Capacity is the number one challenge for elite financial advisors and teams

Capacity is the number one challenge for elite financial advisors.

I speak with 10-20 financial advisors every week. For the last 3 to four weeks, I have seen financial advisors' capacity issues grow. Why? It is because they have more business coming in than they can handle, dealing with their client's emotions during volatile markets, and trying to communicate as much as possible. But the toll is starting to grow, because most financial advisors have not taken enough time off in the last two years, and feel they need to catch up, but when?

What does this mean for them and their staff, if they are feeling overwhelmed, as more calls, more technology, more compliance, more volatility, and more issues pop up every week? Ready for some good news? Replace your feeling of overwhelm with gratitude. Reach for something positive, a book, a website, and start every morning by working on yourself first. You can only do what you can do. For example, a successful financial advisor I work with spends the first hour of every weekday morning focusing on getting into a state of gratitude and positive energy. He has a positive habit pattern. What is your daily positive habit pattern? 

Everyone calls us to help grow our business

Why is it that all these firms think we need help in growing our business? From technology companies to investment firms, do they not understand that the number one issue for financial advisors is capacity? Do they not understand that we have a successful business already and business is going well. We are growing however, the challenge we have is managing our capacity, as we have too many clients and we're trying to figure out how we're going to manage it all, not how we're going to grow it.

We don't want to grow anymore

If marketers and firms took the approach that people were already successful and that we need help in other areas of our business, I think they would get a lot more clients, don't you? The financial advisors I work with are often not trying to dramatically grow their business. They are not looking for a lot of new clients. Yes, they would like to acquire a few more ideal clients but only high net worth, high revenue ideal clients usually 10 ideal families in a calendar year. What is the number one challenge elite financial advisors face? Capacity is the number one challenge for most elite financial advisors and their teams. Imagine if you can get another 200 to 400 hours in a calendar year, what that might do for your business or your lifestyle in 2022?

How do you build and manage capacity?

There are six areas to help you manage your capacity as a financial advisor. The first area is segmentation the second is technology the third is practice management processes the 4th is people the 5th is delegation and the sixth is time management processes. Let's examine how you can build capacity in your practice in 2022?

Segmentation

Most financial advisors segment their business every few years. Elite advisors segment on an annual basis and they usually have two segments not three or four. Elite financial advisors 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. They know where they want to spend their time and whom they want to spend it with. Most importantly they know with whom they want to spend less time with. I get it you want to spend time with everyone however, they just know there isn't enough time so they make sure clients are being well serviced by the people that have the time to do it. This is usually another financial advisor. Email me at grant@ghicks.com for a copy of our segmentation guide

Technology

Technology does it better job of doing repetitive tasks than people do. Check out our technology checklist to see where you can leverage your time by using technology. The tech categories seem to grow each and every year and practice management focuses on leveraging technology for financial advisor practices. https://technologychecklist.getresponsepages.com/

Join me as I will be speaking at the WealthTech Summit by Wealth professional magazine on May 17, 2022, and learn how to identify the right technologies to save time as a financial advisor. 

https://wealthtechsummit.ca/  

Practice management processes

Practice management is about three things. Process, process, process. Financial advisors know they need three clearly defined and written processes that they can articulate. Process one is the ideal client acquisition. The second is the ideal client service. The third process is all the other processes is that you need to manage your business and your practice effectively. Get a copy of our comprehensive practice management checklist here https://practicemanagement.getresponsepages.com/ 

People

How many ideal clients or families can you manage in a calendar year? Now how many ideal clients and families can your team effectively manage in a calendar year? Most elite teams are working past capacity and they know they need more people on their team yet lack the time to add more people to their team because training these people takes time. The average advisor trained staff 4 hours per year. 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.

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 client's ideal families and ideal prospects. You can also spend more time with your ideal centers of influence. With elite teams, we go through a delegation checklist and see where we can delegate and save the advisor a tremendous amount of time by putting processes into place.

Time management strategies

Your goal this year as a financial advisor is to find 100 to 200 hours of extra time this year. How you do it is up to you. It starts with your calendar and managing it on a daily weekly and monthly basis. We all have time management strategies and how is that work well for us. We also have bad time management habits. In the never-ending struggle of important versus urgent, urgent usually wins, unless you stick to your calendar. I encourage you to segment your business think about implementing technology training staff or adding staff delegates and letting go and be really strict with your calendar. Remember elite advisors usually take 8 or more weeks off every year. They trust their team because they have processes in place. Take a sheet of paper and write these six strategies down so you can find more capacity in your business this year. 

Simple time management ideas for financial advisors

First off, do you have a perfect week mapped out and time blocked? Create the perfect week, then the perfect month, map out the perfect quarter and there you have the perfect year. You have control of your time, so control it. How many clients do you want to see per week, per month, and when? How many prospects do you need to see per week, per month and how many do you need to add to your pipeline per week, per month? How many COI'sdo you need to see per week, per month, and how many do you need to add to your pipeline per week, per month? Be in control of a few weekly numbers, ___ ideal clients to see ___ Ideal prospects to see, Ideal COI's to see and ___ add how many ideal prospects per week to the pipeline. For example see 6 clients 4 ideal and 2 non-ideal per week, 2-3 prospects per week, 1-2 COIs per week to see and add 3 Prospects to the pipeline per week ( from COI's and clients introductions, events weekly, and other marketing activities) Now map out your week and create the weekly habits, because this is what you are in control of. You do not need to call everyone this week and follow up with everyone immediately. They understand you are a busy professional. Take back the control of your time! 

Book ideal client service time differently

Mornings are booked for elite advisors as the time to work with ideal clients and Ideal prospects. Afternoons are planned for client service issues. If non-ideal clients ( not in your top 25) call in the morning, they can be dealt with in the afternoon. If you run out of time, then they roll to the next afternoon, not the next morning. Be firm on your service, as your best clients are paying the most to get the best of you!  

Our "Comprehensive Practice Management Checklist" has capacity issues built into it!  

In this comprehensive 23-page checklist, you’ll discover your blind spots and opportunities to save time for your financial advisor practice. https://practicemanagement.getresponsepages.com/

Let’s Talk

Contact us to help get clarity around your capacity and 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 capacity concerns to help you get clarity around your future business.

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 5 billion AUM, and earn over $50 million dollars combined!