New Year’s Resolutions for Your Practice

As we head into a new year most of us have made some personal resolutions, but what about your practice?

To help your practice surge in 2013, we are excited to present a new feature for advisors: 30 Days 30 Ways to a Better Practice. The site, set to launch Wednesday, will offer a tip each day through the rest of January. These tips are actionable items from industry experts that you can implement immediately to enhance your practice.

So, as you get ready for the new year, here are a few interesting things to think about based on what we heard from industry experts as we prepared 30 Days 30 Ways.

Commitment is Key

Like any resolution, setting goals to enhance your practice requires commitment. Your first priority must be to make time to work towards and achieve the goals you set for your practice says Robert Sofia, cofounder and chief operating officer of advisor consulting firm, Platinum Advisor Strategies.

“Setting a business goal without first committing the time is like deciding to be fit without planning time for exercise,” he says. Advisors should eliminate, delegate or outsource anything they do that isn’t essential says Sofia.

Look Back to Move Ahead

Ray Sclafani, a certified coach and the president and founder of advisor coaching firm, ClientWise, says that when setting goals for the new year, it’s crucial to reflect on your successes of the previous year. “We’re having clients think about when they were particularly successful, when they were at their best, when the business became a little easier and wasn’t as hard or lonely,” Sclafani says.

Be sure to learn more about the seven key practice areas advisors should think about when setting goals for 2013 in the rest of the interview.

Consider Potential Roadblocks

The most common impediments to an advisors’ success fall into three particular buckets, says Eric Sheikowitz of advisor coaching firm Focus Partners. “First and foremost, is being able to contact the right people at the right time and talk about the right stuff,” he said.

The next is an advisor’s failure to change his mentality to work with multi-generational clients. “The younger generation doesn’t want Mommy and Daddy’s broker,” Sheikowitz says.

The last bucket, he says, has to do with “growing pains.” As advisors grow and add staff, it isn’t always as easy as they think it should be.

Meet More People

Your practice is also a business and meeting people is a key to growth. “Talk to one new person everyday of your career and don’t go home until you do,” says Brien O’Brien, president and chief executive officer of investment management firm Advisory Reasearch, Inc.

They may not all become contacts, but it could be worth it because you never know, O’Brien says. And according to him, that’s precisely how he built Advisory Research into the $9 billion in assets under management firm that it is.

But perhaps you already know the specific areas of your practice that need a little extra attention in 2013. Do you already have your New Year’s practice resolutions in mind?

Let us know what you plan to work on by taking the poll to find out what’s weighing on advisors’ minds when it comes to 2013 practice goals.

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Practice management
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