Leveraging your time, partners

How to leverage your time and partners to get ahead.

Serving the evolving needs of clients is one of the biggest challenges advisors will always face. Financial professionals must develop new skills and solutions to attract and retain clients — or be squeezed out by the competition. So how do you gain a slight edge over the rest?

Aristotle said it best: "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but habit."

Have you formed habits that stagnate and deflate your business? Many financial advisors are unable to plan. Yes, an oxymoron: the planner that doesn’t know how to plan. But I’m referring to time management — prioritizing important activities.

When prioritizing, look at your business and personal life and do what’s most important first. Have a clear vision and act accordingly. This sounds easy, but many of us wind up accomplishing unimportant activities first.

Break your day into four quadrants and divide it into two columns: urgent and non-urgent.

Q1: Necessity

How many times have you walked into your office or checked your voice mail, only to find a crisis or emergency?

Activities within this quadrant require time to address them accordingly. But you can’t allow these matters to consume the better part of your day.

Q3: Deception

These tasks have little to do with your goals, but more to do with the needs of others. For example, a top client shows up at your office without an appointment and demands to meet over an urgent matter. Interruptions like this are never planned, but because it’s a wealthy client, you do whatever it takes to keep the peace.

Q4: Waste

Time-wasters are found in this quadrant. While it’s helpful to take breaks by watching TV, surfing the web or talking with a co-worker, overindulgence in these activities hinders achieving your goals.

Q2: Quality and personal leadership

The most important and most neglected section is the quadrant of quality and personal leadership. Here all your activities reflect your goals, desires, vision, mission and purpose in life. By putting first things first, you are better positioned and prepared to deal with what life brings your way.

Within this quadrant, block time to prospect, have engaging one-on-one client interviews, take care of any administrative client activities. Close your day with planning for tomorrow.

An effective financial professional improves personal awareness to accurately gauge how time is allocated. Emergencies still happen, but you’ll be better prepared to manage them and move on with your day. Issues arise that others want you to address, but you’ll know whether you can delegate by classifying those issues into the quadrants. By planning your activities, more of your day will be engaged in quality tasks, virtually minimizing or eliminating time-wasters.

Gaining a slight edge over your competitor is as simple as managing your time more efficiently. As you continue to grow and develop your business, delegate and leverage others so you can spend more time building high-valued client relationships.

In the Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management and Capgemini World Wealth Report released this past June, the underlying tone was that high-net-worth clients expect their relationships with advisors to create more sustainable value. Firms and advisors must continually demonstrate their value to HNW clients to keep in line with their ever-changing complex needs.

It’s easy to forget that people are at the heart of your business. Keepings tabs on performance, portfolio values, latest trends and more should not be neglected, but what else are you doing to personally develop your clients?

Out-of-box thinking

If you could motivate your clients to their full potential by helping them to achieve their goals and enhance their leadership ability, would you?

Leveraging the time, energy and skill sets of other professionals is an easy way for you to free up your time and provide immediate client value. Look at your existing database, particularly clients who are business owners, executives, professionals and managers. Imagine motivated clients working at their full potential, all while accomplishing their business and personal goals — with you to thank.

Gaining the slight edge is about making small but effective changes in your behaviour, leveraging others and being open to new ideas and change.

Tyrone H. Matheson, FMA, is a Business and Personal Development Coach with LMI Canada Inc., Canada’s premier leadership development resource. He is also a Financial Coaching Specialist/Owner of Inside Out Training