September 05, 2008 - Financial Advisor Client-Centric Blogging - October 1st Goal

My goal for October 1st is to change my blogging to 80% Client-Centric and to 20% about Leading Advisor versus the summer blogs being about 90% about Leading Advisor.

Kind of like a Monday blog about what is happening around Leading Advisor and our personal lives and Tuesday - Friday about adding more value to our readers writing about;

• Becoming a better financial advisor
• Being the best financial advisor
• Financial advisor business planning
• Financial advisor marketing

I am happy to share with you that according to a survey that we did on our web site through Website Grader, our blog currently has a Technorati rank of 4,978,471, which puts it in the top 7.11% of blogs tracked by Technorati.

Technorati is a popular blog directory service. It measures the popularity of a given blog as compared to all other sites that have been submitted to its system.

My challenge just now is I’m pouring all of my extra time and energy into;

• Pro-Seminars Las Vegas
• Complete my book; Curing The Unmet Needs Disease How to Prosper in Business by Meeting Your Unmet Needs- Financial Advisor Edition
• Pre-Launching; Curing The Unmet Needs Disease How to Prosper in Business by Meeting Your Unmet Needs - Financial Advisor Edition
• Editing our web site to match the book
• Completing the How To Thrive In A Recession Booklet
• Monthly articles for Advisor.ca
• Preparing for Referral Expo 2008
• The Insurance Journal Interview
• Updating our Show Reel
• Learning Viral Marketing
• Learning Vlogging

I’m looking forward to the day in the not too distant future when all of this will be complete and all I will be doing is coaching my clients, speaking at financial advisor association and company events and writing a Client-Centric blog about;

• Becoming a better financial advisor
• Being the best financial advisor
• Financial advisor business planning
• Financial advisor marketing

Posted by Simon at 7:51 AM| Permalink

September 05, 2008 - Eternal Optimism

Here is an outstanding article about optimism by Peter Ian McArthur of Plaza Financial Partners Ltd.

Eternal Optimism

Our Life journey is filled with ups and downs. Lucky ones get a smaller share of downs while some get more than their fair share of downs. All of us experience downs at certain points in our lives, the difference is in the degree and magnitude of down. Why is it that some bounce back, more resilient and stronger than ever and why others seem to be struggle, trying to recover from their last negative experience?

Optimism is the key to a great life. A positive person may feel depressed for a while but optimism gives the person hope. With hope, the person envisions a better future; it makes the road to recovery smoother. The person also becomes stronger and more determined to move towards the vision he/she has.

In comparison, pessimistic people tend to think more negatively, spiraling down even further. Because of negative thought patterns, they sink deeper and deeper into depression, making it even harder to break the cycle. Not breaking the cycle leads down a dark path.

We all need eternal optimism to help us overcome disappointments, setbacks and other blows in life. Eternal optimism will also help us seek for and create opportunities for ourselves. The belief that life will get better will help us through a bad patch in life.

Take care of each other and be optimistic; it doesn't cost any more...

Ian

Posted by Simon at 5:00 AM| Permalink

September 02, 2008 - Shot Out Of A Cannon Right After Labor Day - Not Me!

For the person that worked all summer so that I didn’t feel like I was shot out of a cannon on Labor Day I sure did a great job!

One of the components of blogging can be about showing the human side of the business, the soft gooey middle of the candy, not just the bright shiny shell.

Just when I thought I was finished writing I found out last Thursday afternoon from my book project manager that the workbook needed a story at the end of each of the 6 chapters to help associate the reader to the assignments to real life situations.

So I made very effort over the Labor Day weekend to both enjoy it and complete the writing of the 6 stories. So on Monday night, the writing wasn’t finished, Tuesday was a full coaching day and my editor was back from holidays with time booked off for the final edits on the book.

This was a time when I am reminded once again about Stephen Pressfield’s quote from The War Of Art;

“Avoid resistance at all cost. Resistance is an all-encompassing term for what Freud called Death Wish. Resistance cannot be reasoned with. It understands one thing. Power. Resistance takes on the form of drugs, shopping, TV, gossip, alcohol, drugs, and the consumption of all products containing alcohol, caffeine, chocolate, fat, salt and sugar. The greatest danger is Resistance knows when the finish line is in site and it will throw out one final assault.”

So what to do? Get up at 4am and coach and write all day until 7pm.

- - with all of this going on, there is nothing like a 6:35am rainbow outside your front door while you are taking the garbage to the curb. Kind of makes you feel lucky doesn’t it!

The 6 stories totaling 20 pages with over 19,000 words went off to my book editor and book project manager for review last night and I am waiting to hear if the stories pass the grade.

Today is a coaching day that has some open time slots to complete some of the other work that is on my plate that includes finishing the power point for next Monday’s presentations for Pro-Seminars in Las Vegas.

Today also includes an interview with Al Emid from The Insurance Journal. Al saw me speak back in May at The Toronto Independent Financial Brokers Summit.

Posted by Simon at 10:16 AM| Permalink

September 02, 2008 - How Much Labor Did You Do On Labor Day?

Laura and I and 6 friends heading towards Mistaken Island in the Straight Of Georgia on Labor Day.

According to a Toronto Poll, 35% of Canadians will work on Labor Day.

Another blessing was a headline in Saturday’s Vancouver Sun Business Section; “Canada Escapes recession … Technically” .

These are blessings when you consider the labor whoas of our friends to the south and may New Orleans and its citizens come out unscathed from Hurricane Gustav.

As we approach December 31st, 2008 remember to be a visionary and take time away from labor to answer the following questions and set your goals from now until the end of the year so that you are running towards the finish like knowing that you are going to win.

• What would have to have happened for you to be happy with the progress that you have made in the past year?
• What did you accomplish?
• What goals did you set and achieve?
• What made you happy?

Use can use the following business and personal categories to prompt you to set goals in all areas of your life.

When I reflect on my goals that I wanted to complete by Labor Day that included the book and the projects listed in this blog I can give myself a 9 out of 10 as I have given it my best shot from the end of May.

:-) The book is in what the experts call developmental editing. Lynne Klippel let me know last week that the book has the potential to be a best seller but the workbook part of the book requires more explanation to go along with assignments.

To make it more heartfelt, we came up with the ideas to;

• add a hypothetical client story at the end of each chapter.
• add a final article in to wrap it all up in the flag and apple pie as Lynne would say

Developmental editing is about to drive me mental as I worked over some of the weekend and I’ve finished three stories out of six which is 15 pages and 7000 + words. While I’m frustrated with going back to the writing drawing board I have the sense that this writing will catapult the book from good to great as the writing is the best that I have done so far.

Here are the business and personal categories to prompt you to set goals in all areas of your life.

Make your goal setting for the final four months of 2008 so!

Business

Administration
Clients
Computers, Systems and Technology
Customer Service
Financial
Marketing
Planning
Product Development
Production
Sales
Team
Training

Personal

Auto
Clothing
Charity
Entertainment
Family
Friends
Health
Hobbies
Home
Intellectual
Spirituality
Spouse
Travel

Posted by Simon at 5:00 AM| Permalink

August 29, 2008 - Adapting To Change

Behavioral research indicates that 54% of us have characteristics that will avoid change at all costs, even if our current experience is hurting us.

Some of us don’t even know that our current experience is hurting us.

I am sure that you have heard:

• 10% of Financial Advisors will make something happen
• 20% of Financial Advisors will have something happen
• 70% of Financial Advisors will not know anything happened to them

Like the frog that is placed in cold water that is heated in 2° intervals to boiling and that the frog will never jump out.

If the frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out.

This week I’ve increased the temperature a lot by working on the list of projects that I wrote about in Wednesday’s blog.

Through behavioral research I know that I am best at multi tasking and it takes me a considerable amount of energy to focus on one thing at a time. When that energy is focused, look out!

Our business plan allows me to work with clients one week on and one week off allowing a product development week every other week.

This week was one of those weeks where I focused on one project in the early mornings of each day where my energy is the best. I can then go back into my multi tasking style in the afternoons working on tying up loose ends on various different projects.

This strategy has allowed me to complete the lion’s share of the work that I set out to do this week so that we can head towards September 2nd and December 31st knowing that we are going to win.

Posted by Simon at 6:04 AM| Permalink

August 28, 2008 - We've Got Atawa?!?

It was the perfect moment, about 7:30am and I was in the shower after working from 5am and while the water was flowing I was right in the moment thinking about my future presentation that I’m doing for Pro-Seminars in Las Vegas on September 8th.

Over the noise of the water and in the background I heard a faint voice say “we’ve got atawa”.

Atawa? Now that is a new one. The voices in my head are speaking a different language. :-) I heard it again only a little louder. I turned around and Laura was standing in the door of the bathroom saying with a great big smile “we’ve got Ottawa” meaning we have landed the opportunity to speak to 200 - 300 financial advisors at Advocis Ottawa, Ontario on November 20th.

Now that is a great way to start the day and head into September and our speaking calendar is really starting to fill up.

My Wednesday work on my How To Thrive In A Recession and Clearing Your Roadblocks Power Points came together easily because of the articles that I wrote in my July E-Newsletter along with the article that I wrote on Tuesday for Advisor.ca for their October edition.

While doing my research I finally found an article entitled Bankers Use Secret Clinics, Nurses to Beat Breakdowns that I wrote about in the following article in my July E-Newsletter; Perfect Obsession, Mental Illness & Financial Services Workers Seek Treatment Mash Up

Kim Black and I have started our work on a new 5 minute Show Reel using the footage from the presentation that I did for the Nanaimo, BC Freedom 55 Office back in May. Here is our work which needs a title, music and video clip breaks; Kim Black Is Creating A New Show Reel.

Onward, upward.

Posted by Simon at 5:00 AM| Permalink

August 27, 2008 - Kim Black Is Creating A New Show Reel

Posted by Kim at 3:00 PM| Permalink