Voices: 6 must-have books for the growth-minded advisor

December 29, 2020 3:54 PM

In his eighth decade, Benjamin Franklin penned a supplement to his will to give some of his wealth back to the country he helped establish. It specified that a portion of his estate must go to enterprising youths seeking to start a business or toward city improvements in Boston and Philadelphia.

Thanks to his fascination with calculating the future value of money and compound interest, Franklin was confident that the plan would span two centuries. And so it proved — Franklin’s 1790 bequest of roughly $100,000 in today’s money paid out millions of dollars over the next 200 years.

In time, six titles in particular helped me develop a method I have come to call the BASIS (build, attract, systematize, invest, scale) Method, writes Signature Wealth Strategies CEO Chip Munn.

As immense as Franklin’s benevolence was, he left us all a portion of his intellectual wealth when he declared, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” It’s a maxim that has served me well over my years as an advisor. A former schoolteacher when I entered the business over 20 years ago, I diverged from the generic “dialing for dollars” path to advancement and set out, instead, to learn from entrepreneurs and leaders accessible to me in books.

In time, six titles in particular helped me develop a method I have come to call the BASIS (build, attract, systematize, invest, scale) Method. These books have paid me interest many times over in building my business and bettering my life. I hope they do the same for you.

The E-Myth Revisited

by Michael E. Gerber

Recommended to me by Duncan MacPherson, an amazing speaker and coach to advisors, The E-Myth Revisited was instrumental in my becoming a growth-focused entrepreneur. According to Gerber, most small business owners are just “technicians” who own a business. That resonated with me because I wanted to take my business to new heights.

The book’s core principle is transformative, namely that entrepreneurial results happen when you work “on” your business instead of “in” it. The topics covered are broad and practical, spanning from systems and management to marketing and company structure.

I immediately got value from the book. One night shortly after reading it, I drew up an organizational map that plotted my vision of our company’s future. That was the first step in putting the people and systems in place that would eventually change the course of our business and produce the reliable growth that I envisioned.

Duct Tape Marketing

by John Jantsch

This book delivers tangible tools and techniques that will enable you to set your advisory business apart. As the title implies, Duct Tape Marketing offers 1001-plus marketing ideas in an endless variety of situations where you need to make something stick. It is an excellent marketing primer with specific, actionable ideas to unearth and communicate messages that get your business noticed so you can attract the right prospects and convert them to clients.

I’m frequently astounded by advisors, both new and experienced, who don’t understand what attracts people to their business and how to leverage that information to turn prospects into clients. According to the book, it’s not about being the best salesman, it’s about knowing who to approach, what to say and how to educate and motivate prospects to become clients.

Finally, Duct Tape Marketing delivers a fundamental lesson on the necessity of having a unique marketing niche instead of being all things to all people. It emphasizes marketing strategies that are educational, flexible and personal. It contains useful ideas on marketing automation, public relations and building a referral building system.

The 4-Hour Workweek

by Timothy Ferris

Don’t be fooled by the title — The 4-Hour Workweek is not necessarily a business book but one about making time to live the life you dream, whether at work or away from it. The running theme is focusing your energy on what motivates and excites you in order to become more efficient and productive at what you do.

The discussion on productivity has become especially timely as we work and meet demands remotely but it was the look at outsourcing, common today but not so much when I first read it, that was the driving force in establishing a way to systematize my practice.

Having a system does not ensure that you’ll reach your personal goals or those of your team or practice. It’s not only the system that counts — it’s what you do with it. Systematizing your practice can become an engine for growth. Embracing automation, systems and outsourcing permits you to focus your time and talent on your unique offering and your planning process, from onboarding and servicing clients to portfolio management and scheduling.

Setting The Table

by Danny Meyer

There’s no better place to look for guidance on creating a great customer experience than in the hospitality industry, so I spent time researching the “best of the best” titles in this area. Danny Meyer is the owner of some of New York’s most esteemed restaurants and is founder of the Shake Shack restaurant chain. In his book Setting the Table I found many successful practices to apply to wealth management.

I view top-tier client service as a premier business asset, and like any asset it requires an investment. Concierge-level client service is an investment in relationships, an idea that was nurtured by my working with consultant Dennis Moseley-Williams. (Dennis focuses on the Experience Economy and is one of the only certified consultants who focuses on wealth management.)

The hospitality lessons in Setting the Table illustrate how to build an unforgettable client experience in your own business, one that will build loyalty among clients that they will in turn share with prospective clients, orchestrating referrals to grow your practice to new heights.

Rocket Fuel

by Gino Wickman and Mark C. Winters

As our practice grew, I realized that there was a real need to blend the team’s skills and efforts to continue our growth trajectory. Rocket Fuel helped me identify the next step I needed to take.

The book pinpoints key roles that team members play in an organization to maximize strengths and results. There’s the “visionary” who has an entrepreneurial view of what the company looks like down the road in five to 10 years. Then, there’s the “integrator” who puts the visionary’s ideas into action. Combining a creative visionary and a detail-orientated integrator produces the “rocket fuel” needed to scale up a business.

This book had a sizable impact on the relationship I currently have with our team, particularly since I consider myself more of a leader than a manager. It provided a framework of ideas to ramp up our business to new levels.

Who Not How

by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy

Who Not How formalized a concept that I had grasped before the book was published. It’s a relatively basic idea richly explained: to accelerate growth an entrepreneurial leader needs to direct their team’s energy and actions into implementing ideas that advance the business.

All too often, business owners get stuck performing the detailed, task-centered activities that, while necessary, ultimately restrain growth and hamper the execution of ideas. To get unstuck and grow into a larger, more successful company requires specifying and appointing someone to implement the entrepreneur’s ideas.

This concept, which our firm has formalized and follows today, attracts advisors to our practice and allows them to focus on the client-facing aspects of servicing and growing their business. We handle the rest.