Pareto App
Webinars
Technology can help us elevate the client experience for the 80 percent who generate 20 percent of the business - to tap into that vein of gold as those lives unfold. But it also to buy us some time to elevate the client experience for the 20 percent who generate 80 percent of the business.
"Knowledge is learning something every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day." - Zen
My team and I at Pareto Systems speak with literally hundreds of financial professionals each week and we hear firsthand what they’re hoping to achieve in the future. Some goals are quite common, while others are counter-intuitive. On any given day we will speak to an advisor who aspires to more and wants to grow their business, and then on the very next call we will speak to another advisor who strives for contentment and wants to simplify their life.
At the 30,000 feet perspective, on virtually every call we can categorize each advisor into one or more of these three areas:
When we drill down on our calls and uncover the core motivators, these are the most common goals advisors share with us:
Two Rules Top Achievers Never Break
The most enlightened advisors understand the harmony between planning and taking action with a sense of urgency. Substantial goals after all, are achieved by design not by chance.
“Dig Your Well Before You are Thirsty” – Confucius
When an advisor comes to us with a vision for how they want their business and life to look in the near future, the key mindset we want to support is to get out in front of the issue and proactively drive it with a methodical and sequential plan. Of course that's a lot easier to talk about than it is to actually do, but time and time again we see firsthand how success is achieved by letting disciplines compound over time. We all know the rule of 72, but it's not just money that compounds, disciplines compound as well. So too does neglect. If you have a vision for how you would like your life and business to look in the next 12 months, it is essential that you break down the necessary actions and chip away at it over time. This puts you on a trajectory that enables you to make mid-course corrections quickly so that you don't drift off track.
Successful advisors with serious mileage and experience will tell you that meaningful change takes longer, requires more resources, and is more difficult to execute than expected. To that end they understand that there can be a very positive power that comes from negative thinking. Just as a savvy investor knows that it's dangerous to think "It's different this time", the advisor who aspires for bigger and better things has to temper their optimism and know that external dependencies may not always cooperate. And overcoming that adversity makes the achievement that much more meaningful.
If it is to be it is up to me!
Those are quite possibly the 10 most powerful two-letter words ever put together in one sentence. And that is what separates the best advisors from the rest. They take action, and they take responsibility for their outcome. They don’t blame conditions or wish things were better. They strive to become better.
Continued Success!
Contributed by Duncan MacPherson
Protect your most valuable assets, your client relationships. In this episode Duncan discusses strategies to help create professional contrast and differentiate yourself from the pack.
In Dallas along with Ryan Borer, at Fusion, Morgan Palmer at First Trust and Jake Marxen, at Partners Advantage Insurance Services, LLC launching our Total Client Engagement enterprise solution!
If you've got a team, if you've got clients, they're lead not pushed. Self-actualization is all about that best version of our self; not leadership for what gets us, but for what it makes of us.
Do you chase clients or attract them? In this video Duncan recommends increasing your entrepreneurial and consultative skills to help attract a steady stream of high net worth clients.
What are the qualities of your favorite clients? The answer probably isn’t anything centered on business only - on assets and profitability. Their personality traits, their respect for you and your team and their proactive advocacy will stand out. It’s never only assets – attitude and advocacy are just as important.
If it is to be, it is up to me. In this episode, Duncan suggests the best way to take care of a team, and a community of clients, is to take full responsibility for the outcome of our decisions.
From Sustainability to Scalability
The next natural step for a successful financial advisor to take once they have achieved consistent, sustainable organic growth is to then consider scalable, acquisition growth.
More and more we see top professionals transform their proven best practices into intellectual properties that can be deployed over and over again. This is what it means to turn a book of business into an actual business that has no limits while achieving steadily improving enterprise value.
From Working IN to Working ON Your Business
Bestselling author Micheal Gerber captured this premise beautifully in his book The E-Myth.
The core premise is that an entrepreneur must shift from having a job where they sell something (ultimately trading time for money) to building something that has many multipliers in terms of efficiency and value. It's easy to get bogged-down in "busyness" transacting services rather than building a business that puts you on a track to a meaningful and measurable inflection point.
A Force of Nature
If franchise-readiness is something you've been considering, allow me to remind you of something that supports why your timing is impeccable - demography.
There is a massive group of current advisors who are 5 years out or less from an exit. This community is thinking about how to take at least some money of the table or to fully monetize the equity value of their business. And the truly enlightened also want to ensure their clients are well taken care of once a transition takes place.
Interestingly there is essentially a "2 for 1" benefit to this reality. You see there are also many clients of financial advisors who have their own continuity and succession issues too. When someone becomes financially independent at that moment the burden shifts from "will I have enough?" to "what becomes of my legacy?" Who better to become indispensable to that client with a new unmet need than an advisor who has addressed it himself or herself in real time?
But it gets even better. In addition to the many advisors who are on the home stretch, there are 2 other addressable markets as well. First, you have a large group of advisors who aren't looking to leave the business but are frustrated by the friction that compliance and commoditization present. This group longs to draft in behind an advisor with turnkey and all encompassing procedures that liberate them to do what they enjoy - interacting with clients and not getting bogged down in the minutiae.
Thirdly you have the advisors who want to transition to a work-optional lifestyle and decide to disassociate from a large block of clients to focus on a smaller group of ideal clients while pursuing other interests in life. It's common to see a process-driven advisor acquire remnants of clients and squeeze a lot more juice out of the orange through an elevated client experience. Just the other day I spoke with an advisor who acquired 10 million dollars of cast-away clients and turned that vein of gold into 15 million in 30 days! A methodical transition and reframing process prompted his newly onboarded clients to say, "Where have you been all my life? This is a dramatic upgrade!" Granted the bar may have been low based on neglect by the former advisor but the elevation and lift were both immediate and measurable.
Prime the Pump
So where does as an aspiring franchise-ready advisor start? To paraphrase Michael Gerber again, "Every business should be built to be sold for maximum value even if you have no intention of selling it."
In other words, get out in front of franchise readiness even if the only benefits are competitor-proofing your existing clients and restoring liberation amd order to your life. Then decide if you want to deploy your scalable growth model.
Convergence and Conversion
Those two words are like true-north to the franchise-ready advisor. Convergence means that you get everything out of your head and document it in a duplicable playbook. If what you know resides in your head it is a commoditized skill. If it's documented it is a repeatable intellectual property.
At Pareto Systems we follow The Rule of 3 - anything you do 3 or more times that has 3 or more steps must be invested into your playbook so that no one is ever left to their own devices reinventing the wheel. Maverick talent transitions to predictable and consistent execution.
The framework of the playbook is broken into 3 core components:
Remember, you don't just manage money. You manage a business and you manage people - all three are of equal importance to your playbook.
Subscribing to our "Done is better than perfect" mindset, most of our teams get 80% of the playbook done in 90 days. That is the red zone and getting home from there is inevitable.
As you shift from cobbled together deliverables to a converged and integrated process, you then have to shift to a mindset of conversion. Simply stated you have 3 types of clients:
A major part of the reframing process involves going back to existing clients and essentially reintroducing yourself and your value so they have the complete picture and see the merit of converting from customer to client to advocate.
We all know the power of entropy - nothing improves through neglect. And it's not as if neglect is conscious. Long term relationships are susceptible to The Law of Familiarity which states that over time value can be taken for granted or trivialized. This is where loyalty fatigue is born.
Partner With Pareto
If you aspire to become a franchise ready advisor why not buy-into our proven process rather than reinvent the wheel. Not only can we methodically make you franchise ready but we can even shine a light on your success and showcase you to the many thousands of advisors in our community. Start by contacting us and going through an initial gap analysis and together we can determine if there is a good fit.
Continued Success!
Contributed by Duncan MacPherson
