December 13, 2021

The Best Practice Management Idea You Will Ever Read!

You won't find this idea in a book, even though I wrote about it in my latest book "Guerrilla Marketing For Financial Advisors". You won't find this idea at a seminar, course, or workshop.

Not even online or any website. In fact, you won't get this information from top financial advisor performers, but you will find the idea where you work. It will change the way you think. It will change your business strategies. It will make you take a close look at what you are doing right and what you need to improve on. The idea will help you grow, develop and build your practice to heights you thought weren't possible. It will make you understand your business better, even more than hiring a consultant. It is a marketing idea that is investing time energy and imagination into your business. This one idea may change your business in 2022 and beyond. Once you start to apply the idea over and over, your clients will see tremendous value in you. 

If I was asked to give only one idea to build and scale a financial advisory practice, this would be the idea.

Create a board of directors with your top clients and centers of influence. Ask them for feedback and ideas on every aspect of your business from advice to marketing, client appreciation, and client communication. Invite from six to ten of your top clients in one meeting for an hour and get valuable feedback on your image, identity, business, and marketing. Two things will happen at the meeting. First, your ideal clients will give you valuable feedback on the future direction of you and your practice. Valuable feedback on marketing, communications, and value-added processes that only they will see value in. Second, you will teach them how to refer and give you favorable introductions. Imagine doing follow-up calls and getting referrals? That is exactly what happened when I did this with my ideal clients. Not only did they refer names to me, they asked me to join events where I might meet more people like them. 

Your Network of Professionals Luncheon

Hold a second meeting for your top centers of influence or referral sources. Hold these meetings three to four times a year and buy your "network of professionals" lunch for giving you valuable feedback on all areas of your business. It will cost you less than $200 and a few hours of your time. Each time you are creating formal feedback for your business. The most amazing thing happens when you tell people you are working on your business. When you do the follow-up phone call, your clients already have someone in mind you should talk to. Within 30 days you get referrals to more like-minded people and gain additional top clients. This is how you clone your best clients. 

Case Study

It is gutsy to ask for feedback from your clients since they have given you all their trust. At the core of trust is your client’s desire to help you and your business. For example, if I have never experienced being one of your clients for a period of time, how can I give you long-term valuable feedback on what you are doing, how you communicate with people, and how your business is perceived? It is this valuable feedback from your top clients and centers of influence that is going to give you the edge over your competitors. 

Create An Agenda 

Plan to spend an hour discussing your business and the items you are working on. When I first did this, I asked my clients about a golf appreciation day I had planned. I wanted to hire a golf pro, offer lessons and hand out golf balls and prizes to say thanks to my top clients. At the feedback meeting, most of my clients liked the idea, especially the golfers. But one of my clients made an interesting comment. He said, “Not everybody golfs, so for the clients that don’t golf, why don’t you get a hanging basket of spring flowers, drop by to have a coffee, and say thanks.” My response was to thank him for the great idea. The following week, I picked up some hanging baskets of flowers and dropped by my top clients to say thanks. A week later a top prospect comes into our office to see us. We asked how they came across us. The client said, “We went to visit our friends down the street and asked where they got the nice hanging basket, and they raved about you and your firm, so here we are.” They became one of our ideal clients through our ideal clients. 

Creating a formal feedback process with 4 questions in person

Here is a simple process that will help you collect feedback. At the end of a review meeting ( I like to call them progress updates instead of reviews, reviews sound boring) with these clients, ask them a question to get started. “I am building an updated unique value promise and could use your help. Can I take five minutes to ask you four questions? “
1. “What are the 3 things that you value the most about our services? (Ask both husband and wife and write them down as women and men vary in what they truly value) Note this is a double conundrum question. Conundrum number one, your clients may not know how to answer this because they have never looked at your business that way, and conundrum number two is men and women will usually answer it completely differently.
2. How important are these 3 things to your family's financial future? Are they important, very important, or critically important? Is there anything else that is critically important? (this question may open up other discussions about planning or critical issues in their lives such as troubled children’ health problems or other concerns in their subconscious)
3. What is it worth to you? (Usually, they ask what do you mean, say the EXACT same question again, What is it worth to you?) You will be very surprised by the answers you get here. I will hold you in suspense because it is worth waiting for.
4. In our progress meetings, what is one thing that we can improve on to make our time more valuable and a better experience?

These questions take less than 3 minutes to uncover potential blind spots in your practice. They also help you change your language to your client's words to describe your value. Your head office never uses these types of words to help you grow your practice. 
What you are asking is, how can we improve our progress meetings, since practice management research has told us that clients typically do not see a lot of value in reviews for the fees they pay. How can we get better?   There will be small items, but there will also be big issues that will help you propel your business more than anything else.  Doing this feedback exercise with hundreds of advisors has helped practices more than any other idea because it is from a client’s perspective.

Grow Your Practice, By Asking For Feedback

Try it once and you will get feedback on your business, as well as referrals. Once advisors discover how powerful this idea is, and how easy it is to do, they will want to create groups of client feedback forums. They will deliver more value to their clients and attend events with clients and get favorable introductions. They will get referrals from the Network of professionals and all they did was start with feedback.  

How about your goals for your practice in 2021? Our Practice management checklist or fee audit checklist 

While each financial advisor's practice may have a different approach, advisors need to understand where their practice needs help, and will they get the right help for the right part of their practice. What areas does your practice need help with? Get a copy of our updated 21-page “Comprehensive Practice Management Strategies checklist” by clicking here

https://practicemanagement.getresponsepages.com/

Looking to deliver more value to prospects in 2022? Fee audit checklist for ideal prospects, click here https://feeaudit.getresponsepages.com/

Let’s Talk

Contact us to help get clarity around your goals on paper, and have the goals conversation by contacting grant at grant@ghicks.com or click on the link to set up a no-obligation 20-minute discussion https://my.timetrade.com/book/JMTNJ regardless if we work together, let’s have a chat and listen to your biggest practice management concerns to help you get clarity around your future business in 2022. 

Grant Hicks, CIM, is President of Advisor Practice Management and co-author of “Guerrilla Marketing For Financial Advisors” 1st and 2nd edition. www.advisorpracticemanagement.com for speaking, workshops or coaching, contact Grant at grant@ghicks.com Grants combined financial advisor clients manage over 4 billion AUM, and earn over $40 million dollars combined! 

Enthusiastically yours,

Grant Hicks, CIM, President
Advisor Practice Management
www.advisorpracticemanagement.com

Suite 1625-246 Stewart Green, SW
Calgary, Alberta  T3H 3C8
Cell 403 970 8895
Email grant@ghicks.com   

PS Where do you want to be in 3 years? in 2025? 

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