Tips On Budgeting & Maximizing Cash & Time

December 5, 2011 by Simon · Leave a Comment

I thought you might enjoy this transcript of a coaching conversation about the importance of having a budget cash flow spreadsheet.

Please note that this is also about budgeting and maximizing time as this transcription was type set by Deanne McAndrews, our Virtual Assistant and I proofed and posted this blog while doing cardio.

Simon: Please give me an update on the budget cash flow document that you are working on.

Client: The budget cash flow form, I go to it every couple of days and I start fiddling with it and populating it a bit here and there but I’ve got to sit down, there are things in it that I’d like to change so I’ve made a date with myself for Friday to work on that.

Simon: They say life is a journey, it’s not a destination and I think a budget cash flow document is the same thing. It’s never ever finished and we’ve got to be able to keep working at it to get it refined. You just do your best the first time you create one and then go to work creating income and then revisit the budget cash flow in 30 days when you have income to add and measure, you can tweak the expenses at that time also.

Client: The budget cash flow document has me looking at my books to look at how much should I spend here, what did I do there, what do I expect to have here for income. Because it’s technical and it’s not a fun thing to do, it’s kind of like doing homework, you don’t want to but you have to. It does help you understand your business a lot better, that is one thing that I did take away from that, just from playing with it. That’s a key component to why I believe I feel a lot more confident than I ever have before.

Simon: When you first start thinking about or looking at the budget cash flow document, the fear based ego mind plays tricks telling you stories that there’s not going to be enough and you’re not going to make it and it’s going to be difficult. The ego is saying … No, we’re too busy, we don’t have time for this right now, there must be something else to do. You’ve got to go out and sell something to survive another day. Not creating a budget cash flow document doing is an avoidance strategy. By not doing it then we run a pattern of; there’s not enough and I have to work hard to survive, and it’s complete scarcity. Doing the budget cash flow is a right of passage towards emotional and financial security. For without it, we remain unsafe and stuck in survival.

Client: It’s because there’s that big question mark always there. It’s that big uncertainty. It’s like that junk drawer that you don’t want to open and start sorting through. It’s like, I don’t want to do this, so you just keep it closed and you forget about it. And then it comes back. It keeps reminding you in the back of your mind. Every time you’re spending for the business or personally you think, will I able to afford this and so on. Am I running on the wrong path here? By working on it, it gives you clarity. The first time you look at the budget cash flow you don’t want to do it because the ego has you convinced that you will be in the red. Then you do the work and you say to yourself, it’s not as bad as I thought it was. Or, look, it’s actually really good. Things are better than I thought they were. It gives you a definite picture.

Client: I’ve done a budget cash flow in the past in it just created more scary. Every year the managers would talk about business plans and you’re going to sell this much. What they never taught you was go back and measure what you’ve done in the past to help you move forward. Or, look at what areas need improvement. The budget cash flow helps you do that. What I find is I see where I’ve been and where I was at a certain point in the year because you’ve got all the months there. You see where your strongest months are. It’s measurement. It’s a visual picture of something that’s abstract. If you put it down on one sheet then you see, okay, this is where we’re at.

Simon: You’re going back and you’re looking at the expenses and so you’re getting clear on what they actually are versus an absence of understanding. When there’s an absence of understanding then there’s judgment. When you’re going forward and you want to be able to make a personal or a business expenditure… There are 2 things going on there. One, is that I don’t feel comfortable making this investment. The biggest part of it all is that I haven’t been tracking what my income is. I have not been celebrating what my income is along the way. A budget cash flow is not so much about the ending balance. It’s more to do with celebrating the income that one is creating and in the absence of the budget cash flow, there is no celebration … Only fear.

Filed under: Uncategorized
Tagged: financial advisor blog, financial advisor budget cashflow

Financial Survivors Are From Mars, Financial Advisors Are From Venus

November 21, 2011 by Simon · Leave a Comment

The title of this blog is a play on words from the title of John Gray’s 7 million copy bestselling book Men Are From Mars, Woman Are From Venus.

One example from Wikipedia of the theories Gray offers is that men complain about problems because they are asking for solutions while women complain about problems because they want their problems to be understood.

Gender aside, I’m taking the same theory and extrapolating it to suggest the following about Financial Survivors versus Financial Advisors.

Financial Survivors never stop long enough to understand their business problems because of their unmet need of security. The unmet need of security drives them to be product salespeople to medicate their need to get the next sale which is all about their need and not about adding value to their client in the form of a financial plan as an example. The unmet need of security also fuels the Financial Survivor’s inability to create a business plan or a financial plan for themselves or for anyone else. Financial Survivors just want a quick fix to make their business problems go away, problem is, this approach never works.

Financial Advisors are driven by their values and vision and because of this, they take a more long term approach to understand all the aspects of their business and they take time to write a business plan so that they are taking a more focused approach working on both short term tactics and long term strategies so that they will be in a completely different 12 months in the future. Financial Advisors take a values based approach with their clients taking the time to deeply understand their clients so that they can meet their client’s needs.

For more, please find the following comparison of Financial Survivors and Financial Advisors:

The financial survivor lacks focus.
The financial advisor follows a written 5-year vision and business plan.

The financial survivor is not making as much money as they would like.
The financial advisor is fully satisfied with the amount of money they are making.

The financial survivor gets themselves pumped when they are selling.
The financial advisor feels naturally excited about their work and enjoys the selling process.

The financial survivor feels like they are not getting enough referrals.
The financial advisor is getting many great, qualified referrals.

The financial survivor feels like they are working too hard, with too many unqualified or C and D clients.
The financial advisor is getting many new high-quality clients.

The financial survivor tries to serve anyone and everyone.
The financial advisor has branded their business and is focused on a niche market.

The financial survivor does too many favors and sells too many products.
The financial advisor is focused on profitable products and services.

The financial survivor feels completely overwhelmed, doing things they don’t like to do.
The financial advisor does what they love to do and has a hiring system to delegate everything else.

The financial survivor has a lot of conflict in their business relationships.
The financial advisor manages their business relationships extremely well.

The financial survivor beats themselves up when things don’t go right and they have lost their enthusiasm for their business.
The financial advisor always celebrates their successes and learns from their setbacks. They are achieving their true potential as an advisor.

Having said this, Financial Survivors are stuck:

Stuck attacking change
Stuck doing what worked in the past
Stuck in the actions that you took during the bull market
Stuck hiding from the fear of leading
Stuck and failing to change
Stuck and feeling drained, exhausted and frightened
Stuck because we were taught in school to the test
Stuck believing that we must follow authority
Stuck ensuring compliant behavior
Stuck doing the same thing treating everyone the same
Stuck following archaic rules that we help to create
Stuck blaming the agency or the manager that you believe abandoned you
Stuck wanting independence but fearful of waking up unemployed
Stuck pushing products versus ideas
Stuck believing the creative are punished
Stuck because of fear of criticism
Stuck in fear about what someone might say
Stuck because we are afraid that we will get into trouble
Stuck feeling the organization watches everything we say
Stuck believing in a BIA – Bureau of Idea Approval
Stuck believing your mistakes will make the media
Stuck wanting stability and the absence of responsibility
Stuck wanting an organization to absorb the responsibility
Stuck believing we can’t make change because that is not our job
Stuck maintaining the status quo
Stuck doing the most to prevent change from happening
Stuck believing if we change we might lose our clients and jobs
Stuck because fear was used as a motivator
Stuck with mental programming that fights change
Stuck feeling that nothing is safe
Stuck in a lot of rationalization
Stuck brainwashed into thinking that it is safe to do nothing
Stuck doing nothing and hiding
Stuck in a career and we plan to spend 30 years of retirement avoiding the stuff we had to do in the 40 – 50 years when we had a career
Stuck wanting big ideas to happen in a flash
Stuck requiring success before commitment
Stuck giving into your fear
Stuck settling to follow

Financial Advisors are natural Leaders:

Leaders understand it is rare when it is obvious when to lead
Leaders don’t have things happen to them, they do things
Leaders crate change before change happens to them
Leaders have extraordinary thinking and a cause worth fighting for
Leaders commit to a vision
Leaders create a future that does not exist
Leaders have faith that leads to hope and positive beliefs; sun, gravity, air
Leaders have faith that they don’t have to outrun the Bear, just better strategies
Leaders have faith that they can do it
Leaders have faith that it is worth doing
Leaders have faith that failure will not destroy them
Leaders create rules to sustain their faith
Leaders don’t allow the practice of the rules to destroy their faith
Leaders create rules that will not destroy their faith
Leaders change the system to reinforce their faith
Leaders grow versus falling in love with the system
Leaders demonstrate by what they do versus getting stuck with a system
Leaders understand that imagination is more important than knowledge
Leaders understand that the barriers to leadership have fallen
Leaders understand that one person with a persistent vision can make change
Leaders making things happen and it makes them feel productive and happy
Leaders are curious about change
Leaders have an obligation to change the rules
Leaders change the status quo
Leaders change the spec because they have no idea what it is until it is reinvented
Leaders make problems go away
Leaders don’t care about how and structure
Leaders don’t care about the norm
Leaders don’t care about the official blessing
Leaders don’t seek approval, they ask for forgiveness
Leaders take responsibility and change the rules
Leaders expect resistance
Leaders create something that critics will criticize
Leaders have a willingness to be not great along the journey
Leaders turn things into what they could be
Leaders go out and do it
Leaders know what they can’t compromise on
Leaders involve others
Leaders connect others
Leaders communicate their vision
Leaders use passion to lead
Leaders seek to give more than they get
Leaders understand that charisma is created by giving
Leaders use charisma
Leaders ask what I can do for my clients versus what can my clients do for me
Leaders listen and understand that clients are more focused on being
Leaders take action – no should lists
Leaders make themselves exclusive to their best clients
Leaders are generous
Leaders inform their clients that they build their business on referrals
Leaders research what interests their clients
Leaders have nothing in common except the decision to lead
Leaders are lucky enough to have a job where they get to make change
Leaders understand that the only one that says no is you
Leaders don’t wait, waiting doesn’t pay, saying yes does

Filed under: Vision & Planning
Tagged: financial advisor blog, financial advisor values

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

Here Is A Way To Emotionalize The Decision To Purchase Life Insurance

September 12, 2011 by Simon · Leave a Comment

Filed under: Sales & Marketing
Tagged: financial advisor blog, simon reilly

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

Here’s A Reason That It Is Cool To Be An Insurance Salesperson

August 29, 2011 by Simon · Leave a Comment

Laura and I watched the comedy movie ‘Cedar Rapids’ partly because it is about an insurance agent who is sent to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to represent his company at an annual insurance convention and that I was in Cedar Rapids speaking on behalf of NAIFA Iowa ( National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors ) during the NAIFA Iowa Sales Caravan in November of 2010.

Please note that while this movie is very charming and funny at times, it will be highly irreverent for some so I’m not giving it two thumbs up.

Even with what some could see as a sow’s ear, even a sow’s ear can have a silver lining and , ‘Cedar Rapids’ the movie provides an excellent example of a Parable which some might understand as a longer Elevator Speech.

Here is what I mean by a Parable.

They say that wisdom enters through the wound and the core of the passion to serve is based on life experience both positive and negative and the best advisors seem to have the deepest scars.

The life experience equipped them with the knowledge and the skills to pass onto other people to help them move forward.

This experience gives one something interesting to stand up and say rather than;

Hi, I’m Joe Advisor and I sell investment products and life insurance.

They use what has happened to them both personally and professionally, good and bad and use it as a catalyst to pass their experience and passion onto other people.

Here is the Parable from ‘Cedar Rapids’ …

Joan played by Anne Heche – “So how did you get involved in the insurance game?”

Tim played by Ed Helmes – “I lost my dad in a sawmill accident when I was 6 years old.”

Joan played by Anne Heche – “Oh my God!”

Tim played by Ed Helmes – “Yeah. But the insurance agent fought like a tiger with the sawmill to make sure that my Mom and I were taken care of, and we were, and I remember thinking that when I was a kid, this guy is a hero. I gotta say, I think that the insurance agents get a bum rap. Ya’ know like this river, The Cedar River flooded a couple of year ago, and flooded the whole city.”

Joan played by Anne Heche – “I can remember that massive disaster”.

Tim played by Ed Helmes – “Massive disaster that cost billions of dollars in damage and who do you think was in the trenches trying to get people’s lives back in order? It was the insurance agents. Not all, but a lot worked really hard to get people’s lives back on track.”

Joan played by Anne Heche – “Do you realize that you just made it sound cool to be an insurance salesman? You are a hero!”

Filed under: Sales & Marketing
Tagged: financial advisor blog, investment advisor blog

A CE Accreditation Song

August 8, 2011 by Simon · Leave a Comment

I just did a search on my computer for documents that related to CE Credits and I ran across this A CE Accreditation Song blog that I never published that I wrote in frustration about the CE Accreditation process that I was literally bogged down in for a significant part of 2010.

This enormous amount of time invested in last year’s CE Credits also came to mind as I wrote this blog as a celebration about the great results that we are having this year as I was not bogged down trying to prove myself yet again – yes, I too continue to work on my unmet needs; Here’s Our List Of What We Have To Give Thanks For January – June 2011

CE Accreditation Song- is a complete rip off of Valdy’s hit Rock N Roll Song.

Hope Valdy is OK with this … perhaps I will seek amends from Valdy when we are over on Saltspring Island for a yoga retreat at the end of the month.

A CE Accreditation Song

I came into town as a financial advisor speaker of renown
A speaker of presentations about freedom and joy
A hall had been rented and I was presented
As the kind of a financial advisor speaker that all could enjoy
As I climbed up the stair to the stage that was there
It was obvious something was missing
I could tell by the vibe they wouldn’t be bribed
They weren’t in the mood to listen
They yelled out
Present a CE Accreditation presentation
Don’t present speaking about freedom and joy
Present a CE Accreditation presentation
Or don’t present me no speaking at all