During your journey as a business owner, there will be business operations and circumstances that are tougher to navigate than others.  I've listed 17 areas in which independent advisors commonly get stuck. We all have different strengths and weaknesses and as such you'll find areas that earn you a Hurrah! and areas that need your attention. Print the list and place a checkmark near 3 important areas to start working on now. If you find that you have more than 3 areas that need help, know that you’re not alone! These situations can be made more manageable with laser-focused consultative coaching. Living a full-filling life AND running a viable business at the same time Leading and retaining a growing team and client services Managing your time so that you don’t end up burnt out Deciding when to delegate the operations and/or management of your business Turning strangers into profitable and happy clients Getting referrals from ideal clients to other ideal clients Determining which clients to work with and which to send elsewhere Deciding when it’s time to retire or partially retire (succession planning) Learning when to delegate tasks and when to dump them Figuring out the best ways to sell, market, and network Determining which social networking sites to use, for how long, and for what reasons How to become a better leader Developing and/or introducing new products and services for your clients Deciding what technology to use and when to buy it Figuring out when to

Track “lessons learned.” As you grow your business, some ideas will work–and some will fail miserably. Many who came before us failed before they found success.  RH Macy failed at 7 stores before he founded Macy’s. Einstein was expelled from school.  Edison had more than 1000 failures. What they had in common, at a minimum,  is that they learned from their mistakes and were persistent. Create a Lessons Learned Sheet to record the institutional knowledge you collect on projects, new forms, new processes, etc.  Did a marketing idea tank?  A meeting with a prospect go astray?  Record the situation in detail on paper or in a database–as well as your analysis of why it didn’t work–and share the information with team to get their feedback, too. Now if you want to stop learning most of your lessons AFTER a failure or costly mistakes, create Lessons Learned reports after successes, too.  This way, you’ll have a record of what you did that worked and next time you do the same thing, you’ll take what you did to the next level. Nothing worse to stymie success than being complacent too long! Before you create your business operations and marketing plan for the next year, take out some blank Lessons Learned reports and look at your wins and failures of the past year.  Be in peace with what happened — the good, the bad, and the ugly — and move into this year with a clearer head and heart.