Do You Use These Advisor Success S.Y.S.T.E.M.S.?

While systems are meant to automate certain mundane aspects of business, they can also be used strategically, to leverage the talents of your staff and achieve more business growth.

Systems also:
• Help advisors identify the bottlenecks in their workflow.
• Make new employee training more efficient.
• Improve the implementation and effectiveness of new procedures.
• Allow others to find inefficiencies that you don’t see in a process.
• Leverage your time and help your business run like a well-oiled machine.

Creating systems changes the way you do business for the better! While a Wall Street trader, I became tired of repeatedly dealing with the same operational problems. So, I followed each problem from its inception to its end. I discovered the holes in a process and recommended fixes. That gave me (and many others) more time for other important tasks, while saving the firm millions of dollars a year.

Systems come in many shapes and sizes. They can be:

1. written instructions
2. videotapes
3. checklists
4. assessments, exercises
5. rituals
6. formulas
7. lists of questions
8. templates
9. manuals
10. plans
11. mind maps
12. workflows
13. scripts
14. computerized reports

A Note About Banishing Burnout First

You are the center of your firm. If you are burnt-out, aren’t sure if you’re in the right business, are in debt, have primary relationship problems, don’t say “no” enough, have
poorer health than you want, find that you often lower your standards, etc.—those issues need to be addressed first. Your personal life issues and working 35+ hours a week have a gigantic effect on your business, too. A life/business coach (like me) will usually select systems to address those issues first; they will vary depending on your particular situation—“meeting you where you are”, so to speak. The processes listed below are basic systems that will help banish burnout in your business and lay a strong business management foundation from which to jump-start your marketing.

Business Foundation Systems

1. Business Checkup – Assess where you are now and determine which areas of your business need your attention and which are running A-OK.
2. S.W.O.T. – Identify your firm’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities to grow, and threats to your business growth.
3. Value Proposition – A promise of the value your firm will deliver to clients.
4. Business Culture – The working style, beliefs, habits, ethics, behaviors, and vision for the growth of your firm and its people, which will not change.
5. Business Snapshot – You develop words to answer the question, “So what do you do?”, in a non-sleazy way. It also allows strangers to pre-qualify themselves as prospects.
6. Niche Clarity – The one general category of people, passions, and products/services you work with best.
7. Ideal Client Profile – The specific attributes of your niche based on demographics, psychographics, technographics, and geographics.
8. Business & Marketing Plan – We use a single page, 5-part business roadmap that guides your firm’s growth and sets you in action.
9. Succession Strategy & Plan –  A detailed sheet containing how you’d purposefully exit your firm as well as what would happen (especially to your clients) if you died tomorrow.

(c) 2017 Elevating Your Business. Maria Marsala is a veteran financial executive, speaker, author of “Strategically Acquiring More Clients”, and founder of Elevating Your Business. As a consultative-coach, she guides seasoned financial advisors to simplify business, advise more, and live better. To receive her twice-monthly productivity tips email and complimentary business growth assessments and videos,