Hurry Up & Be Very, Very Afraid … Get It Over With!

October 24, 2011 by Simon · Leave a Comment

In dark days, people seek glimmers of hope.

When it comes to the commitment, courage and conviction to dedicate you to making long lasting and sustainable change, hope is useless.

Hope is an avoidance strategy, a distraction, a medication preventing you from dealing with the real issues and what you really need to do.

The definition of hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. In the same vein: “faith without action is dead” – James 2:17

Pardon me for focusing on the negative in this oh so positive thinking instant gratification world.

But I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy isn’t going to cut it if your business is running you because you don’t have a vision or plan, you are buried by piles of paper, your mood is up and down with your ever changing cash flow, your marketing plan is non-existent, you are selling the flavour of the month products just to make a sale which is not meeting the needs of your clients because you have not done a needs analysis for your clients which is certain to have compliance regulators knocking on your door and your time management system is Swiss cheese because your clients think you are running a financial advisor drive through expecting 24/7 service.

I am writing this to bring the issues to the surface to wake you up and talk about the consequences of doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results and hoping that things are going to get better.

The less afraid you are, the more likely you are to do just enough to temporarily stave off a catastrophe that lets the underlying problems get worse.

What makes things even worse; “The law of attraction is absolute; whatever you defend against you make real as thoughts are real forces”. In other words, you can continue to make the following worse by pushing them out of your mind, by not dealing with them, you give them more negative energy and hence the laws of attraction keep on attracting more of the evidence that kills your inspiration;

your business is running you because you don’t have a vision or plan
you are buried by piles of paper
your mood is up and down with your ever changing cash flow
your marketing plan is non-existent
you are selling the flavour of the month products just to make a sale which is not meeting the needs of your clients because you have not done a needs analysis for your clients which is certain to have compliance regulators knocking on your door
your time management system is Swiss cheese because your clients think you are running a financial advisor drive through expecting 24/7 service

Learn to make fear your friend by understanding your fear.

When there is no understanding there is fear.

When there is fear there can be no understanding.

When there is no understanding there is judgement.

When there is judgement there can be no understanding.

When there is judgement there is fear.

When there is fear, no understanding and judgement there can be no commitment, courage and conviction to dedicate you to taking action to make long lasting and sustainable change.

This article was inspired by; Be Afraid – The Economist, Oct 1 – 7, 2011

Filed under: Clear Your Roadblocks
Tagged: Clear Your Roadblocks, financial advisor blog, financial advisor business planning

Doing Less & Quitting To Be More Successful

September 6, 2011 by Simon · Leave a Comment

It’s the day after Labour Day, the first day of the financial advisor’s and investment advisor’s year as it all starts here after the lazy days of summer.

We’ve had a very busy summer with clients and business development and we are standing on a strong foundation as evidenced by our budget cash flow document and sales report which are significantly ahead of last year.

We are as successful as we can get and we cannot do any more and have to find ways to do less to be more successful.

These are the thoughts that are behind the above comment “find ways to do less to be more successful” and the title of this Doing Less & Quitting To Be More Successful blog.

We saw fellow 2011 Senior Market Advisor Expo Speaker Larry Winget’s presentation in Las Vegas on Wednesday, August 24th. Larry’s presentation was about how the attitude of Entitlement was taking over Empowerment and that people have lost the values of excellence and hard work. People need to get used to less in order to be more successful.

This reminded me of Stephen Pressfield’s thoughts about Success 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.

These also tie in with Seth Godin’s thoughts on Strategic Quitting from his book called The Dip. The gist of The Dip is about “getting” that quitting is a winning strategy. In essence, know when to quit or take a mini retirement to re-evaluate and outsource, outsource and outsource.

It might sound odd but The One Page Business Plan also includes the notion of do less in order to be more successful.

The five components of The One Page Business Plan are Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies & Actions and they answer the following questions;

Vision What are you building?
Mission Why does this business exist?
Objectives What result will we measure?
Strategies How will we build this company?
Action Plans What it the work to be done?

An Objective can be written by either Increasing or Decreasing an Objective using the following examples:

Increase ____ from ____ to ____ by ____.

Decrease ____ from ____ to ____ by ____.

The complete example could look like;

Increase 2010 income from $250,000 to $330,000 by December 31, 2011.

So having said all of this, I’ve started a list of things that I am going to Decrease and I’ll share them with you in my September E-Newsletter.

For now, I am going to share one;

Decrease daily blogging from 5 per week to 1 – 5 per week by September 6th, 2011.

My reason for saying this is I started blogging back in February of 2005 and I committed to blogging on a daily basis because I believe there was nothing worse than arriving at someone’s blog page when it had not been updated in 6 months.

Now I believe that blogging is part of Marketing / Social Media and there is so much more to business so I am decreasing daily blogging and Doing Less & Quitting To Be More Successful and investing the time in other areas of the business.

“I try to use social media to share interesting things with people. It isn’t about what you post but what you listen to. You don’t want to be the source for everything, you want to be the pipe for everything.” Ashton Kutcher – Details Magazine September 2011

Filed under: Clear Your Roadblocks, Vision & Planning
Tagged: Clear Your Roadblocks, financial advisor blog, One Page Business Plan

How Do You Emotionalize Your Business?

August 30, 2011 by Simon · Leave a Comment

( Laura and I are taking a break from August 31st and we will see you back here on September 6th … have a great Labour Day weekend! )

As a frequent customer of Starbucks I’ve been thinking of whether or not to buy Howard Shultz’s new book Onward for a while.

I made the purchase after watching a segment of an interview with Howard Shultz by Piers Morgan on CNN because of these compelling words from Howard.

“To build an enduring brand you have to emotionalize the relationship of your business with your customers and employees.”

Those words made the book sale and they reminded me of how we work with our clients to emotionalize their business by helping them discover their values, their positive beliefs and positive feelings all creating a strong foundation for their business to stand on.

Howard Shultz’s words reminded me of another compelling book that I read in 1996 by Tom Chappell of Tom’s Of Maine called The Soul Of A Business.

Free One Page Business Plan Webinars September 9 & 28^th – Register Now!

Announcing Leading Advisor’s One Page Business Plan^(TM) Free Webinars and the One Page Business Plan^(TM) Webinars!“If you don’t get the words right, you might build the wrong business and may never get the numbers right.”

The dates for the One Page Business Plan^(TM) Free Webinars are:

Friday, September 9^th at 11:15am EDT
Wednesday, September 28^th at 12:30pm EDT

Who should attend?

Do you have too many scattered ideas?
Do you need to focus on a few?
Do you need to jumpstart your business right now?
Do you have no time or interest in writing a 50 page business plan?
Do you need to determine if you’re focusing on the right things?
Do you need an effective blueprint to keep yourself and team focused?

Then consider a fresh, simple approach to business planning that will enable you to focus on what is important…the One Page Business Plan^(TM) – a powerful tool for building and managing a business. It’s short, it’s concise, and it delivers results quickly and effectively. There can be no question as to where your business is headed when it is in writing, especially when you have the key essentials about growing your business clearly specified on a single page.

Is this another ho-hum course on business planning like the ten others you have attended – no way! I know how to capture the essence of any business in just a few minutes using the innovative key word and short phrase techniques using the One Page Business Plan^(TM).

To Register for the One Page Business Plan^(TM) Free Webinars:

Call Laura at 250 248-6012 / 1 877 248-6012 or e-mail Laura at lreilly@leadingadvisor.com and you will receive your GoTo Meeting Webinar Link, Phone Number and Access Code.

Friday, September 9^th at 11:15am EDT
Wednesday, September 28^th at 12:30pm EDT

Filed under: Clear Your Roadblocks, Vision & Planning
Tagged: Clear Your Roadblocks, Financial Advisor Coach, Investment Advisor Coach

Our New Clear Your Roadblocks Video For Our Upcoming New Coaching Page

August 26, 2011 by Simon · Leave a Comment

In What Did You Do With Your Summer To Get Ready For September? I wrote about my Summer Buffer Day activity which included a list with a ranking of where we stand on a scale of 1 – 10, 10 being the highest.

One of the items on the list was Product Content Development, Organizing, Packaging and Website which includes expanding on and creating the following product offers along with Vlogs ( video blogs ) for each one of them.

• Clear Your Roadblocks™ – 2 Month Program

• One Page Business Plan™ – 2 Month Program

• Clear * Plan * Practice™ – 12 Month Program

Free One Page Business Plan Webinars September 9 & 28^th – Register Now!

Announcing Leading Advisor’s One Page Business Plan^(TM) Free Webinars and the One Page Business Plan^(TM) Webinars!

“If you don’t get the words right, you might build the wrong business and may never get the numbers right.”

The dates for the One Page Business Plan^(TM) Free Webinars are:

Friday, September 9^th at 11:15am EDT
Wednesday, September 28^th at 12:30pm EDT

Who should attend?

Do you have too many scattered ideas?
Do you need to focus on a few?
Do you need to jumpstart your business right now?
Do you have no time or interest in writing a 50 page business plan?
Do you need to determine if you’re focusing on the right things?
Do you need an effective blueprint to keep yourself and team focused?

To Register for the One Page Business Plan^(TM) Free Webinars:

Call Laura at 250 248-6012 / 1 877 248-6012 or e-mail Laura at lreilly@leadingadvisor.com and you will receive your GoTo Meeting Webinar Link, Phone Number and Access Code.

Friday, September 9^th at 11:15am EDT
Wednesday, September 28^th at 12:30pm EDT

Filed under: Clear Your Roadblocks
Tagged: Clear Your Roadblocks, Curing the Unmet Need, Financial Advisor Coaching

Do We Work With Big Hitters Or Consistent Hitters?

August 24, 2011 by Simon · Leave a Comment

We had a referral to an advisor that was looking for a coach that works with big hitters.

What is a big hitter? It is said that a big hitter is one who carries a lot of weight and influence in the work that he/she does.

Is a big hitter always a consistent hitter?

Michael Jordan said that he shot a thousand baskets a day until he reached the NBA, and based on Michael’s career it would be safe to say that he was a consistent hitter.

Then there is baseball, while I’m sure there are challenges in basketball, baseball seems to have been riddled with controversy with the use of steroids to maintain being a big hitter.

A big hitter is not sustainable because it requires the sustained use of power.

Power used to be a popular buzz word, but is now being replaced by strengths. Power generally means you have power over something: over yourself, over another, over circumstances. With strength, there is no competition or need to have power over something because you’re so naturally strong, there is no threat. A coach works to strengthen their clients more than empower them, because if they’re strong, they’re naturally empowered without empowerment being the focus.

We help our clients get their needs met and build on their values, vision and business plan.

We work with consistent hitters and among some of our clients are owners of practices with teams of 5 – 12 junior advisors / marketing assistants / back office assistants earning $600,000 to well over $1,000,000 in gross income specializing in life, CI, DI, ILA’s and money and some are MDRT top five national or provincial producers with leading life insurance companies.

Free One Page Business Plan Webinars September 9 & 28^th – Register Now!

Announcing Leading Advisor’s One Page Business Plan^(TM) Free Webinars and the One Page Business Plan^(TM) Webinars!

“If you don’t get the words right, you might build the wrong business and may never get the numbers right.”

The dates for the One Page Business Plan^(TM) Free Webinars are:

Friday, September 9^th at 11:15am EDT
Wednesday, September 28^th at 12:30pm EDT

Who should attend?

Do you have too many scattered ideas?
Do you need to focus on a few?
Do you need to jumpstart your business right now?
Do you have no time or interest in writing a 50 page business plan?
Do you need to determine if you’re focusing on the right things?
Do you need an effective blueprint to keep yourself and team focused?

To Register for the One Page Business Plan^(TM) Free Webinars:

Call Laura at 250 248-6012 / 1 877 248-6012 or e-mail Laura at lreilly@leadingadvisor.com and you will receive your GoTo Meeting Webinar Link, Phone Number and Access Code.

Friday, September 9^th at 11:15am EDT
Wednesday, September 28^th at 12:30pm EDT

Filed under: Clear Your Roadblocks
Tagged: Clear Your Roadblocks, Financial Advisor Coach, Leading Advisor

Our New Welcome Vlog For Our Upcoming New Coaching Page

August 16, 2011 by Simon · Leave a Comment

• Clear Your Roadblocks™ – 2 Month Program
• One Page Business Plan™ – 2 Month Program
• Clear * Plan * Practice™ – 12 Month Program

Here is the New Welcome Vlog to our upcoming New Coaching Page.

Free One Page Business Plan Webinars September 9 & 28^th – Register Now!

Announcing Leading Advisor’s One Page Business Plan^(TM) Free Webinars and the One Page Business Plan^(TM) Webinars!

“If you don’t get the words right, you might build the wrong business and may never get the numbers right.”

The dates for the One Page Business Plan^(TM) Free Webinars are:

Friday, September 9^th at 11:15am EDT
Wednesday, September 28^th at 12:30pm EDT

Who should attend?

Do you have too many scattered ideas?
Do you need to focus on a few?
Do you need to jumpstart your business right now?
Do you have no time or interest in writing a 50 page business plan?
Do you need to determine if you’re focusing on the right things?
Do you need an effective blueprint to keep yourself and team focused?

To Register for the One Page Business Plan^(TM) Free Webinars:

Call Laura at 250 248-6012 / 1 877 248-6012 or e-mail Laura at lreilly@leadingadvisor.com and you will receive your GoTo Meeting Webinar Link, Phone Number and Access Code.

Friday, September 9^th at 11:15am EDT
Wednesday, September 28^th at 12:30pm EDT

Filed under: Sales & Marketing, Vision & Planning
Tagged: Clear Your Roadblocks, Financial Advisor Coaching, One Page Business Plan

Are You Looking For Motivation Or Medication?

August 15, 2011 by Simon · Leave a Comment

Last week had the phone ringing with some advisors looking for Motivation.

I started one conversation with these two questions:

What are the three biggest improvements that you want to make in your business?
What are the three biggest roadblocks that you are facing in your business?

The advisor couldn’t answer the question other than to say …

“What’s next, what’s next’s what’s next and is this all there is” after I explained some of the components of each of the steps in our coaching program:

Clear Your Roadblocks™
Write You One Page Business Plan™
Implement Financial Controls
Set, Track & Achieve 90 Goals
Get & Stay Out Of Overwhelm, Do What You Love, Delegate, Manage Your Time & Information
Recruit and Lead a Championship Team of Advisors, Marketing Assistants and Assistants.
Attract New Clients through Marketing 1.0, Social Media 1.0 & Social Media 2.0
Increase Sales Through A Well Defined Process

Realizing the advisor had no clue about what they wanted I ended the call with “with respect, I don’t believe that I am the right coach for you”.

In my view, something is clearly missing within the advisor and there will be no outside motivation to fill the hole that is inside of them that they are trying to fill with “the next big thing”.

Motivation doesn’t work, it is unsustainable. If this isn’t true, then why are so many advisors looking to get motivated?

A loss of Motivation is a symptom of The Unmet Needs Disease. If there is an Unmet Need, there will be Negative Beliefs and Negative Emotions and one can Medicate with Motivational Positive Thinking, it can’t be sustained.

Here is a slide from my Million Dollar Road Table presentation; Breaking Through The Plateauing Out Syndrome that speaks to The Unmet Needs Disease.

“The Plateauing Out Syndrome” was coined by the members of The Million Dollar Round Table and relates to negative beliefs like “is this all there is?”, and “what am I doing this for?”, and “what is the use?”

“When there is no understanding, there is judgment. When there is judgment, there can be no understanding or motivation or inspiration”.