Take three steps back and decide on the life you want.
Have you ever wondered why some financial advisors
have the kind of businesses they want, while others don't? It's really
no big mystery. They simply took three steps back and made the
important choices that led them to their current success.
To create the business you want, start by taking the
first step back: Decide what kind of life you want. Do you know exactly
how you want to spend the next 10, 20 or 30 years? When you decide how
you want your life to look and why, you're ready to take the second
step and create a financial game plan.
It almost goes without saying that there's a
financial component involved in creating the life you want. Therefore,
step two is to figure out how much money you need to live the life you
want. You also need to consider the time component: How much time are
you willing to invest today in order to earn for your future? Most
people are willing to sacrifice some quality of life today so they can
achieve a better quality of life in the future, but if that sacrifice
gets too big, then their willingness to continue eventually diminishes.
By figuring out how much money you need and how much
time you're willing to work, you're ready for step three: figuring out
how to invest that time. When you know what you want your life to look
like and how you're willing to invest your time, you'll quickly realize
that you don't have any time to waste.
I'm sometimes criticized for telling advisors not to
spend their time poring over the financial news or becoming
overeducated, which I define as spending more time trying to understand
the market, economics, how world events affect the markets and
investment selection than is incrementally beneficial to your clients.
(Notice that I did not recommend that you be a complete financial
idiot.) I also tell advisors not to waste time educating clients, not
only because your clients don't need to be educated about every aspect
of financial services in order to make good decisions (they don't), but
also because you don't have time to become an expert in all things
financial.
The good news is that what produces a simpler and
better life for you also creates better results and value for your
clients. Our experience shows that clients are much better served when
you organize a "deliverables team" that is dedicated to making sure
your clients achieve their goals regardless of what happens in the
market, the economy or the world. Whether you're 22 years old and a
brand-new advisor, or 65 years old with decades of experience, your
personal time in the business will never match the collective wisdom
and experience you can put to bear toward your client's best interest
when you assemble a team of competent, professional, trustworthy money
managers, financial plan writers, insurance experts, tax professionals,
attorneys, etc., to work for you and your clients.
Don't delude yourself into thinking, "Once I get my
arms around all this stuff, my business will really take off." All that
stuff is impossible to "get your arms around." It's simply too much
stuff, coming from too many sources, and there's simply not enough
time. You have too many clients and too many variables to ever be able
to manage in the finite amount of time that you can dedicate to your
business without letting the rest of your life falling apart. Do you
know why you feel like there's never enough time?
Because there isn't enough time to run the business you have or are trying to build.
If you want your business to take off, focus your
attention on the only three things that matter: acquiring new clients,
serving your existing clients and managing your staff handling the
administrative details of your business. Unfortunately, many advisors
get so consumed with putting out administrative fires, money
management, investment selection, insurance products, annuities,
account aggregation systems, client service platforms, CRM software,
staying current with tax laws, etc., that they don't have time to
acquire enough great clients or run a great business. They rationalize
that their business isn't as successful as it could be because they
have to spend their time "serving" their clients. It's a real trap that
actually leaves most clients underserved and most advisors less than
successful.
To create an excellent business life that supports a
phenomenal personal life, you must take charge of your time and put the
most important things first. Many advisors aren't willing to do this.
They tell their clients, "You want to be educated? I'll educate you.
You only want to meet once a year? We'll only meet once a year. You
don't want to do comprehensive planning? Fine, we won't do
comprehensive planning. You want to give me a little piece of your
money and expect me to help you when I only have part of the picture?
Fine, I can accommodate that." Then those same financial advisors
wonder why they don't make the money they want to make, have the
quality of life they want, or have a valuable business to sell or pass
on to their heirs.
So, what should you tell the client who wants to be
educated or wants to dictate how the relationship should work instead
of trusting you to do your job? Just tell the truth. Tell the client,
"That's not the basis of our relationship. There are a dozen people who
are going to contribute to your financial plan and I can't possibly be
expected to know everything they know. The basis of our relationship is
for me to understand YOU. It's my job to understand your current
financial situation, your goals and what is truly important to you
(your core values). Then I orchestrate the creation of a comprehensive
financial plan that involves the collective wisdom and expertise of an
entire team of professionals.
This brings to bear virtually hundreds of years of
experience to develop the best advice for you. Then it's my job to hold
you accountable to implement this advice over time, which will give you
the highest probability to achieve your goals for the reasons that are
important to you. We'll meet once per quarter to provide you with
progress updates, make appropriate adjustments so you achieve your
goals, and ensure that you are doing your part to get where you want to
be. Is this the kind of relationship you'd like too have with a
financial advisor and his or her team?"
Put the tasks on your calendar that you must perform
to create the business that will support the life you want and you'll
find that there's no time left for anything else. You have time to
serve existing clients, acquire new clients, and manage your staff and
deliverables team. That's all you have time to do, and none of these
three activities can occupy more than a third of your time. When you
become consumed with client service, your client acquisition and staff
suffer. When you try to get "caught up" with hiring the right staff and
organizing your office, your client service and client acquisition
suffer. When you are overweighted toward client acquisition, the other
two aspects of your business suffer. It's like having a balanced
portfolio. You have to divide your time between these three vital areas
consistently, all the time, over time.
There are only 168 hours in the week, period. How
you use those 168 hours determines your business success, your client
satisfaction and your personal happiness and fulfillment. You have to
sleep, eat, spend time with your family, exercise, and more. With the
time that's left, you have a business to run and build. And you have to
run your current business while you build your ideal business. There
simply is not enough time to do everything. You have to choose; 168
hours is all you've got.
In the end, you will end up exactly where your
choices take you. As the renowned political leader and orator William
Jennings Bryan once said, "Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a
matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to
be achieved." Make the choices today that will take you where you want
to be. Take three steps back and decide how you want your life to look,
create your financial game plan and choose where and how to best spend
your time. Those three steps will give you the kind of business you
really want, and take less time to achieve it.
© 2006 by Bill Bachrach, Bachrach
& Associates, Inc. All rights reserved Bill Bachrach is the
author of four industry-specific books, including his newest book, It's
All About Them; How Trusted Advisors Listen for Success. For more
information about his services or to order his books, call (800)
347-3707 or visit the Web site, www.bachrachvbs.com.