"The three keys to practice management are process, process, process." ~ Grant Hicks
When you have a problem, make it a process.
“Growth is a process of trial and error; experimentation." ~ Benjamin Franklin.
Future Ready financial advisors embrace process because, “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you are doing." ~ W Edwards Deming
Future Ready financial Advisors have a script binder to cover off the most important conversations and questions their best clients and prospects ask. Questions such as “ What do I get for the fee I pay?” Is it a process and a clear script, or do you wing the answer? Are you telling your ideal clients and prospects, we have a process and here it is with confidence, clarity and consistency.
Successful teams adapt their workflow, while weak teams gripe about how difficult the process is.
"If a business is to be considered a continuous process, instead of a series of disjointed stop-and-go events, then the economic universe in which a business operates, and all the major events within it, must have , rhyme ,rhythm, or reason." ~ Peter Drucker
So what is your process for the ideal client experience? Is it a purposeful process with a clear agenda and process? Do you have a binder of what the ideal client process is, what they get and what it costs? What is the pre meeting process and the post meeting process? Does your team have a written process to follow, organized in a binder or online workflows, or are you telling them the process repeatedly every day? Future Ready Financial Advisors have a checklist of items they want to cover off in a meeting, are fully prepared and it clearly shows how prepared they are for the meeting, because they have clarity around the answers they anticipate will come. They do not leave it to chance. Their office is well lit, well organized and well prepared for the valuable conversations that will flow as a result of preparation. Future Ready Financial Advisors record their meetings with their clients permission because a key part of their process is to truly understand the client and what their needs wants and desires are.
"I put my heart and my soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process." ~ Vincent Van Gogh
"If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” ~ Peter Drucker
Future Ready Financial Advisors help their ideal clients focus on the most important items in a meeting, their goals and how to achieve them and hold them accountable to stay on track to achieve them. How do you deliver that message? How do you create an ideal experience and have positive emotions during your meetings? Future ready Financial Advisors hand each client a tablet and show them where they are now and how to accomplish their goals. At the very least, your font size has to be large enough on anything you share on paper for the weakest of eyes.
"You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backward towards technology” ~ Steve Jobs.
"We should work on our process, not the outcome of our processes.” ~ W. Edwards Deming
"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” ~ Benjamin Franklin.
This is my motto for my life’s work on practice management. Sure I know a lot about practice management and process, but if I told you everything I know about it, most would be useless unless you were involved in it.
So I wrote a book about process (Guerrilla Marketing For Financial Advisors, Innovating financial Professionals Through practice Management”. Morgan James Publishing 2016) If you want a book on processes, here it is. Another great book on process was written by Ron Carson and Steve Sanduski “Tested in the trenches: a 9 step plan for success as a new era advisor” Peak Alliance Publishing; 2 edition (Sept. 1 2012)
“To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.” ~ Winston Churchill.
Process is about change and being involved in the change.
"When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.” ~ Benjamin Franklin.
So where do you start? It all starts with change, so my question to you on becoming a Future Ready Financial Advisor is this: What is one process you need to work on today to prepare for the future? My answer to you would be simple.