new ideal clients. Time management and managing capacity become a constant struggle. What is the logical path for your business and for your future?
Time management
Your Team. You know you need more time so you decide to grow your team. Do you need more administration office management project management additional advisors or all of the above? Expanding your team seems a logical step. Let me ask you one question before you add anybody else to your team. Will adding these people free up 400 or more hours of your time in a calendar year? The reason I use 400 hours is that is approximately 20% of your time ( 2000 hours per year x 20%) as the most successful financial advisors grow their business by 17-20% per year. If you add these people in 12 months and you cannot see an extra 400 hours, then look at other options.
Your Processes- Elite financial advisors have clearly mapped out processes in writing that are well documented. They have clearly segmented their clients and have two types of clients, ideal clients and everyone else. Do you have more than 2 segments? Elite financial advisors have mastered the use of technology in their practice, and use as much as possible to save them time. They also have fantastic time management habits, time management tools, and processes for managing their time. They are fantastic at delegating but are still struggling to manage capacity. Their processes help manage their capacity but don't help grow the practice.
Focus on capacity, not time management
What is the difference between time management and capacity? You could spend hours on Google and have debates, but I believe it comes down to interpreting cause and effect. You have to leave something behind to go forward. Time management doesn't tell you to leave anything behind it just tells you how to manage it and with whom. The brightest and smartest financial advisors took years to figure this out. They know that less is more. It's an easy question but difficult for most people to answer but I'm going to ask you today. What are you going to leave behind in your business to go forward? This is one of the hardest things for financial advisors to implement.
Growth strategy
More is not growth. More clients, more assets, and more revenue are just more. Growth comes in many forms. Growing your business sometimes means focusing on a specific group of ideal clients or families, Growing deeper relationships, and comprehensive advice that makes you innovate. Growth and innovation are part of learning. Innovation is growth because innovation makes you do something you've never done before. For example, I want to work with elite financial advisors so in order for me to grow I have to innovate my offering by advancing the advice in my practice management consulting business. I need to grow deeper relationships if I want to grow to the next level. But with innovation come mistakes and failure.
How do you manage failure?
Successful financial advisors aren't discouraged by failure. They see themselves trying to innovate their practice and they are students of the business means they are always learning. What if you weren't failing but you were learning would you proceed? For example, one Financial advisor recently asked me about buying another financial advisor practice. Before they went all in, they looked at what they will learn from this process and how that can help them manage their current business better. Along with proper due diligence, this approach seemed opposite to most advisors who are afraid of making a mistake. What have you learned from your past mistakes?
You have more capacity. Capacity management
Financial advisors have more capacity than they ever thought possible. How you view yourself and how you manage challenging times affects the way you run your practice. I also believe that a financial advisor's capacity is unknown and sometimes unknowable in the long run. Why is it that one advisor struggles to manage 50 million dollars of assets, when another financial advisor struggles at managing 1 billion dollars of assets? Do they have a growth mindset and are they better at managing capacity? This question still has me searching for answers and talking to financial advisors all over the world and trying to help you answer the same question. What's holding you back? What are you afraid of? If you look back five years ago did you think your practice would be this big today?
Managing your capacity
Focus on managing your capacity and not just your time. focus on growing your practice because that's how you're going to learn innovate and grow. You are going to learn from your mistakes, and the learning with help you grow. Focus on clearly defining ideal clients and families and helping them accomplish more than they thought possible. Focus on stretching yourself to learn something new and you will see your capacity start to grow. Remember, you have to leave something behind in order to go forward.
How about your goals for your practice in 2023?
Our Practice management resources - Comprehensive Practice Management checklist
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Sample: Comprehensive Financial Advisor Practice Management benchmarking report
Key data and KPI's, over 30 Key Performance indicators. Do want a sample benchmarking report to help you understand how to get the edge on your practice and your competition?
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Updated 2023 Technology Checklist for Financial Advisors
This checklist is five years' worth of research on the best processes elite financial advisors and their teams implement to acquire and service ideal clients while running an efficient practice.
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Related: 4 Talent Strategy Questions for Growing Financial Advisors and Firms