Beware the Echo Chamber

I saw an interview recently related to research conducted on terror in the US and how certain types of people are being recruited and ‘brainwashed’ to support extreme causes.  The study was done by George Washington University and it focused on the isolating social dynamics of how vulnerable one becomes when surrounded by and interacting with only those that share a same thought or perspective.  He called it ‘the Echo Chamber’.  Think about it.  How entrenched have your opinions become with the advent of social media? How often have you self-selected friendships and/or ‘news sources’ based upon their violent agreement with your politics or worldview?  What you follow or like can literally become your only frame of reference for what’s going on in the world.

Admittedly less deadly, a leader placing him or herself into a self-induced ‘echo chamber’ is dangerous as well.  While it can be disruptive to have a leadership team that isn’t on the same page, its even more dangerous to have a team that echo’s your sentiment at every turn.  If there’s no tension, how do you grow?  If there’s no competing idea, then how do you make the idea better?

If you don’t have honest debate and dissent, then its easy to gloss over flat spots in your leadership style or business strategy.  You may even begin discounting or discarding the ideas of really bright people in your organization that see an issue or opportunity from a different perspective.  Eventually, those bright people leave and you are left with only those that think and do like you…and that’s a good recipe for disaster!

WWPD?

If Plato were alive today, I’m convinced he’d be the world’s greatest financial advisor.  His ability to create dialogue that leads to greater understanding and enlightenment is truly astounding.  For centuries, the Socratic Method has been embraced as the most effective way to learn and deepen knowledge.  Isn’t this the kind of symbiotic relationship we seek with a client?  Do we not want client relationships that are focused on deepening insight that leads to a better way of doing things?

What Would Plato Do?

Active Listening:  To have dialogue, one must listen.  Master the skill of active listening and taking notes.

The unexamined life is not worth living. — Socrates, from Plato’s Apology

Examine the Unexamined:  While Socrates is making a statement about having a life worth living, one can make the same statement for a financial plan worth having!  How many boiler plate ‘plans’ from a previous advisor have you seen when meeting with a new client?  Set yourself apart by examining the unexamined.  Examination leads to insight.  Insight leads to change and the strategic direction and action necessary to create change.  Deliver a plan that is based on insight and has impact…not one that is delivered just to sell product.

Chart the Course: Leading change takes patience and effort.  Creating a long-term strategy for your clients can take work, but its work worth doing.  Life can be complex.  Your clients are counting on you to show them the way home in a manner they can understand and also have some level of confidence they can execute the plan.  If the plan will be painful to implement, you must show them exactly how they can get there (maybe its through making cashflow or lifestyle changes) or the plan will gather dust on a shelf until they find another advisor.

Communicate Clearly:  Many times the difference between a plan that is implemented and realized by the client and one that isn’t gets down to how it is communicated.  Great communicators use imagery and symbolism to articulate what may be a very complex thing.  Working on ways to educate and communicate complex ideas with more everyday situations and analogies will increase your rate of plan adoption and the increase the amount of business you gain from each client interaction.  In addition to verbal communication, written communication that is clear and concise is key.  Delivering a clear set of written recommendations will not only show you’ve taken the time to deliver your thoughts specifically for your client, it also serves as a written summary to lead your clients down the path to saying, “Yes. Let’s do this!”

Practice the Art of Communication

Sharpen your craft by working on ways to communicate your ideas without ‘jargon’.  Develop written communication tools and ‘templates’ that improve your ability to communicate with the written word.  Find someone you trust to evaluate how things sound and how things read.  Practice communicating using ideas without jargon.  Practice using a whiteboard to illustrate.  Spend time on written recommendations and have someone without knowledge of the case review the document.  Schedule time with yourself and a peer to work on ways to be better and get better.  Professionals spend countless hours practicing and honing skills so that they perform at their best when the time comes.  So should you.

Its Not About You…

There is so much noise in the news over the last few weeks.  A landmark decision from the US Supreme Court on Marriage Equality, issues with a flag, taxes and, of course, there’s the issue of Greece defaulting on sovereign debt…again.  There are many ‘lightening rods’ driving opinion and emotion in our culture today.  And, with a 24/7 news and social media cycle, everyone seems to consume it in order to further entrench on ‘what’s right and what’s wrong’…for them.   Of course, what is right to one person isn’t right to the other and so it goes into a news cycle and social media fight for who wins an opinion war.

All of this noise and opinion gives you opportunity to provide the leadership your clients expect from you.

• Be the Clarity not the Noise: It’s good to acknowledge the news of the day, but it’s really just that…news.  Some of it is just a lot of noise and some of it are relevant inputs into what you and your client need to consider for how they move forward with what’s critically important to them — protecting and realizing their goals.
• Be Present:  Actively listen and truly seek to understand and value their perspective and their view of reality.  Seeking to understand puts you on their side of the table, not in a position of debating them on why you are right.  Leading change requires buy-in, trust and mutual respect.  Without that, you have no opportunity to change what needs to be changed.
• Be the Quiet in the Storm:  Reacting to things is the worst possible leadership position in which to find yourself.  Things happen everyday that you can react to…good or bad.  Your clients will react to things…and they will likely call you to discuss (sometimes in a panic).   Acknowledge those concerns, then have a meaningful discussion in context of the plan set in motion.  Help them discern what is meaningful or clutter and whether or not a change is required to keep their plan on track.

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” — Wayne Gretzky

Goals are not realized where things are now, but through having the clarity and foresight to be where things will be.  This simple fact is one of the reasons why your clients come to you.  They need you to lead them where they need to be, not to be mired in the noise of the day.  It’s not about you, your opinion or moral stance on issues.  It’s about you understanding where someone is and leading them where the need to go.

Breaking News: The World Isn’t Flat

When Science and Discovery proved the world wasn’t flat, it was a game-changer for how society viewed how things worked.  Think about that.  We went from believing that everything revolved around our flat planet and that nothing existed beyond us (even heaven and hell were visually tied to the world being flat)…to considering and accepting a totally different truth.  Now, we are in a world that sees itself as only a tiny part of a rapidly and infinitely expanding universe.  This same type of change has occurred in financial services.  If you don’t accept the new truth of how things work, you will either be forced to retire or move onto a different career because you will no longer have a viable business.

Recently, I discussed this aspect of practice management with a client.  He’s had his business for quite a while and has a very large book.  We agreed that today’s world isn’t how it used to be.  No longer is your job to sell a policy, 50 shares of ‘blue chip’ stock or a mutual fund account to ‘set it and forget it’, then move on.  Yet, “old school” agents and brokers hold onto clients and guard them like a voracious dog on the hope of a probable maybe that one of them will call them … eventually … maybe.

Today, your role is more involved, it emphasizes vision and advice and is less about any given product.  Firms are also changing how they compensate advisors so to incentivize them to work with smaller books of business.  If you are already in a fee-based world (even partially) you know that you can ill-afford to have 1,000 households when you only have the bandwidth to effectively work with 200-250.

So, the question is this:  How can you evolve your practice that is best for you and your clients?

Strategic Pruning Bears More Fruit

Much like a fruit tree, pruning your business improves productivity.  An actively pruned tree produces more, bigger and healthier fruit than a tree that isn’t pruned. Why? There are fewer branches competing for the same resources.  The same goes for your practice — having the right balance of clients will grow them to be a bigger and healthier part of your practice because there is more of your time to provide them with value.  You don’t need to prune all at once, but pruning consistently and with purpose will create a lot of value.

Consider these things as a way to refocus your practice:

80/20 Rule still applies

As with most things, Pereto’s Law is a good rule.  If you have 1,000 households, then its likely that 200-250 households produce roughly 80% of your annual revenue.  Focus on new ways to do business with the 200-250 households that truly drive your business.

Create ‘How I work…’ Segments, not ‘Product’ or ‘Financial Value’ Segments

Spend time viewing HOW you work with people and discover how that work stratifies into varying types of services.  Then, define and package those ways into segments through which you work with your clients. The beauty of this approach is that the ‘less wealthy’ clients you value will not feel ‘devalued’ and your higher net worth clients will feel they are getting the attention they feel they need.

Share your segments with each client. Have discussions about how you organize your work and ask them how they want to work with you.  You will uncover immediate opportunities simply because a client desires a deeper relationship with you and now they know how to ask for it.  You will also find your refer-ability goes WAY up because your clients can describe their experience in a way well beyond a product that, quite honestly, is available everywhere.

Begin with the End in Mind

Build ‘strategic pruning’ into your practice.  Is it shifting opportunities to a new advisor in your practice or actively assigning low-engaged clients to your home office?  There are a lot of ways that work, the key is to have a plan to consistently prune your business over time.

A lot goes into this concept, like testing your model financially, tagging segments in your client system, getting buy-in on where your low-engaged (pruned) clients will go and validating how work flows through your office.  With all of this said, embracing the truth of this changing world will bring new opportunities and will create the best possible outcomes for your clients, you and the firm(s) you represent.

Is your Client having an affair?

The meetings have gone well.  They’ve engaged you in a meaningful way and have been open to your suggestions.  You have a full view of their situation and you’ve developed a compelling strategy that falls in line with their expectations.  You are excited to share it with them, you love to see work fulfilled with full implementation of your recommendations over time.  The initial accounts are open and funded.  So far, so good…

Storm Front Coming

Now, you are scheduling time for the part of the strategy that they themselves loved and embraced.  Yet…you are having trouble getting on their calendar.  You have a phone call or two that validates the strategy with one hand and questions ‘all of their eggs in one basket’ with the other, but they can’t seem to commit to the next meeting.  They ask more technical questions that seem to be seeded in doubt — why this product over that?  What about costs?  I’ve read that Clark Howard says that’s a bad idea, etc.

You know what is happening…after all, you’ve been the ‘other advisor’, right?  You remind them of the planning, strategizing, ideation…the multiple meetings and phone calls that built mutual trust and context.  You recall all of the hours of work you’ve invested.

Then, it happens. You find out that your client has been cheating on you.  Even worse, they even called you (excitedly) to tell you about it!! “We finally took your advice! We are implementing the strategy you’ve been talking with us about doing.  Thanks for looking out for us!” Or, “Thanks so much for the analysis, I had no idea I was so short on life insurance.  We took care of that and feel so much better now.”

Did you slam the phone down?  Did you pound out an angry reply to that e-mail (then saved it before you sent it)?  What went wrong, you  wonder?  What happened to the relationship of your new ‘A’ Client?

Four Steps to Faithful Client

• Set mutual expectations up front:  Boundaries bring clarity.  Having a thoughtful discussion about what they want from you and what you are willing to provide them is critical.  With a published set of mutual expectations and scope of work, both (client and advisor) have a clear sense of what to expect and to whom to go for what.  For example: you may exclude health insurance, property/casualty insurance from the scope of what you offer directly, yet as a part of planning you may recommend that they purchase an umbrella policy to cover liability.
• Be Specific and Actionable:  When you make recommendations, put them in writing and give specific solutions along with illustrations or hypotheticals.  Be prepared to do the business then and there.  Being specific (with 1-2 different options) will communicate to your client that you’ve put thought to this, you believe in it…and, most importantly, you expect them to do the business with you.
• Remind your Client of how you make a living:  Do not shy away from discussing compensation.  Even with regulation pushing for transparency…you should be anyway! This is your business, your livelihood.  In no uncertain terms, both parties should understand that there will be compensation associated with any economic transaction that occurs with your relationship.
• Be Present:  Of course, be present…always.  Be prepared to listen…even to things you don’t want to hear.   If your client is ‘cheating’ on you, it might be because they were looking for something different than you were ultimately providing them.  If your expectations and scope of work don’t align with your clients’ perspective…then, ultimately, the client will work to tell you what they want/don’t want or just leave altogether.  For more on being present, read this blog post.

If you have client infidelity, then have an open and honest discussion with them.  It’s quite likely they meant no harm or didn’t connect their buying decision with your livelihood. Or, they never expected to go to you for every solution (even if they got the idea from you).  Regardless of why things happened, chances are that you were both unclear as to your mutual expectation for the relationship.  Reset the relationship by discussing mutual expectations and scope and move on.

Tradition or Truth?

There comes a time when you are faced with the choice of leaving the comfort of tradition or finding a better way.   Traditions have value, for sure.  They provide comfort and a sense of belonging.  They can also provide a false sense of truth.  Your most important role as an advisor is leading your client to the moment of that choice, then through the change associated with the choice.

The Holiday Ham

A husband walks into the kitchen to find his wife preparing the ham for her first big family holiday dinner.  She’s struggling with cutting off both ends of a perfectly good ham.  He asks why cut the ham at all?  She gives him a look and says, “Well, because this is the family recipe.”  He shrugs and leaves the room, finds his mother-in-law to ask about the ham.  She says, “That’s how we’ve always made it. You should ask my mom, I got the recipe from her.”  So, the husband goes to the matriarch of the family to ask her about the ham.  She answered, “Well, when we were a young, married couple we had a small kitchen and an even smaller oven.  Cutting both ends of the ham was the only way I could make it fit in the pan.” Sometimes, we so greatly value tradition that we forget to ask the question ‘why’.  What made perfectly good sense 50 years ago in a small kitchen and even smaller oven, no longer fits the new reality of bigger kitchen complete with full-size, double ovens.

What Would Plato Do?

Sometimes, tradition and perception is so valued that one can be blinded to a new, better way or a greater truth.  Much like Plato’s dialogue in the Allegory of the Cave, our clients, even when freed, will still sit in the shadows and comfort of traditional ways.  Even when the better choice is clear, your clients still may seek the comfort of how things have always been — after all, the devil you know is better than the one you don’t know, right?  Even after the initial acceptance of a new way or strategy, they may pull back to what they’ve known.  Provide the leadership they came to you for.  Keep going back with them to where they were (meet them where they are and from where they came) and keep pulling them forward with the new and better way you’ve charted for them.  Eventually, they will stay in the ‘light’ and never look back.

Leading change takes vision and confidence, your clients rely on you to keep pulling them forward even though they may show some resistance to change.  Overcome resistance with patience, understanding and education, not brute force.  They need your leadership to gain perspective, insight and confidence.  When they are ready, its your job to lead them away from those shadows of tradition and into the light of a better truth.

The Power of Why

True change begins with dialogue and mutual understanding.  ‘Why’ is a very powerful word to initiate change.  Asking why in an artful way gives you a tremendous amount of information as to where someone is and how they got to you.  Much like the story of the ham, context is important.  The journey is important too.  Use the power of ‘why’ to meet them where they are and understand where they have been, then lead them where they need to go.

Don’t Be Flat

The role of financial advisor can be lonely in terms of friendships that are distinct from your business.  Part of that is self-fulfilling.  You are encouraged to mine and re-mine your ‘natural market’ for new business.  The thought is that your best clients will come from those you already know or are friends/colleagues of those that you know.  There is merit to that, for sure.  As time goes on, though, the lines between client and friend become increasingly blurred and once-strong personal, non-client, relationships begin to die on the vine.  If you don’t keep personal relationships active, then your ‘friends’ become your clients or colleagues with your firm and your true friendships become less meaningful.   Your client might be well-liked and they may like you, but don’t forget that you are providing a valued service — there will be many economic transactions over time.  You are an advisor to them and they are a client to you.  Understand the difference between a friendship and well-liked, mutually respected advisor/client relationship.

Well-Rounded Clarity

Be committed to how you want to build your practice and with whom you wish to build it.  Give importance to the slices of life that need to thrive and coexist with your business.  Have Clarity on these things.  It will help you realize that not everyone is a client or potential client.  It will enable you to set boundaries with your clients and business associates as to when you are available and when you aren’t.  They have families and personal commitments in their life and they will respect that you do as well.

Value Personal Time and Commitments.  Running your own practice can be liberating and make you feel captive all at the same time.  You are your own boss and you make your own schedule.  You are also a fiduciary and that carries a weight that doesn’t exist in most other vocations.  For me, I decided that I  never wanted to miss dinner or important events (coaching sports, school concerts, etc).  If I could help it, I would not schedule a meeting that kept me from dinner and early evening with my family.  When making calls, I would do so after the din of the evening or schedule them for early in the day the following morning or during office hours.

Make certain friendships sacred ground.  You NEED friends whom you trust that are not involved with your business. You need mental and physical space where you can step away from being an advisor and just be you.  Besides your spouse, you need relationships with whom you can fully expose and discuss what is going on in your life (and sometimes your practice).  These friendships might be lifelong — a fraternity brother or sorority sister, an old teammate or classmate, a former colleague or mentor — or they might be new friendships.  Old or new, find time and space to grow and deepen those relationships.

If you haven’t read Who’s Got Your Back by Keith Ferrazzi, then stop reading this and buy the book right now.  It should be on your bookshelf or nightstand weathered and torn from use…or re-read several times on your Kindle.  Do you know who has your back?  If you don’t, then make this a focus over the next year.  Focusing on this part of your life will enrich it beyond measure and your business-self will thank you for it as well!

Be involved in things beyond yourself.  Find volunteer opportunities that have nothing to do with building your business.  This might be coaching youth sports, being a scout leader or mentoring through big brother/big sister.  Find your passion to give your time and talent without business cards in your wallet.

Be the Lion or the Gazelle…either one will do

Let’s face it.  Financial advisors are hunters not farmers.  A colleague once said to me in passing, “Well, I have to kill what I eat.”  That phrase evoked an image for me of a man coming home from the hunt with empty hands…his mate has the fire going and the children are ready to eat, but he has no food.  Now, I’m not recommending the practice of killing clients and bringing them home for dinner, but that image stuck with me.  It created a sense of urgency and a daily reminder that I needed to always be ‘on the hunt’ for new clients, new opportunities and different ways of doing things.   Being active matters.  Motion matters. Having purpose matters.

Life on the Serengeti

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.” – Christopher McDougall 

Being a financial advisor is much like living on the Serengeti…it takes a little luck and good fortune to survive.  Building and growing your practice is hard work.  It takes passion, energy and effort.  Getting over the hump takes a bit of good fortune.  So, the more days you get up and start running…the more likely it is that you will find good fortune.

Four thoughts on running with purpose:

Use Friday for Monday — By the time the last bell rings for market close on Friday, you should have a decent idea what the next week looks like (scheduled meetings and what prep work is required, follow-up on business from the current or previous week, etc).  Never have a ‘blank slate’ on Monday morning…always have an agenda going into the week.  Then…shelve it and enjoy the weekend.  Be present for your spouse, family and friends and find ways to recharge your batteries.  Unless you have a seminar or event planned, don’t be an advisor, don’t talk shop…just be you!

Get an early start — On the east coast (US), the financial markets open at 9:30am.  I always found that I was most productive when I was the first one into the office.  There’s something calm, cool and collected about being the one to turn on the lights and get the coffee started for the day.  It felt ‘still’ to me and, as such, I felt I could still shape my agenda for the day.

Have a routine — Much like hitting a golf ball, a good pre-shot routine gets your body and mind prepared to execute well…so goes the daily routine to start the day.  For me, it was opening the office, turning on the lights, getting the coffee started and firing up my laptop.  By the time I logged in to the network, the smell of coffee beckoned me to fill my mug with the strongest cup (yes, I took it before the pot finished brewing).  With the smell of coffee and the warmth of the mug, I was ready to chart my day.  Then, I was off and running with a purpose.  I had my agenda and worked to see it through.  Find what works for you and make this the part of the day you don’t go without.

Strive for Five — Work to grow your business.  Each day, make 5 good contacts with prospective clients or with clients to ask for referrals.  Spend a part of each day planting seeds to sow in the future.  If every week was only 20% effective, you’d have 200+ new client meetings every year.  I don’t care what your compensation looks like…with that kind of activity, you will have a very rewarding career.

Doing these four things and making them your own will not guarantee a perfect week, but it will give promise for a productive one.

Are you Clarity or Noise?

“I outperform benchmarks.”

“Our research is better”

“We are on the cutting edge”

“Our fees are lower”

Do your clients really care about these things? Possibly.  Are these things why you have them as a client? Probably not.

Imagine being the client.  Investment returns are strong, but you don’t have the accessibility to your advisor you’d like to have.  When you do speak, the conversation is filled with double-speak, technical jargon that only Warren Buffett himself can understand — you feel spoken to; not conversed with.  Your relationship feels more solid with an assistant or the voicemail system than the one you have with the person that set out to be your ‘trusted advisor’.

Sure, returns are good now, but how much control does your advisor REALLY have with what the market can do or will do?  Can you trust that you can reach him or her when you need that conversation the most?  Will it be a clear and meaningful conversation or will you need 2 Excedrin to dull the senses from all that jargon swimming around your head?

Is this a successful relationship?  I’d argue no.  I’d also argue that it is just a matter of time before it becomes a former relationship.

What ended the relationship?  “Performance” was good, you got the quarterly review that was seasoned with the occasional lunch or round of golf, the firm has a good reputation.  It is more that likely what ended this relationship is what usually ends most relationships —you were seeking one thing from the relationship and getting something else in return.  It’s quite likely you wanted presence and clear, timely advice you could trust…what you got in return was ‘performance’ and technical ‘expertise’ and jargon.

The reality is that with ubiquitous access to portfolio management, investment theory, investing ‘experts’ and talking heads on the radio or cable news, your clients are not coming to you for that kind of success either.  They can go find any number of funds or ETFs that consistently ‘beat their benchmarks’.  This time of year, advertising is flooding the airwaves and cyberspace with Lipper Award and 5-star Morningstar funds.  Your clients don’t need you for that.  It is more likely that they are sitting in front of you because they need clarity amongst the noise.  They need insight into what all of it means to THEM, not what it should mean to everyone else.

Your clients want a present advisor that is actively involved in their financial life and can clearly communicate progress, issues, opportunities and concerns.  They want a trusted guide that can chart the course to fulfilling and protecting their goals and dreams (financially) in a way that is ‘best fit’ for them.  They expect good performance and knowledge, but that’s available almost everywhere and they don’t even need a financial advisor to get it.  Your clients and other advisors’ clients thirst for clarity and presence.  If you aren’t quenching this thirst, then it’s just a matter of time before someone else does.

I work with advisors on ways to dampen the noise for their clients with clarity and presence.  We work together so that every interaction they have with a client (and future clients) delivers insight and meaning in a refreshing and thirst-quenching way.  Let’s get started today!

What is Success (and how do I know when I get there)?

How many times have we viewed success by portfolio performance, assets under management, how many ‘sales’ we made, qualifying for an ‘incentive trip’ to Hawaii? How many times have we fallen short of those goals?  How much of that do we really control — directly control with our actions? (Spoiler Alert: None of them)

We all want successful outcomes yet, without the right approach, those things are simply a tempting mirage leaving us empty and unfulfilled when we think we get there.  You see, with a mirage, there is no ‘there’.  Often how we define success and set goals is just a mirage that is never reached.

So, what is success?  Have you defined that for you in a way that you can directly control and influence?  If you haven’t, then how can you successfully shape how your client(s) view it and define it for themselves?

Success = Presence

Realizing your goals starts with having a daily standard for how you are present for others…and in what way your presence makes an impact in the lives of others.  You and I have direct control over how present we are for people in our daily life.  As a financial advisor, that presence is critically important to the lives of your clients.  As you fill that critical need for your clients, those successful outcomes you strive to realize for you, your family and business are sure to follow.

Recently, I discussed this with a client.  I asked him how he viewed success and he replied, “90% of my success is just showing up.”  Think about that…let it sink in.  90% of his success is just showing up.  This led us to a richer discussion and definition of ‘showing up’.  As we broke down the meaning of what was said, he was really finding his success in being present for his client in a meaningful way.  He came to understand that while he’s choosing to be ‘expert’ in a certain aspect of financial planning and investing, that expertise pales in perceived importance to that of his being present.  A client EXPECTS that you know what you are doing…that’s the cost of entry into doing what you do.  What sets you apart is how present you are to each and every client you have.

Being present last week isn’t as important as being present today.  What happened last week is last week.  Everyday is a new day and a successful day should be one where we are present in a meaningful way for each person we encounter (a client, the coffee shop barista, our spouse and kids).

Are you current on your lease?

I have a 12 year old son.  He’s a great kid and pretty athletic.  He’s getting to that age to where he’s deciding if he really wants to be a future Heisman Award winning quarterback at Auburn University or not.  He’s beginning to learn the expensive price (in terms of effort and commitment) that is paid every day to achieve that kind of goal.  Occasionally, I’ll send him a quote or picture that he might find helpful.  This is something that we should all remember…regardless of what we do in life:

Success is about having a plan that utilizes your passion, your talent and your ability to be present for others in such a way that they too can find success in what they are doing — each and every day.  Being successful in this way is not a durable good.  Everyday our ‘lease’ on success must be renewed and paid forward to the next day.

While you can never ‘reach success’, you can live successfully — for your clients, for everyone in your life and for yourself.  What success is for you and how you choose to define it…and live it, will be critical to being the ‘trusted advisor’ you sought to be when you started your practice.  As a coach and a mentor, I help financial advisors define their own success standards, develop plans to achieve those standards and reap the rewards of being present with their clients. Contact me here to get started.

Transform Your Practice to be Truly Successful

Whether you are a seasoned veteran or just starting your journey, being a financial advisor in today’s world is challenging to say the least.  Trying to keep up with market dynamics, insurance, planning tools and constantly changing regulatory guidelines can feel like a full-time job in and of itself.  Of course, there is marketing your practice, making calls, client meetings and prep work and still finding time to attract new clients to your practice.

With all the noise, it can be challenging to work on your practice while you are doing everything you can to work in your practice.  I work with financial advisors that are serious about building pause into their practice to make it better and more meaningful for themselves and their clients.  Working together we gain perspective, build strategies for working more effectively and delivering greater value.  We work on what we can control and improve and push aside the things we cannot control but in which we can only participate.

I created this blog as a way to share perspective and germinate ideas for those I work with and for those who may see the value of working with a mentor and coach that has walked in their shoes and can lend perspective and ideas that are immediately actionable and will have an immediate impact on their business.

Enjoy the blog and participate freely.  For further information on how I work with financial advisors, agents or other financial services professionals, please contact me for further information.