Welcome to the February 2007 edition of our e-newsletter.

I turned the corner with writing my book. I've decided to make "The Secret To Removing Your Roadblocks To Your Success", to include fictitious stories of financial advisors versus just a technical book. For more please see the Blog; Living the Life of Reilly

Having said this, I am doing my best to make my Blog & E-Newsletter about stories on fictitious financial advisors as I have the basis for loads of stories as I invest one hundred hours a month speaking with financial advisors.

The outcome is for you to get more value and learn through the process. At the same, I may be able to selfishly write some content for my book.

Reflecting back, I have 10 years in this business format of coaching one on one clients on the phone x 12 months a year x 100 hours per month = 12,000 hours of stories - that should be enough.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Simon Reilly
The Financial Advisor Coach
sreilly@leadingadvisor.com
1 877 248 6019

This edition of the E-Newsletter Includes:

• Australia Calling
• Do You Want To Magnify The Power Of Visualization?
• Eliminating 66% Of RRSP Calls
• How many times have you heard a client say...
• Rookie Of The Year
• Segmentation & Niche
• 19 Rules of Niche
• Speaking Across Canada In A City Near You
• Subscribe to Our Free E-Newsletter
• Succession Conversation Too Late?
• Team Boundaries
• Tell a Friend
• Values of the Queen, Parent, Self & TV
• You Are the Vessel

Enjoy the read.

 

Australia Calling

The internet is truly global and all of the updating to the web site, e-newsletters and blogs are really helping to get our search engine rankings up there.

Yesterday brought an inquiry from Australia

Here is the inquiry and the response with the names edited out.

Dear Laura,

Having recently stumbled on your website, I am writing to enquire as to whether you will be holding a Retreat in 2007. Furthermore, I would be interested in receiving additional information on your Workshops, with the objective of possibly flying from Australia to attend.

Thank you.

*************

Dear ________,

Thank you very much for your e-mail.

I read _______________ on your web site and it truly engaged me and confirmed that we are very much on the same page.

We have no plans for a Retreat in 2007. We will do one in the early part of 2008. We do private workshops and do not do public workshops at this time. This will change as the readership of our web site / e-newsletter and public speaking visibility increases. We have close to 40 1-hour public speaking presentations booked right across Canada for 2007 to build our readership and visibility ... they are not workshops. The reason that I am saying this is that Canada, like Australia are huge countries with small pockets of population so one requires a large audience to make a workshop go.

Our focus and best results are working with our clients on a one on one basis on the telephone combined with e-mailed assignments using a very effective coaching program that removes their roadblocks to success, is akin to what you have been reading on our web site that lays a strong foundation for their vision, business plan and marketing plan.

I've worked with clients in the USA, UK and Mexico so it is possible to work with you in this format if you choose.

I would be happy to speak with you on the telephone. We are on the west coast of Canada (pacific time) and if my time calculations are correct, we could speak with you in the late afternoon our time which would be your early morning time the next day.

Please e-mail me back and I will have Laura contact you with some appointment times that we have open.

Best regards,

Simon Reilly

Do You Want To Magnify The Power Of Visualization?

Put it in print.

Here is an e-mail that I received from Glennis Deslippe. Glennis is doing an extraordinary job of building her business.

Do you have a short story that you are willing to share of how using the concepts from Leading Advisor have helped you? I invite you to email me at sreilly@leadingadvisor.com.

I believe that by sharing your story, you will magnify the affects by 1000 times.

Hi Simon

I took your idea about visualizing I was winning the prize of next year's tuition to the Critical Illness Conference. For the 4 days the conference was on, I visualized winning the prize. The tuition is a thousand bucks and I really wanted the break for next year. As Alphonso was about to draw the name, I imagined I saw my name on the card and started getting up from my seat. Sure enough, he called my name! I almost choked I was so taken by surprise. Since we returned from Phoenix and as I was completing my planning for this year, I decided to say a mantra daily. My mantra is "Money is pouring in". Sure enough, I'm right on target for the year so far and it's only going to get more profitable. How do I know this? Don't underestimate the power of visualization!

Thanks for the tip.

Regards,

Glennis Deslippe BSN, RHU
Living Benefits Specialist
Integral Financial Services Inc.
Phone direct 604-538-8971
fax 604-538-8972
email glennis @ integral-financial.com
Web www.integral-financial.com

Eliminating 66% Of RRSP Calls

Over the years, I find my new clients consumed in the month of February making follow up calls to their clients that are not on a monthly RRSP contribution so that their clients don’t miss the RRSP deadline. What is worse is, my client’s entire business and lives are thrown into disarray working on tight time deadlines trying to get the last of their RRSP client stragglers in before the end of the month deadline.

To eliminate this, here is what I suggested to my new client;

• Make a list of all of the clients that need to be contacted about RRSP contributions
• ID the clients that have e-mail addresses
• Send the following e-mail, three times, five days apart

Dear _________,

Thank you for opportunity to be of service over the years.

I am sure that you have noticed employment shortages in your day to day travels and we too are starting to notice that more and more people are looking for financial advisors, especially when RRSP season comes around.

To make sure that your RRSP needs are completely taken care of, please call or e-mail my assistant Jane at 123-456-7890 or jane @ noemail.com and Jane will take care of getting an appointment scheduled we me so that we can provide you with the service that you require.

Best regards,

Leading Advisor

My client has had a 66% reply rate to the e-mail as of the second e-mail without making one phone call!

How many times have you heard a client say...

"I should have taken the recommendation to buy the life/disability/critical care policy?  Now I can't get it."

There are times when I find my newer clients struggle to make the time to complete two key assignments in The Leading Advisor Coaching Program.

I asked Phil Hauser if he would offer his experience about writing The Story and The Clearing Process.

Simon asked me to provide my perspective about the assignment on The Story and The Clearing. 
 
I too struggled to find the time. The deepest truth is I have been trying to find the time to write The Story and reap the benefit from it for more than 10 years!  I always knew that something was holding me back from the level of success I was capable of having.  Having not taken the time to do this, to get down into as Simon put it, "The Dark Night of the Soul", I avoided the story consciously and put myself in danger.  My father passed 6 years ago, and I inherited the story because like me, he buried it most of his life. 
 
When I speak to clients about investing money for their future we sometimes get to the question, "Is now the right time?"  How many times have you heard from a client that they should have started earlier in planning their financial successes? I hear it several hundred times per year.  How many times have you heard a client say, "I should have taken the recommendation to buy the life/disability/critical care policy?  Now I can't get it."  How many times have you heard an agent say, "They missed the chance and a family is ruined because of not doing what needs to be done NOW?"
 
Writing and clearing your own story is not even slightly different than these situations.  The time to do it is now.  Why wait ten years? Why risk a marriage? What about a lifestyle? Or simply your present happiness to do this work at sometime down the road?  After attempting this many times over the last decade, I came to the conclusion enough is enough. Having personally lived through every one of these risks I sincerely hope that there is a desire within you to start today to do what needs to be done to remove the obstacles that hold you back invariably at an unfavorable moment in time.
 
My experience was very uplifting at having made the decision to do this work. So many other times I sat down and began to eulogize my father and mother. This was not the case this time. I began by acknowledging that they were not in fact saints, but like myself simply human. They were born in trying times. Both my parents lost their fathers in tragic circumstances.  I believe that many of the difficulties I have encountered in my life spring from the environment that they were exposed to at an early age. 
 
Like so many dependencies, a cycle had to be broken. So I began to try really hard to remember trying times in my own youth.  I had moments of embarrassment that I could recall and several skirmishes typical of a teenage rebellion, but I kept blocking out the bad things that happened in my early life.  With Christmas coming I began to recall a particularly trying time for us financially where we relied on the good people of our home town to literally feed us through the winter out of their generosity.  When I managed to dig past that, I was able to think back to other times in my youth and I came to that very Dark Night or in my case Dark Day. Where something happened that began to scare the living hell out of me!
 
I faced a choice, do I continue or cut and run? Something inside of me had had enough, and so I tore open the veil and attacked the issue at hand with vigor.  I wrote for a little more than an hour about a very dark time in my early years (forgive my being blunt but my dad had tried to kill himself). I began to remember details like the weather. I even recalled my father's license plate number from the car he was driving that day, from 35 years ago. I could recall the fears and the screams of how scared I was.
 
I was also able to recall my parent's very own lives and feelings; I could feel their own torments! This sounds extreme but I am simply a product of my environment. In understanding what I grew up with, I began to understand that they too had grown up with things that affected them.  Things that happened in my dad's youth were responsible for the way he lived after his own dad died in tragedy. It affected how he thought of his own life and how we interacted with his family.  
 
I reached a very surreal point where I no longer felt burdened by my own shortcomings because I could recognize a causal affect.  This is perhaps the greatest benefit to me. In understanding where I came from I was able to understand and release myself from the silence that had tied me down for an entire adult life.  I was able to accept that my parents had done their best and their shortcomings were those of human beings that needed to be accepted, loved and forgiven.
 
I managed to dig into a lot of this stuff over the past ten years so I had a lot to work with when I finally got to the root of all. However, the process only began there. I have had more energy since then to tackle my daily tasks. I have become more understanding of others and in so doing have found better relations with everyone I deal with. My wife and I are gaining steam on a relationship that has been well mended over the past few years but is finally starting to heal. My children are becoming more focused because they are getting all of my attention when they need it. I can even say that I have had the joy of going through this and talking about it with my mother and helping her to work on this same process.
 
It is a great feeling to have the burden lifted. As I write this, I find myself feeling lighter again as though sharing the affects with you is somehow almost as effective as having defeated this demon in my life.  I am more focused on business. I feel much more complete than I can ever recall and I believe that the root of all this is facing up to something that I needed to.
 
This 'something' is in every one of our lives. In fact it IS our lives.  Years ago Dr. Suzuki began teaching children violin in war torn Japan. His reasoning was simple when asked why he was trying to teach children as young as three years old how to master this instrument.  His answer? A simple question, "Why is it that all children born to Japanese parents speak Japanese?" Suzuki then reasoned that even an infant whose English speaking parents were separated from him at birth would learn to speak Japanese if he were raised in a Japanese home.  This became known as the mother tongue principle, but Suzuki later wrote about children being a product of their environment both good and bad.  Whatever we are exposed to will either make us musical or miserable depending on the tone.
 
I hope that ten years from now you are not wishing you had acted more firmly today to write your story.  I believe that the time to do this for you is now.  You have the time, you need only decide that the lifestyle you wish, the very life you aspire to is worth the time.  I know mine is.

Good luck!

Philip Hauser
financialplan @ philhauser.ca
Sterling Mutual Funds Inc.
London, On

Rookie Of The Year

- photo courtesy of; http://www.baseballmovie.com/images/rookie-of-year.jpg

I can't tell you how many times I hear, "I was rookie of the year" and ever since, the client or prospective client says they have been unable to recreate the experience.

This is because they have been using the same operating system and they do not have a scientific approach to recreate fulfillment from the inside out.

What the client or prospective client does not understand is the motivation to become rookie of the year was based on their ego seeking outside approval and recognition.

The ego never feels fully satisfied from the outside, and no matter how big the accomplishment, the ego will wind up saying, "is this all there is?" Subsequently, this leaves the person unfulfilled.

In this particular case, the client or prospective client that I am speaking to after spending many years trying to create the experience in their business, tries to recreate the experience outside of the business though public service.

While they do good work for the community through public service, at a deep level, they still feel unfulfilled. The need of power to recreate the feeling of rookie of the year that they are trying to meet through the public service has power over them, and is very unattractive to others at the same time.

- photo courtesy of; http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,3068079,00.html

"I was rookie of the year" turned into, "I could have been a contender".

Segmentation & Niche

I had a few more thoughts on segmentation. Please note that you are looking at it from a repeatable process as it must be scalable ... it has to be done on mass as you can't do a custom job every time unless you are working for the wealthy. You have to come up with a program that works consistently for a large group of people. Package it and go and tell ten thousand people.

At the same time, you have to get out of your head and stop being a salesperson and start setting the time aside to think about and lead your business.

You know what they say, old salespersons never die, they just go out of commission.

So back to client segmentation and said another way than what I said last week;

1. There is a list of them (you can find them);
2. They have a problem that they WANT to solve;
3. You have the solution;
4. They have the money to pay for the solution;
5. You trust, respect and like them;

Again, this what I said last week;

Who in you client list meets this criteria;

• What are your one or two most profitable products? What is your area of specialty? Who fits into this category? It is OK if you happen to serve them with other product needs. Build a practice to have an associate service the "other" products. The key point is you have chosen to focus on one or two products at the most.
• Who are the clients that give you all or most of your business? The client trusts you and you are looking after all or a substantial amount of the client's business
• Who are the clients that you most enjoy? Do you enjoy doing business with the client and does the client enjoy doing business with you? Do you look forward to meeting with and doing business with the client?
• Do these clients have a strong business or family network and would they refer you to their friends and associates?
• What marketing niches do these clients have in common? Doctors, engineers, IT professionals ... people with money is not a niche, it is a demographic. The key point is this is your marketing niche. It does not mean that you can't service clients that are not in other marketing niches. The point is to remember is that when you are segmenting clients, be aware of the niche that they might fit in.

Click here for The 19 Rules Of Niche.

Best regards,

19 Rules of Niche

The 19 Rules of Niche

1. Are you offering what the client wants, offering value versus offering what you need to?
2. Values are the only sustainable foundation for your niche.
3. Niche is the same as your Vision, Purpose & Mission.
4. Vision - What YOU SEE as possible for others, the world.
5. Purpose - Why you are here. What you are here TO BE.
6. Mission - What you are here TO DO.
7. Marketing is the process by which people eliminate themselves through their behavior in other words, stay true to your vision, niche, products and services that you want to deliver.
8. Are there enough of them?
9. Do they have the money to pay you?
10. Will your investment of energy, money and time create a profit?
11. Can you create a plus seven figure yearly income working with the niche?
12. Can you find them?
13. Can you speak about and write about topics that relate to the niche?
14. Do you believe that you could write monthly articles about the topics that relate to the niche?
15. Does the niche have associations and conferences?
16. Become their Google, their information source.
17. Be-BOP - Bold, Outrageous, Provocative.
18. There are people that know a lot of things. There are people that know a lot of people that know a lot of things. Be the person that knows a lot of people.
19. Become a Celebrity in your Niche.

Speaking Across Canada In A City Near You

To find out where we are speaking next, click: Speaking Across Canada In A City Near You.

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Succession Conversation Too Late?

- photo courtesy of; http://camdenhouse.ignisart.com/canon/prio.htm

I believe human beings are basically honest, but at the same boundaries are so important.

Succession Conversation Too Late is written based on a couple of experiences where the senior advisor had brought in a novice advisor into their business.

The senior advisor with over 25 years of experience, and a lack of vision brought on by unresolved unmet needs, had weak leadership boundaries with the novice advisor.

Casually over lunch one day, the senior advisor says "we can talk about being partners one day".

Five years pass and the senior and novice advisor finally get around to creating the partnership agreement, and the relationship ends because the novice advisor was thinking 50/50 and the senior advisor was thinking 50/50 from the time that the novice advisor started working with the senior advisor.

The senior advisor believed that their business was worth $250K for the previous 25 years before the novice advisor arrived, and if the novice advisor wants 50% of the 25 years that it took the senior advisor to build the business, the fee is $125K.

The novice advisor gets their nose out of joint fueled by both their generation X/Y sense of entitlement, and the fact that they were not advised of the initial value of the business, and the 25 years that it took the senior advisor to build it before they got there in the very beginning.

The novice advisor soon forgets what it took the senior advisor to build the business while they slide in front of all of the quality A clients that it took them zero sweat equity to be a part of.

Any one can walk out in front of someone's audience (well almost).

Again, I have seen this more than once and it has ended every time in a sh*t fight.

The solution;

• Know what your values are (get your unmet needs identified and met)
• Have a clear vision for the future
• Use values and behaviors assessments for hiring to weed out takers vs. givers
• Have a clear and documented conversation with new associates and employees about the value of the business at their point of entry and that if they want to buy in, the fee is $ ____________.
• Don't use the word partnership with anyone that is under 30

Team Boundaries

- photo courtesy of; www.allposters.com

While you are very successful, the price of this is you are giving and giving and giving too much of your time and energy to everyone else and there is little time and energy left to yourself.

To get your need to be heard met, you have been using your assistant as a personal confident.

The business requires a leader that the team respects and will follow into battle, even when the decision may not make sense to the rest of team. The leader is respected and the actions to support the decisions are carried out.

The challenge with using your assistant as a personal confident is the healthy boundary that is required between the leader and the assistant is eroded by sharing ones most intimate personal details and a lack of confidence and respect in the leader soon follows.

The team requires a leader. If confidence and respect in the leader is lacking, team members, in order to get their needs met will often go to other members of the team sharing their concern about the leader, further eroding the confidence and respect for the leader.

You must learn to get your needs met and to clear your limiting beliefs & emotions and to fulfill yourself from the inside out in a healthy way.

Tell a Friend

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Values of the Queen, Parent, Self & TV

The Queen starring Helen Mirren's sure Oscar contending performance is really worth seeing providing some interesting behind the scenes experiences of The British Government, Monarchy and People during the two months surrounding the regrettable and unfortunate death of Princess Dianna.

The movie really brought back memories of my British heritage of being born in England and later gathering around the Tele at Christmas time to hear the Queens message to the Commonwealth on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Television.

Helen Mirren's quote near the end of the movie that went something like the following really struck a cord with me;

"Duty first, self second has been my motto my entire life".

That was the crux of the issue of conflict during that time between The British People and The British Monarchy with The British Government balancing the two.

The Queen stated that "there has been a shift in values" when she realized that she had to adjust the value of duty and stiff upper lip and show the value of empathy which is what the people wanted.

In essence, the motto may have needed to be adjusted to;

"Duty to the People first, duty to the Crown second and duty to the Self third".

This leads to another values shift that may have helped to eliminate the essence of the problem of the insatiable and incomplete and unfulfilled baby boomer's unmet needs;

"Duty to the Parent (Self) first, duty to the Child second, duty to the Career third and duty to the TV fourth".

You Are the Vessel

- photo courtesy of; http://www.walltowallwallpaper.com/door-posters-1.htm

My client was feeling bogged down with details and this was dampening their inspiration to attract more business to the point where the business was becoming drudgery.

Being attractive requires a change of mindset from "having to" to "wanting to".

The drudgery left unchecked will have an effect on my client's ability to attract business.

In the old days, one was trained to trap and then charm the client as insurance was deemed to be something that is sold and not bought.

Being attractive eliminates the need to trap clients and keeps one in a state of charm if you will. Being attractive requires a change of mindset from "needing or having to" to "valuing or wanting to".

While details are essential to the life blood of the value that is being supplied to their client and their business, my client is finding that they were getting bogged down as the go-between for their client and the product supplier asking and answering questions and completing documents going back and forth.

Here is my recommendation about the evaluation of the current work load to improve communication and delegate with the potential of creating a new position to facilitate both marketing and sales activities;

• Without thinking of a person, create the perfect job description for the person that would oversee the business once it is created. Please include marketing activities at the same time.
• Request the existing members of the team to review their job descriptions and add to / edit their job descriptions to bring them up to date. Give them two weeks to review the job descriptions. The revised job descriptions to can be used as the foundation for the Quarterly Review at a later date.
• Evaluate all of the job descriptions to consider if the job descriptions are ¾ time, full time or more than full time jobs. What jobs can be added to or taken away from each job description? Please note that it essential to use Values & Behaviors Assessments so that you are matching the job descriptions to the most appropriate Values & Behaviors.

This will get you started to think outside of the box in respect to creating more time and energy for yourself and to enable you to invest your time in what you are best suited to.

Yes, this may require an additional investment in your business.

• How much time will you be able to create from this exercise? How will this make you feel?

• How will your customer service improve? How will this make you feel?

• How much income will you be able to create? How will this make you feel?

You are the vessel through which all communication flows. When the vessel is bogged down with answering questions and completing documents that are unsuited to your values and behaviors, attraction to client opportunities and referrals slows down or dries right up.

Thank you for sharing your time.



Simon Reilly
The Financial Advisor Coach
sreilly@leadingadvisor.com
1 877 248 6019