Best Practices: Helping yourself, your business

Wondering how to best manage your team or grow your client list? Not sure how to deal with a particular client? If these questions are on your mind, reach out to Advisor.ca and our new columnist, Joanne Ferguson. The veteran consultant, personal coach and author will be sharing her knowledge and answering your questions in her column – ‘Ask The Expert: Best Practices’. Backed by over 20 years of experience, the owner and president of Advisor Pathways will be addressing your business, career concerns.

To send along your questions for Joanne’s next column, send an email to AskAdvisor@advisor.rogers.com

Dear Joanne,

I’m two years into my career as a financial planner. Staying organized feels like a part-time job. What tips, systems have you put in place to keep yourself organized? I find it fairly difficult to juggle client requests, keep track of new cases and what needs to be done, process all the admin – I still do all of my own because it doesn’t make sense for me to hire someone yet. Can you give me specific and practical examples of how you handle your activities day-to-day?

Thanks!

Dave

Dear Dave,

Hire someone and you will double your business. Think about having a dedicated person to take all the “stuff” off your mind and off your plate.

It is an investment into your business that will allow you to do what you do best….meet new clients, plan and be out in the community so others know your story and how you can help them.

If you do not have your head around this yet, let’s focus on what you are asking regarding organization. List all the activities it takes to run your business. Prioritize them and then ask yourself is this really something you should be doing or can someone else help, even a part-time person, to help you get to the next level?

Here are a few ideas:

Plan your whole year – Map it out based on regular monthly activities to run your business and then unique activities based on a specific month.

Organize your week so that you have a time for each activity and you do not have to worry about getting it done today. You have the week to accomplish what you need to. Take the pressure off a little.

Organize your computer files – A-Z for clients, Prospect file, Standard Documents file, Website, Client Communication, etc.

Organize your paper files – Set up Monday through Friday, Reading File, To-Do file and Next Month. Rotate the Monday back behind Friday when Monday is complete and be sure nothing is left inside. After a month, the Reading File should be cleaned out because realistically if you haven’t read it in a month is it still current information?

File it, act on it or toss it!

Put everything into a process that you can follow. First Name it, then add the Output. For example – Name it: Annual Client Reviews Output: More assets and referrals from existing clients. Then, you want to add the other steps – Who, What are the sequential steps? Tools or Comments?

• 1) Pull the list of birthdays for the next month (easy way to spread clients out).
• 2) Review list.
• 3) Call to book appointment for the next month. Explain the agenda and see if they would like to add anything.
• 4) Prepare file.
• 5) Call two days prior to reconfirm, meet with client.
• 6) Process any post-meeting actions.
• 7) Complete client actions and file.
• 8)Follow up with client on any actions and place in rotation for next service.

Follow this process for all your households so nothing falls through the cracks and your clients can expect a similar experience.

In your case right now, it is all probably you but the great thing is you have a process that can be modified and it keeps you on track and organized!

Good Luck! Creating efficiency in your business will give you back a lot of time.

Dear Joanne,

My book of relationships has grown tremendously and I would like to slowly get out of sales and dedicate my days to team building, coaching and mentoring.

The goal is to allow time for the Director to plan strategic objectives to help grow the business and refer to the team players.

How do you advise, communicate to your existing clients that a senior team player will be managing the relationship from this day going forward? I am still at the firm.

Cathie

Dear Cathie,

That’s why you have a team and if you have done a good job of incorporating your team into your client experience then the clients will be fine.

Clients want help and if you still have someone to do so, they will be fine. You are still part of the team and clients will know you are still the leader who will be guiding and coaching the team members so they can be confident they will be receiving the same good advice and service they have come to expect.

Selecting someone you believe has the same values and philosophy is so important. Your clients need to feel their needs are being met and there is a consistency in their experience with your team, firm. Your clients are your clients because they like and trust you and will believe you have found the right person to fit their needs as you move into this new role.

It is always hard to pass along relationship but again if you are a solid team, then clients will have confidence in the future. You will still be there and can be drawn in to touch base and connect from time to time to provide some consistency as the relationship moves over to the new representative. They need to hear the confidence in your own voice that this is something you want to do and what the next steps are.

It will be important for you to list all the questions you fear the most from your clients so you can review and build a response you are comfortable with. By answering them and having a consistent response from yourself and your team, your clients will receive a consistent, confident response.

Remember, it is about the client, not you!

The real comfort for the client is that you are still around should a question arise you are not retiring. You are just taking on a new role that will continue to benefit them and their overall experience.

You want to be sure that you are making the transfer with the client’s best interest in mind and you help bring the new representative up to speed with the client, their goals and needs. It will be important to the client to know the new representative will understand who they are. Share key interests, hobbies, etc, so when the new representative is meeting or speaking to the client, they can have a connection point to help begin to build trust and their new relationship.

To send along your questions for Joanne’s next column, send an email to AskAdvisor@advisor.rogers.com

Joanne Ferguson is the owner and president of Advisor Pathways.