Tip of the Month: Do You Have a Plan for your Personal Development?

For many of us, there is so much time spent planning for clients that we forget it’s also important to plan for ourselves. And as financial planners, this means not only planning for our own individual financial futures, but also our personal development as professionals.

The importance of professional development is embodied in the requirement of many professional designations to earn Continuing Education credits to maintain and advance their knowledge base. But CE requirements are a minimum requirement. If you want to advance your career and success as a professional more quickly and to higher levels, you need to challenge yourself beyond minimums!

Accordingly, do you have a plan for 2010 about how you will improve yourself as a professional? What steps will you take to advance your knowledge and skills? Have you set goals for yourself about what you will accomplish? It may already be April, but it’s not too late to set goals between now and the end of the goal, and a path for 2011 and beyond!

Here are some areas you might examine regarding your own development goals:

Conferences: What conferences will you attend? Will you attend local events to take advantage of the resources in your area? Will you attend at least one national event to gain some perspective on the planning issues and opportunities beyond what you are exposed to in your local area?

Content: What kind of content are you looking for? Will you try to learn about new technical topics? Or your communication skills? Will you focus on practice management? What about leadership?

Coursework: Will you enroll in any (new) programs for professional development? Will you begin down the path of a new program to be completed incrementally over the span of several years? Is there a program you started in the past but never finished that you can pick up again?

Reading: What are you reading to stay abreast of new trends and changes? What newsletters and magazines are you reading? Have you bought any new books to read to challenge your thinking?

As we often point out to our clients, our ability to earn money – our human capital – is our greatest asset. Do you have a plan for how much time and money you will save and invest to maximize its growth?
Michael Kitces
Publisher
The Kitces Report
Columbia, Maryland

Read Full Post »

Tip of the Month – Dealing with the New Normal

“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more,” said Dorothy in the 1939 Classic “The Wizard of Oz.” Ahhh…do we remember with fondness the world before the late 2008 meltdown?  Days when we felt comfortable with our client relationships, the projections we provided, the consistent upward march of portfolio values?

According to Ian Davis, worldwide managing director for McKinsey and Company, our current situation is not merely a downturn in the economic cycle, but a restructuring of the economic order.  He suggests that for some organizations, short-term survival is the only agenda.  Going forward there will be less financial leverage in the system and an expanded role for government.  He calls what we are facing the “New Normal.”

And there is hope.  Also according to Davis, “The business landscape has changed fundamentally; tomorrow’s environment will be different, but no less rich in possibilities for those who are prepared.”

How can you be prepared for the “New Normal”?  How can you keep it together when you have clients that are asking more questions and wanting to spend less?  When clients are more skeptical of the markets, their own economic stability, and perhaps their advisor?

When dealing with a new set of circumstances, it is important to take responsibility for your own behavior and perceptions, before you take care of staff, clients, and family.  On an airplane, in case of an emergency, you are encouraged to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others.

In charting an action plan to deal with the “New Normal” consider:

Holding your focus:  How much time are you spending on the important aspects of your business?  Does the urgent crowd out taking time to do your own strategic thinking?  Are you working both on and in your business?

Growing your business:  Even in tough economic times, clients and prospects are looking for advisors they can believe in.  How are you doing in looking for new business in a way that is meaningful to your prospects?

Dealing with your clients:  Are there days when you wish for no client contact?  Are you weary of trying to explain what’s going on and how you are dealing with it?  Now is not the time to retreat…now more than ever, clients need to hear from you.

Keeping your sanity:  What are you doing to take care of yourself?  Are you spending time in leisure, time with family and friends?  In order to be the best you can, it is important that you have balance in your life.

Take care of yourself and we will all adjust to the new normal.

Andrea White, MCC
Master Certified Coach
Financial Conversations

Read Full Post »

Tip of the Month: Delegation Tips

Consultants, pundits and columnists are constantly telling you that you need to delegate more, and focus more on the highest-level tasks, things that only you can do.  You know they’re right; chances are there are at least four or five tasks on your desk that really don’t belong there.  But have you ever, anywhere, seen somebody tell you HOW to delegate?

The truth is, delegation is not easy.  It requires you to take an enormous leap of faith–trusting somebody else to perform a task that you believe to be important.  It also takes effort: you have to explain how you do this particular task, train somebody else to do it, and then monitor that person.  The time commitment feels daunting; isn’t it easier just to do it yourself?

So how do you overcome all of these obstacles?  Try this three-step process.

Step One: Document how you perform this task.  Actually, I’m not recommending that YOU do this; have an employee or (better) an intern follow you around and write down exactly how you perform the task.  Then you review what they wrote, make changes, elaborate, and, finally, try to perform the task using only the written instructions.  If you succeed, then you’re ready for…

Step Two: Identify an employee who will take over this task, and give that person your written instructions.  Have that person handle the task, and make yourself available to answer any questions that may come up.  Then look at the results.  If they’re NOT up to your standards, help the employee identify what’s missing.  If they ARE, then go to…

Step Three: Formally delegate the task to the employee.  But instead of delegating the task as you did it, delegate responsibility for the results: they must be equal to or better than what you were accomplishing, but how the work gets done is up to the employee.  That leaves the employee free to figure out a better way to do what you were doing, unlocking his or her creativity to improve not only on the process but also the result.

Try it.  If it doesn’t work as described here, post a message explaining what happened, and we’ll start a discussion.  But I’m guessing the process will hold up for virtually anything you want to get off your desk.

Bob Veres
Owner
Inside Information
San Diego, CA

Read Full Post »

Tip of the Month – December 2009

I know of no growing, stretched and saavily-managed financial planning business that ever hired their next staff person too hastily.

Jonathan T. Guyton, CFP®
Principal,
Cornerstone Wealth Advisors, Inc.
Edina, MN

Read Full Post »

Tip of the Month – Who’s Your Financial Planner?

If your answer to the question in the title is, “I am, of course”, then you may have a great financial planner. But consider this question: is he or she the best financial planner for you? Maybe not.

For several years, Richard Kahler, CFP®, has emphasized the importance of the planner’s having a financial planner. (View Kahler’s white paper, winner of the 2008 Financial Frontiers Awards competition via this link – member login required –  http://spwfe.fpanet.org:10005/journals/newarchive/Documents/FPA%20Journal%20November%202008%20-%20Becoming%20Consumers%20of%20the%20Profession%20We%20Practice.pdf ) I’ve always thought Rick’s argument made sense; in fact, it struck me as being fairly self-evident. Nonetheless, few planners have retained the equivalent of “outside counsel” for their own financial lives. If you’re one of few who have, I congratulate you. I’d love to hear about the benefits you’ve derived, both personally and professionally. If you’re one of the many who haven’t, I’m sure you have many good reasons—the very same reasons that non-planners cite for not having a planner. Rather than using this space to harangue you, however, I want to suggest that you’re missing out on a valuable experience and service. I know, because my wife and I have been having a series of meetings with our planner, and these meetings have reinforced my view of the tremendous value of financial planning.

So, let me leave you with a question for reflection (and perhaps for action): why would you deprive yourself, and possibly your family, of the considerable benefits of financial planning that you bring to your own clients?

Ed Jacobson, Ph.D.
Edward A. Jacobson Associates
Madison, WI

Read Full Post »

Tip of the Month — Reflect on the Year

Look back over the last year and appreciate all the good decisions you made – and all the mistakes you avoided – because you are grounded as a financial planner.

Jonathan T. Guyton, CFP®
Principal,
Cornerstone Wealth Advisors, Inc.
Edina, MN

Read Full Post »

Tip of the Month — Finding Practice Efficiency via Staff Technology Training

Originally posted September ’09 on the Future of Planning site .

These days, your practice is searching for more efficiency. One of the first places to look is better training for your staff on the existing technology in your office — having people learn how to use little-noticed time-saving features not only of your planning / CRM / performance reporting programs, but also ways to get more out of the standard word processing, spreadsheet and e-mail programs.

But this raises two problems. When you send your staff members to training classes, at a cost, how do you know they’re paying close enough attention to find ways to make a difference in productivity? And second: Do you have to send your whole staff to each training program in order to get gain a system-wide boost in productivity? Greg Friedman, of Salient Friedman Wealth Management in Novato, CA, has found an elegant practice management solution to these challenges. He will send an appropriate staff member to software training classes. Then, when the employee returns, he/she is required to do a group presentation to the rest of the staff, showing them three things he/she learned that can make the normal business routines more efficient.

This forces the person taking the course to pay close attention not only to the material, but also in light of the office procedures — and, at the same time, enhances everybody else’s training for the same cost.

Bob Veres
Owner
Inside Information
Asheville, NC

Read Full Post »