The struggle many advisors face is that after nearly a decade of marketing that meant little more than servicing clients and waiting for the phone to ring, active marketing can seem as daunting and complex as a piano concerto by Johann Sebastian Bach. Much like the difference between a student who aspires to become a great pianist and a maestro who headlines concerts around the world, the difference between 'wanting' and 'knowing how' to grow are very different things.

Johann Sebastian Bach may have been a musical genius, but his secret was simple, powerful and something advisors can use to create their own masterpiece: "There is nothing remarkable about it," he wrote. "All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself."

A BROADER VIEW

With all this in mind, the goal of our Best Practices: Business Development Study, the third in our Best Practices Study Series for Financial Planning, was to share with advisors the fundamental factors that promote successful business development. In doing, we hope to promote business practices that drive growth across the advisor community.

As with our initial studies in the series, our focus looks to top-quartile advisory firms, based on total owner income (all owner compensation plus ownership returns). What becomes apparent is that getting to the top is less about individual business development tactics and more about having the right strategy, laying a strong foundation and maintaining a systematic execution.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT LANDSCAPE

Although financial advisors report that growth either stopped or declined in 2009, they expect not only to recover, but also to grow significantly over the next three years. Still, it is a time for realism.

Advisors clearly recognize that growth in the future will require more effort than it did in the past, and this starts with investing more time in marketing and developing a clear plan for growth. Overall, the positive outlook is good news. There are, however, some gaps that demand our attention:

* Failing to plan. Less than one-third of advisors indicate they have a written marketing plan in place, and fewer still have fully implemented that plan.

* Lack of focus. While a majority of financial advisors say they have some way to identify their target clients (typically assets), firms that do not make the first quartile indicate that only half of their clients fit the bill. Top-quartile advisor firms are significantly more focused, with 68% of clients in their target client category. To a lesser extent, firms are beginning to broaden their target client definition to include client needs and/or affiliations.

* An ad-hoc approach. Many advisors take an ad-hoc approach to marketing and communications; only a few indicate that they have systematized their business development process.

* Inadequate measurement. While the ability to measure results is critical to success, a small minority of advisors have a process in place to assess the success of their marketing initiatives.

Advisors are keenly aware of these challenges and understand that their ability to capitalize on current opportunities is largely an issue of planning and commitment. This understanding is shown in strategies that advisors identify as having the greatest potential for driving future growth:

1. Have a plan and invest the time and money to execute that plan.

2. Buy growth by acquiring another practice or hiring another advisor.

3. Leverage existing resources by hiring additional business development staff.

IT STARTS WITH A PLAN

Marketing is much more than an activity or event; it is an organized business system that consistently creates and drives growth. An effective marketing plan is the link between your growth goals for the future and your daily "to do" list. And while a vast majority of advisors accept that this is true and believe that creating a plan will drive growth, only 32% of the best firms have created such a plan.

Composing a plan can, and should, result in changes to the way you run your business, which requires commitment on a level that is still a resistance point for advisors. Of the 32% of advisors with a clear plan, only about half say they have mostly or fully implemented it. Even among the most successful firms, only 11% have a fully implemented plan.

Failure to market effectively is more about how advisors implement a marketing strategy and less about the tactics chosen. Through our work with advisors, we have identified three basic scenarios for marketing implementation: event-driven, cycle-driven and process-driven.