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You encourage clients to be specific about their goals so you can help them ensure they stay focused and realize those objectives. Do you apply the same expectations to yourself?
- Pick your priority. What process, activity, or system do you need to build into your business now?
- Create a plan. Identify the specific steps you need to take to make progress toward your priority.
- Get input from other people who have done what you want to do so you can succeed sooner.
Related: Financial Plans: Do We Value Anything We Get for Free?
Transcript:
Imagine you had a new client who said maybe they’re considering retiring in 2023, or maybe 2033. What would you say to them?
2023 to 2033? That’s a ten-year span! I would hope, as a competent advisor, you would let them know, they’ve got to drill down and get more specific about the year that they’re considering retiring and potentially stopping their income. . .
You would do that as an advisor, yet, many advisors I speak with won’t do this regarding their own business. They continue to be vague about the number of clients they want, the number of financial plans they want to get through, the amount of net revenue they want to generate. They leave the vagueness there and, understandably, take far more time getting to where they want to arrive at, and get so frustrated along the way.
There are some great examples of specificity. I was watching John F. Kennedy’s broadcast of his May 25 speech from 1961, when he talked about putting a man on the moon. It was a great speech, and he mentioned, “We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment.” He was very, very specific about putting a man on the moon—detailing the difference between going to space and landing on the moon. And he also put in a very clear time frame: we want to do it “by the end of the decade.” And sure enough, on July 20th, 1969, they put a man on the moon.
I was also watching a post from Bill Bachrach, who mentioned that 98% of advisors say they need a smaller number of clients before they believe they’ll actually begin enjoying their business. They’ve let their business grow too much.
Most recently, I heard a great post from Ron Carson, where he was sharing about what he does at the end of every day with listing the top six actions that he needs to take the very next day.
You can hear the specificity of metrics: people know what they need to do next, and they know how to measure it.
Recently, after speaking with a group of advisors, it was great to see the people come up to me who said, “That’s exactly the point I need to work on next. Can I give you a call, and can we talk through how to do it and what it looks like?” I had another advisor come up to me and say, “I’m up to that chapter in your book regarding segmenting your clients. There are some other things I need to do, but that’s what I need to do right now. Can I dial in with you for half an hour to talk through this?” That’s not a shameless plug for my book by any means; why I’m saying that is I’m far more inclined to want to spend 30 minutes with someone who knows the next step they want to take and is serious about taking it. That doesn’t diminish all the other activities to do, but it does show they’re focused on working to completing this one next activity.
So if you’re struggling to build your business or struggling to enjoy your business,
- Pick your priority. What process, activity, or system do you need to build into your business?
- Create a plan. What does step one in building this process or system look like? And then what do steps two, three, and four need to be? Don’t start without a plan. You need to know those steps to build into your business.
- Get help.How have other people done this? Learn from them. They will happily provide you with their experiences, so it’s going to speed up your experience that much faster. Connect with me at Paul.Kingsman@AshBrokerage.com. We can set up a 30-minute call, and we can talk through exactly what you’re looking to build into your business and the various steps involved. Get help. Get advice.
Identify the next steps you want to take, and then focus and get specific about the very next thing you need to do.
I look forward to bringing you another Distraction-Proof Advisor Idea next week.