Distraction-Proof® Advisor Ideas

Are you running your business like a true professional with procedures and structures in place or are you simply just winging it?

Recently when speaking at think2perform’s event I got to share the stage with Gail Reid, an Ameriprise Advisor down in Southern California. It was fantastic hearing about how she structured systems and processes and procedures within her firm. I loved how she was upfront about the onerous task it was, the bear of an assignment it was to have all of these processes and procedures recorded. It took several months for her and her team to do this.

I had to smile because it was exactly the same for the team that I was working within Northern California when we came to document all our procedures in our procedures manual. It took a long time. It felt onerous at the time, but once we had them completed, we really saw the true benefit. When we were onboarding a new team member, we could simply direct them to a certain folder that went through our CRM system, that talked about how we ACATed accounts over from different RIAs out there. It explained everything very clearly about how we set up our business. It was extremely helpful.

I’m encouraging you today to take the time to get this down and done for your business.

So,

• When you’re serious about doing this and expanding your business, write down the processes and procedures for practically everything you do within your firm.
• Don’t be discouraged or daunted by the volume of tasks that you’re actually going to document. Set a time-blocked time each week – you might spend an hour or two every Friday just taking of that list and getting them all done.
• Put them in a place on your hard drive where all your team knows exactly how to access them and use them. When you come to update them or change a step, document the date that you changed it and why the change is taking place.

Then you’re going to be able to scale your business so much easier when you have these in place.

A byproduct of this, importantly, is when you come to possibly sell your business, you can bring in the potential buyer and show you have a process, procedure and step for everything that happens within our business. It makes them more confident and makes you more comfortable.

I look forward to bringing you another Distraction-Proof Advisor Idea next week.