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Over the past couple of years, advisors heard more about disruptive or innovative growth. Potent as that may be – and it is – disruptive growth is an investing style and applicable to how advisors broadly treat and grow their practices.
Alternatively, there is the concept of inspirational growth. Inspirational growth isn't a new wave investing concept or strategy. Rather, it can serve as a foundation for how advisors bolster their practices and enhance client service.
Kingswood U.S., a FINRA-licensed broker/dealer with over $2.5B in assets under management, is putting inspirational growth into practice on a daily basis with CEO and managing partner Mike Nessim leading that charge.
Experiences Lead to Better Inspirational Growth Outcomes
Advisors may not be CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, but they do oversee businesses in which they are invested in the outcomes. And as is the case with any other business, advisors must juggle relationships with staff as well as relationships with customers (clients) while building out the business.
How advisors and executives in other fields go about those endeavors is often the result of how they learned the ropes. Kingswood's Nessim talks about how he got his start in the financial services and how his first internship impacts his leadership style to this day. In that role, Nessim helped his advisor boss build his book of business while the advisor showed him the ropes of the industry.
“And I think what was what was really inspirational for me is that, you know, even though a lot of the other advisors in the room, were treating their interns rather poorly, my advisor who trained me, you know, he taught me in a very honest way,” says Nessim. “And we had a true partnership, you know, the partnership was, you know, I'm going to help him build his business, but he's going to show me this business and he's going to teach it to make, and that's kind of what I've tried to carry on to Kingswood is, is that partnership of, you know, you're going to do something for us, but we certainly are going to do something for you. That's a true partnership.”
Think about that for a moment. In the financial services industry, it's easy to turn an intern into no more than errand boy/girl, but by taking a more active, positive role in the success of interns or lower level employees, advisors are inherently adding value to their practices and that positivity is translatable across the practice.
Translation: A business is comprised of people and leaders/owners are only as good as the people surrounding them.
Avoiding Negativity
For business owners of any stripe, advisors included, keeping a positive outlook is vital to success. However, we all know that there are trying days, bumps in the road and stressful circumstances.
In life and in business, we can't control those events from popping. What we can control is the mindset with which we deal with trying times and how we consume advice. Nessim makes it simple: Avoid negative advice – a plan that jibes with inspirational growth.
“Don't take any negative advice. There's no negative advice that's gonna work for you. You know, everyone can always say something negative to you. I remember when and back in the early '90s, I was a waiter and I asked somebody in the restaurant that we used to come in all the time. I'm like, 'Hey, I'm thinking about being a stock broker. What do you think I should do?',” says Nessim. “And they said, 'You know what, don't do that. It's really a bad time to be a stock broker. You're better off not doing that.' So the advice I give to everyone is go with your dream and work hard to get there. And don't listen to the negative spin.”
Related: Kingswood U.S.: Small Market Vibe, Institutional Resources