Getting more out of your number one asset: Time.
At certain levels, every financial advisor struggles with the challenge of growing their practice while still managing to provide great client service to existing ones. This dilemma can leave an advisor frustrated and never really feeling on top of their business.
So, what is the way out of this dilemma?
At Getting Results, we have discovered that there are multiple levels of productivity. Each level of the business requires a new level of efficiency. See my table of Efficiency Goals for each production level of Financial Advisors.
There are many different ways to enhance the efficiency of your time, but for the sake of this article, I wanted to focus on: Outsourcing.
Here is an Excerpt from an article written by Lauren Barack, published by WealthManagement.com titled: Hands Off that I feel does a good job providing a few tools you can use to increase your productivity.
“The dream of being an advisor is creating freedom in your life and a fulfilling practice,” says Harad. “But what happens is advisors get inundated and overwhelmed by all the tasks that running a business requires. And that kills the dream of what it is you want to be doing.”
Today many reps are looking to push out nearly every part of their advisory businesses. Sure, technology support and marketing help are areas where many would consider hiring outside help. But reps are also outsourcing far more, including core areas of their jobs such as management of their client’s holdings.
Wealth management firm Northern Trust recently released a survey of 510 advisors in October, and discovered that 60% outsourced the management of more than half their clients assets. Why? More time to spend with clients and prospects, the advisors said. By delegating the investing to another source, advisors had more flexibility to spend on other areas of their business.
Eric Schweitzer, senior vice president at Northern Trust and a former advisor himself, believes the practice will grow as advisors feel pressure to devote even more attention to clients. He saw the survey as a confirmation that reps are looking for partners in to help craft client portfolios, particularly as the market has grown more complicated. Many advisors are not investment experts but still want to provide clients with the best and most consistent returns.
“Their practice can be compromised if they’re spending time on investments, due diligence and asset allocations,” he says. “That takes away from what they’re good at which is acquiring and gathering clients.”
But there were other tasks that reps in the Northern Trust survey were happy to outsource, including quarterly billing, record keeping, account on-boarding and performance reporting.
Even while many are comfortably outsourcing, 54% of the reps surveyed still consider it their job to keep those tasks close at hand. “They truly believe investment management is integral to their firm’s value proposition,” says Laura Gregg, vice president at Northern Trust.
The Getting Results Spin:
I agree with the points in this article and would add the following: The most valuable aspect of a financial advisor’s practice is the relationship they have with their clients. Getting busy with the daily tasks of managing a practice detracts from the quality time one can spend deepening client relationships. There are many different ways to respond to this challenge, but it depends on an advisor’s specific design of his/her business. If you are not clear on how you want to design your business, I’d recommend completing a Personal Assessment which will allow you to spend about 45 minutes with one of our coaches to help you determine what your design should be (complimentary of Getting Results).
