May 08, 2017 

Revealing Time Management for Financial Advisors

After you read this short article, you will feel relieved and excited about your practice again. Now imagine you felt like you are in complete control of your business and your time, and you had a lifestyle and practice that everyone envied. It is simple to imagine but even simpler to get going on. Here is an exercise to measure where you are at today. Let’s assume that you spend 50% of your time with clients and prospects. The average advisor spends about 30% of their time each week with prospects and clients. Let’s also assume you want to grow your practice and acquire more ideal clients. Finally, let’s also assume you have segmented your client base into two groups, the ideal clients your top 25-50 clients, and the rest of your clients. In the exercise below, just add up the totals to 100%. Assuming only 50% of your time is with clients and prospects, you can break it down into daily or weekly hours, for your practice. Now do the math exercise below.

Currently, the percentage of time you spend weekly with your top 25-50 clients ( Ideal clients) _______ %

Currently, the percentage of time spent weekly with ideal prospects _______%

Currently, the percentage of time spent weekly with the rest of your clients ______ %

Every time I do this exercise in workshops with financial advisors, they realize two critical elements. First, they already know they are not spending enough time with ideal clients, but would like to do more. Second, even more importantly, they don’t have the growth of the practice they want because they spend less than 10% with ideal prospects. What I mean by ideal prospects is: What revenue do your top clients generate for your practice, and how can you get more of them. Ok, so we know that we need more time with ideal clients and prospects. So how do we get there? Let me share with you where we are going first, to help you picture your future practice.

Now sit back and imagine what your practice would be like if the numbers looked like this below

Ideal client time 60%
Ideal prospect time 20%
All other client time 20%
Seems like a big stretch doesn’t it? How do we get there? Now I would like to help you experience it by doing two simple exercises. First, looking at your calendar in the past month and being honest about your numbers. Redo the exercise based on your calendar numbers, after you have measured it. Then let’s try to change it by just 10% this year. Depending on each practice, three things will become clearly obvious for you to change.

Segmenting is critical to time management
First, You want to spend less time with non-ideal clients, so segmenting becomes a critical process to do. Ask your coach or practice management expert this question “ what is the best way to segment my clients on an annual basis, based on my practice?” This will depend on the type of practice you run. I recommend segmenting by revenue per client, not assets or insurance, but revenue. There are other variables, but revenue makes it clear on the amount of income in the first year to your practice and ongoing revenue, to measure ideal clients.

Time with ideal prospects
Now I want you to visualize that feeling when you acquired a new ideal client. How you felt, and how excited you were to work with these people. It gave your business some passion and focus, and helped you and them work on something truly meaningful in their lives. Imagine if you had more of that feeling on a regular basis? We know that top advisors grow by spending 17% of their time weekly with ideal prospects. It is a big stretch for most advisors, because they are spending too much time with other clients, and have little or no focus on acquiring more ideal clients. Here is a simple exercise to change the behavior. Time block the percentage of time you want to spend each week with ideal prospects. If it is 20% of your weekly time ( at 50% of your time measured in hours) then block off 4 hours per week exclusively reserved for activities to acquire more ideal clients. Activities such as calls, meetings and follow-up. Sounds, simple, that’s because it is to change your behavior. It just takes time, so block the time each week.

Amazing results happen when you spend more time with your best clients
It is a really weird phenomenon that happens when you spend more time with your best clients. You earn more and get more ideal referrals and favorable introductions. Start spending more time with your ideal clients and do intimate events with them and ask them to invite friends. Spend more leisure time with them, such as golf, hiking or boating. It can be as simple as a client bar-b-que. Spend more personal time with them at events such as charities, fundraising or events to go to. Have more meeting time with their centers of influence, their accountants, lawyers, realtors mortgage brokers, insurance agents and other centers of influence in their lives. Start by asking yourself one question. What events can I do with my ideal clients?

Visualize yourself spending more time with ideal clients and prospects, even by as small as 10% more of your weekly time. Little by little, you will start to feel relieved and excited about your practice again!

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 or workshops for financial advisors, contact Grant at grant@advisorpracticemanagement.comFor coaching contact grant at grant@ghicks.com

For a copy of our guide the" Future Ready Financial Advisor" go to http://www.advisorpracticemanagement.com/resources or http://futurereadyfinancialadvisor.subscribemenow.com

 Advisor Practice Management’s goal is 

“ Helping Financial Advisors take action, to create 100 quality financial plans for their clients”. My mission if you choose to accept it is “ To help advisors to create 1 million quality financial plans for people”.  Ask your clients and prospects this question " What does a quality financial plan mean to you? Let me know if I can help you grow your practice. 

Let’s work on your business. Start by emailing us. Why not? 

Enthusiastically yours,

Grant Hicks, CIM, National Director Practice Management
Advisor Practice Management
www.advisorpracticemanagement.com

909-17th Ave SW, 4th Floor
Calgary, Alberta  T2T 0A4
Tel  587 390 3148
Cell 403 970 8895
Email grant@ghicks.com   

PS Where do you want to be in 3 years?

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