Distraction-Proof® Advisor Ideas

AdviserBlast – Quick Tips to Accelerate Your Practice
In this issue: Avoid frustration and disappointment: ask yourself, "Why am I doing this?"

For my final newsletter this year, I wanted to give you something that could make a profound difference in your practice.

I hope you make time in this busy season to truly ask yourself, “Why?”

Question:
While I know I need to set goals (and you’ve provided a helpful framework to do this with TARGET Goals), I get so easily distracted! Frankly, I’m scared to even try setting goals for the New Year (especially with all the upheaval in our industry), because I’m afraid other things will take my time and attention, and I’ll just disappoint myself again. Can you help?

Answer:
Yes. Over the past several months there has been a lot of good advice out there about how to manage your client relationships, console them during these turbulent times, restore their investing confidence, and so forth. Indeed, it has been an important time to focus on clients.

To solve your issue, though, you need to get very self-focused. Right now, for both your sake and your clients’ sakes, focus on what you need and want.

This time of year our in-boxes start filling up with information about analyzing the past year and setting goals for the next year. But for any of this to be effective you have to have a specific, actionable plan of how to get where you say you want to go. That plan is much easier to develop and infinitely more achievable when you know WHY you are doing what you’re doing.

This is THE big missing piece to the goal setting most people do! Once you’ve identified your goal, that is great, but it is impossible to do very much about it until you know concretely why you want to do it.

If the only reasons you can come up with are, “Because it seems like something someone in my position should do,” “It is what my manager said she wanted me to do,” or “It sounds altruistic,” I guarantee that you will get distracted, not meet your goal, and once again be disappointed and frustrated.

What is the specific benefit of achieving your goal?

For example, you’ve said you want to add ten new $2 million fee-based households to your client base next year. Good goal, but WHY do you want to do this? Perhaps because this will be the foundation for growing your ideal client base of managed money accounts. As an added benefit, these people will also know others with similar assets, making it easier to get qualified referrals.

Or perhaps you want to select four external money managers to construct your own external investment platform. Again, sounds great, but WHY are you doing this? By using the expertise of other people, who watch the market 24/7 and do the day-to-day management of your clients’ money, you have more time to do strategic financial planning, which is your passion. You saw your mother’s estate decimated when your father died, due to lack of planning, and you want to help others avoid that pain. Also, you can enjoy peace of mind knowing that your clients’ investments are being closely monitored and have more time to devote to relationship management.

Maybe you want to identify two people with whom you can develop a team practice. What’s the benefit of this for you? While you might take a temporary drop in revenue, you’ll be able to take off Wednesday afternoons to coach your son’s little league team without a second thought, because you know someone will be there to meet clients’ urgent needs when you’re away.

Identifying the “why” takes time, thought, and effort. But, once you can specifically verbalize why you are going after your stated goals, developing the specific steps needed to get there becomes easier. You have much more conviction to focus on and actually do those steps. Distractions fade because you know exactly where you’re going and why, rather than being tossed to and fro by the latest market ups and downs, management advice, or office politics.

Your conviction becomes your filter, allowing you to more easily determine if any particular activity is relevant and helpful in moving you toward achieving your goal. Many activities may be “good” things to do, but if they do not move you toward your goal, the reality is that no matter how “good” they may be, they are a distraction for you. Your conviction will enable you to choose to ignore those activities which are calling out to you, but ultimately do not help you.

To develop true conviction, take time to:

• Get very specific about what you want and why.
   
• See and hear the results and benefits of reaching your goals in 3-D, vivid color, and stereo-surround sound. Make it real!
   
• Write down the benefits of achieving your goals!

You will develop a new depth of belief in what you’re doing which will keep you focused on making real progress toward your goals. Your frustration and disappointment in yourself will be gone!

Stay Tenacious!
Paul

Copyright Paul Kingsman 2008
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Paul Kingsman provides financial services professionals practical tools to achieve consistent, outstanding results. As a motivational speaker and executive coach, he is a sought after expert on how to make your split seconds count. Having won an Olympic medal by only four one-hundredths of a second, Paul knows the importance of keeping focused and now teaches people how to overcome distractions and achieve their own success. His experience as an adviser for Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo has given him an insider’s understanding of the unique business challenges faced by financial services professionals and an ability to guide his clients in implementing results oriented solutions.

To find out more about how he can help equip you or your team to achieve your own Split Second Success® through his presentations or executive coaching, email him at Paul@PaulKingsman.com

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