The 15 minute practice assessment

(August 2006) How is your practice doing? No, I don’t mean how much revenue you brought in last quarter. I mean, is your practice satisfying you? Are you happy with the number and quality of clients you serve? Are you professionally challenged? Are you excited and energized by your work? Do you get a "charge" every time you come into the office? If not, then you may be operating in what the YouFoundation calls The Everyday Advisor’s practice.

So if you are interested in making a change, let’s build The Entrepreneurial Advisor’s practice. This is an environment in which you, your team, and your clients are perfectly aligned, pursuing the same business goals. Referrals happen naturally, at a pace you can control. Revenue grows. In other words, the practice is almost running itself. This is not a pipe dream.

What can you do to build The Entrepreneurial Advisor’s practice? Here’s a quick list of the five factors that make this type of practice a reality. With each factor, I’ve described the "ideal case" — the target every advisor should be aiming for. I’ll then follow up with several questions that you can ask yourself to determine how close you are to achieving the ideal.

1. Demonstrate Excellence You are an expert in the services you provide your clients. You continually demonstrate leadership to clients, qualified prospects, and centres-of-influence (COIs) through regular marketing communications, as well as ongoing personal interactions. Both you and your team are aligned to provide expert-level service and advice to clients of all levels.

Ask yourself:

• How well do you understand the needs and expectations of your clients? Do you go beyond the standard "Know your client" questionnaire in getting to the needs, the dreams, and the fears of your clients?
• Are you proactive in addressing the financial dangers and challenges faced by your clients? Do your clients know that you are constantly looking out for their financial well-being?
• Do you conduct regular follow-up meetings with clients to educate them on important wealth management issues?
• Do you communicate your opinions on investment products and strategy regularly to your clients, prospects, and COIs? Do people know where you stand on current financial issues and important investment topics?

2. Create an experience You have transformed your practice into the "Four Seasons" of financial services. You identify areas in your practice which may be considered a commodity and quickly transform them into branded wealth management and client service systems. Every member of your team excels at delivering an unparalleled level of client service.

Ask yourself:

• Have you segmented your client base to determine which clients deserve most of your attention?
• Have you mapped out your investment consulting/wealth management process? Have you taken steps to make that process utterly unique?
• Do you plan out appropriate client services at least a year in advance, and automate that process as much as possible with your team?
• Have you identified a niche market to focus your marketing energies on? Have you done everything you can to familiarize yourself with that market’s specific needs and concerns?

3. Raise the benchmark You strive to be the benchmark by which quality is defined in your industry. You identify the strengths of your competitors, and attempt to first replicate their success, then better it. You ask questions and advice of other business owners, both inside and outside the financial industry, and constantly strive to make your practice better.

Ask yourself:

• Do you consistently over-deliver on your service promises?
• How do you encourage your team members to raise the benchmark in their own areas of expertise?
• Who are your most dangerous competitors? What have you learned from their successes, and how have you implemented those lessons in your practice?
• Have you hired more staff to bolster client service? Are you committed to maintaining a high staff-to-client ratio?
• Do you conduct quarterly Improvement Summits with your team? Do team members feel their service improvement suggestions will be taken seriously?
• When was the last time you asked a business owner from outside your industry what they have done to improve service quality in their business?