It's not about growing the number of clients but serving the ones you have better
Plenty of advisors will tell you they’re looking to grow their practice but not all are talking about number of clients. The key is not necessarily having a huge book but to service the clients you do have to the best of your ability.
Successful advisors often feel they have too many clients and want help in managing everything. With insight from Advisor Practice Management, WP presents six ways advisors can build capacity into their business.
1, Segmentation
Elite advisors segment on an annual basis and they usually have two segments, not three or four. They segment based on ideal families and everyone else. They focus on finding not just ideal clients, but ideal families which generate ideal revenue for them.
Top advisors know who they want to spend their time on and, just as important, who they want to spend less time on.
2, Technology
Technology does a better job of doing repetitive tasks than people do. This means ensuring you have the latest, most efficient software and tech platform.
Jason Perriera, partner and senior financial planner at Woodgate Financial, told WP that what cynical advisors are really saying when they denounce technology is that it takes them out of their comfort zone.
“The pace of innovation is basically exponential, not linear. So, go ahead and ignore it, stick to a paper environment, stick to a server, stick to your CRM, go ahead and do all that. But here's the reality … other people are figuring this stuff out; other people are learning to automate and manage the process, especially now because we're talking about the future.”
3, Practice management processes
Grant Hicks, of Advisor Practice Management, believes practice management is about three things: process, process, process. Process one is the ideal client acquisition, second is the ideal client service, and the third process is all the other processes is that you need to manage your business and your practice effectively.
Get these in order and articulate them, and the path forward will be clearer and more efficient.
4, People
Most elite teams are working past capacity and they know they need more people on their team. However, they often lack the time to add more staff because training these people takes time. Adding people to your team will give you an extra 200 to 400 hours each year. At $500 per hour, this is a simple return on investment calculation.
5, Delegation
You can delegate everything in financial services except prospecting. The more you delegate to your team and the more processes you have, the more you'll be able to spend time with your ideal clients, ideal families and ideal prospects.
Go through a delegation checklist and see where we you can delegate. It will be an extraordinary time save.
6, Time management strategies
Try setting yourself a goal to find 100 to 200 hours of extra time in 2021. Start with your calendar and be aware that we all have bad time management habits. More often than not, in the struggle of important versus urgent, urgent usually wins. UNLESS … you stick to your calendar.
In closing, remember elite advisors usually take eight or more weeks off every year. They trust their team because they have these processes in place.
