4 Steps to Build Your Firm’s Future
Here are 4 steps to help advisors in their efforts to achieve success for their firm in a deliberate, focused, and effective manner.
Source: John Bowen Jr., founder and CEO, CEG Worldwide
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<b>1. THINK BIG PICTURE</b>
Start by creating a vision of the ideal future for your practice. As you develop a vision for your business, understand why you do what you do - what I call clarity of purpose. I often recommend that advisors ask themselves, "Why am I in this business?" at least five times in a row.
Once you know what you want to offer clients, what kind of impact you want to have both professionally and personally, and what you feel most passionately about (both in work and in life), you develop a clear purpose that will keep you excited as a leader even on those days when work feels like a grind.
<b>2. TARGET RESULTS</b>
Think about goals you want to achieve over the next 18 months, for example. Many top advisors pursue goals such as serving larger clients, focusing on target niche markets and generating more referrals.
Then think about the specific obstacles that could prevent you from reaching those specific goals. For example, let's say you want to add 10 new clients or increase income by 25%. Specific obstacles that might get in the way of those types of goals include the time you have to spend training new staff, or systems in place that prevent you from spending time on client interaction.
<b>3. USE HURDLES TO FIND SOLUTIONS</b>
For instance, say your goal was income growth of 25%, and the obstacles were the time spent training new staff and the systems that take focus off client activities.
In this case, your strategic plan might include solutions such as delegating or outsourcing behind-the-scenes activities, or implementing consistent business processes throughout your practice that would simplify staff training.
<b>4. EXECUTE AS A TEAM</b>
Set specific goals and intermediate milestones to begin the work. Choose the broad strategies you will use to reach each goal, then identify the tactics for executing each. Once these tactics are clear, decide on the actions needed to employ each tactic. Ensure that each action is specific and achievable, assign a person to be responsible for completion and set a target date.
If the solution requires a broader team effort - and it probably will - demonstrate your own commitment by including at least two actions that you will do personally (and immediately) to get started.
Above all, communicate with your people on an ongoing basis. Lack of effective communication is probably the biggest culprit in the failure to execute. Get buy-in before your strategic plan from all the key constituents in your practice - from the overall mission all the way through the plan. You also need to create a direct tie-in to the overall plan for staff. Employees need to know how their daily assignments connect to the overall plan.