Do you need a mentor, consultant, counsellor, coach or confidante?

As you face the challenges of growing your business profitably, you may be trying to evaluate the help that’s out there. I read an article recently from one of the world’s top executive advisers, David Carter, and have borrowed a few of his thoughts because I think they are helpful.

Who does what?

Counsellors work on psychological issues, coaches on skills, confidantes on politics and culture and consultants on operational issues. Only a mentor can straddle all of these areas and, as the owner of a business, all of these issues are likely to arise and be important as you grow.

A good mentor will provide an objective view of what the real issues are. They will also know when another specialist is needed. So often I find my clients believe that their major challenges are in one area, only to find that after some enquiry and questioning that the real issues lie elsewhere.

Check them out

When selecting your mentor, anyone can provide a nice testimonial on a website but the proof of the pudding is in speaking directly with some of their past clients. This will help you get under the skin of ‘why’ they worked well with those others so that you can decide if they are likely to work well with you.

Don’t be afraid to ask your potential mentor about who were their most and least successful clients and why. This can also be revealing.

David Carter suggests asking them what they are not good at and what they have failed at along with lessons they have learned. As David says:

Anyone who hasn’t ever failed won’t make a great mentor … . The mistakes they make and the lessons learned give mentors their insight. Besides, it shows they’ve taken some risks – not all of which worked out.

Be honest

From your point of view you need to be prepared to be 100% honest and vulnerable. The best leaders are self-aware, honest and authentic. If you can’t bring yourself to look deeply at the issues, and your part in them, it’s unlikely you will have a successful relationship and outcome with a mentor.

The chemistry

In the final wash up there needs to the the right chemistry on several levels:

1. Do you like the mentor and does the mentor like you? Is there mutual respect? If not, things will come under pressure when the going gets tough.
2. Is there complete trust? Does the mentor have any conflicts of interest or hidden agendas? If so, they should be up-front with you, just as you would be with one of your clients.
3. What can you teach your mentor. This is a two way relationship. If they are any good, they should be equally open minded and learning while they work with you, often finding new and unique solutions perfectly suited to your business requirements. A mentor that’s worked with a diverse mix of clients will have so much more to bring to your relationship.

I don’t often write about marketing. It’s quite a tricky subject and I’ve never been very keen on the term ‘marketing’.

To me, marketing is all encompassing, fundamental to developing your business strategy. Crucial to your ultimate success. Why then does ‘marketing’ sink to the bottom of most business owners’ agendas? Why is it seen as a cost not an investment?

I thought I’d look for a definition of ‘marketing’. The Chartered Institute of Marketing helps me a little:

The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.

Interestingly this definition is 30 years’ old. I think this is quite good.

Digging a bit deeper, I found a white paper written by learned marketers searching for ‘Tomorrow’s Word’ for marketing. I read it with relish thinking I would find a new word for marketing.

Just one word please

I found this new definition:

The strategic business function that creates value by stimulating, facilitating and fulfilling customer demand. It does this by building brands, nurturing innovation, developing relationships, creating good customer service and communicating benefits. With a customer-centric view, marketing brings positive return on investment, satisfies shareholders and stakeholders from business and the community, and contributes to positive behavioural change and a sustainable business future.

It covers the ground I like but no wonder ‘marketing’ can be seen as quite a complex activity.

Marketing redefined

Stripping ‘marketing’ back to its most basic, it’s the art of:

Engaging with your peers, existing clients, influencers and target clients to attract more of the RIGHT kind of clients

Engaging. My one word

It also works well in today’s frenzied, connecting society.

Most of the financial planners I meet are engaging. They love engaging with their clients, it’s what they want to spend time doing and it’s what they do best. The best engagers are interested and interesting.

In order to engage well, you have to be happy with who you are, comfortable in your own skin. Able to converse. Sure about what you are saying.

What do you need to engage?

You need a plan of a few parts:

1. Know your objective. How many new clients do you need to engage this year? Make your plan for engagement.
2. Know what’s happening. Take a look in the bigger world. Watch others, particularly those who may be scooping up the mind share of your clients. Watch how they communicate. Can you compete? Do you look as good as they do?
3. Know your clients and your target clients. Get your clients to help you develop your business. Pick your top ten. Set up meetings and ask your clients what they think of you; what they will need in the future, if they know were you can find more people like them to engage with. Hold a separate ‘asking for help’ meeting not tagged onto the end of the Annual Review. Your clients will feel special.
4. Do the same with your centres of influence. They will feel special.
5. Use all this information to refine your message, sharpen your service and make the supporting communications materials you need look fantastic.
6. Stick to your engaging plan. Be consistent and constant.

Go on. Stop marketing. Start engaging. You’ve got the job.

“I’m in London doing something else”

Unless you want to be forced to sell to some large group or venture capital firm that won’t continue the culture of CARE you have worked so hard to create, then you will need internal succession options.

Even to get the best price, you need strong succession options. You can’t duck the issue.

‘The chosen one’

Some adviser owners say they have even got these people in place. But on closer inspection they often have just one person in place (the chosen one). This is a very high-risk strategy. What if they leave? Worse still, what if they stay, but come succession time they decide it’s not for them?

Just to illustrate; I was the succession plan for my old business partner in Australia. We got on famously for 15 years and I was committed to taking over that business. But I now work in London. Succession plan out the window.

The point here is that you need multiple candidates for the succession plan for two reasons:

Firstly, to have choice and to create some internal competition. What if you had four people coming through, all of whom were hired on the basis that they may have the potential for becoming a future successor to you? This would be stronger for a variety of reasons:

• Inevitably some of the candidates will be better or worse than you thought – so nice to have choices
• Some of them may develop faster or slower than others making them relatively more or less attractive 10 years later when it is time for them to step up
• Knowing that they are all playing for the same position keeps everyone on their toes – competition is good for business

Secondly, to help cover the purchase price – one buyer on their own may not be able to fund it all, or may feel too exposed in doing so. Especially if the business is as successful as you want it to be.

Learning from the best

I read a fantastic article in Harvard Business Review last month on how Proctor & Gamble improved their succession planning, grooming a pool of future senior managers and CEO’s. A.G. Lafley instituted the succession plan at his first board meeting on becoming CEO. The board argued that as he had just taken over this could wait, but he argued that it needed to be commenced immediately providing P&G with a rich pool of talent to choose from 10 years later.

I realise that P&G are a huge global business, but it is the principles espoused in the article that have direct application to you and your business. If you’d like to read more go to .

A philosophy for staff motivation & reward

Recently, Mark Ralphs at the Financial Planning Corporation put me onto an excellent e-book. Breakthrough covers team remuneration for businesses that want to be high performing.

It is important for the business to have a philosophy regarding staff motivation and reward. This can then be communicated to the team and set the foundation for future discussions about pay and performance.

There are 4 areas that need to be addressed for all staff members:

1. Compelling future
2. Opportunities for growth (Personally & Professionally)
3. Positive working environment
4. Financial rewards

If these are all addressed in a way that staff can see and understand then you create an environment that can lead to superior performance.

There are 5 principles underpinning the philosophy:

Principle 1 – Partnership

Everyone must feel like a partner in the firm. Anything less and you will only get average performance from some of your team.

Principle 2 – Clarity

Everyone must have clarity around four questions:

1. What does the future of our company look like to you?
2. What do you think are the most important things that have to happen for us to grow and succeed?
3. What contributions are you most excited about making to our growth?
4. Why is the creation of our future company important to you?

To gain that clarity will require an internal communications ‘campaign’ that helps every team member get perfectly clear on how you as leader of the business look at these four questions.

Principle 3 – Engagement

Create a ‘we’ mentality. All partners (the team) must:

1. Have something to strive for that has meaning and purpose
2. Have responsibility and the freedom to execute on the plan
3. Know they will participate in the results

Principle 4 – Practices

‘How’ you pay people is different to ‘how much’ you pay people. It is imperative to get the ‘how’ right.

Question: How should you pay your team to give you the best chance of fulfilling your business purpose?

The ‘partnership’ philosophy underpins this. Shareholders are entitled to a fair return on capital. You can pay above market returns for above market performance. But if you don’t reach your performance standards you don’t expect to pay above market rates.

Principle 5 – Productivity

Incentives are paid if you do just hit the numbers, BUT the really big rewards are paid if you do that AND achieve measurable improvements in productivity. Otherwise you can create an entitlement mentality & complacency.

This focus on productivity is very important as it drives the innovation that keeps your company ahead of its competitors. It challenges and stretches people.

In the marketplace we are seeing too many firms paying away too much to their self-employed advisers. All this does is make it impossible for the firm to make an acceptable level of profit

By going right back to the foundations of your remuneration philosophy you can not only address this issue successfully (for all parties) but can generate the high performance team you have always been looking for.

If you would like more help in this area feel free to drop me a line directly to brett@fpadvance.com.

It’s the subtle things that make all the difference

Putting time, effort and energy into Professional Connections over a five year period was our biggest breakthrough.

How we use it is, ultimately, up to us

Why is it that some people seem to do it all so effortlessly, running a business, spending quality time with their family and friends etc, while others are perpetually playing catch up, never seeming to get on top of things?

The truth is we all have exactly the same amount of time available – how we use it though is up to us. But we’ve all heard this stuff before and if you are stuck on the ‘no-time-merry-go round’ then so far this article is as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.

So, here are some practical tips to change things

There are a couple of people I recommend.

First, meet Marcus Buckingham, “Leader of the Strengths Revolution”

Marcus has a bunch of resources available on his website & some great videos on YouTube:

http://www.tmbc.com/home

His philosophy is similar to a lot of other stuff you may have heard in that he recommends working to your strengths.

But, it’s how he defines strengths & weaknesses that is really helpful

Strengths

Something you are good at & LIKE TO DO. (Seems simple enough)

Weaknesses

A weakness can be either something you are good at BUT don’t like doing, or more obviously something you are no good at and don’t like doing.

His point is this. In most people’s work there are things they are actually good at but hate to do. Because they can do a particular task they often get asked to take it on if others around them don’t have the skills or aptitude. This can happen to both employees and the owners of the business.

Think about the tasks you do on any given day and identify some of these sneaky weaknesses; you can do the particular task but there is a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach every time it comes up.

What you can do

As a practical exercise, record each job you touch today and classify it under one of two headings; strength or weakness, using Marcus Buckingham’s definitions. Do the same for a period of a week or two to build a clearer picture of what you are working on and whether it is actually a strength or a weakness for you.

Once you have a list of what you are good at and love to do, identify who else in your business can take some of the other tasks away from you. You may also need to find others outside your business that can take on some of the tasks your team don’t really want to do either (because it is not one of their strengths).

Get your staff and partners to do the same exercise so that you can better match strengths to roles and get the right people doing the right jobs. This will improve job satisfaction and productivity in leaps and bounds.

Now meet Tim Ferris, author of ‘The 4 Hour Work Week’

While you may not actually be looking to live a Tim Ferris lifestyle the ideas and principles in his book and on his website will really alter your thinking. After I read this book I reckon I saved myself 4-6 hours per week of dumb stuff I’d just gotten used to handling.

One of the biggest time wasters for most of us can be email and Tim has some great ideas for how to reduce the time you spend reading and deleting useless emails.

The key to better time management is to just get as much as you can off your plate. Get rid of any dumb tasks that no one in your business should be doing. Tim’s book is great for identifying some of the dumb stuff.

Another idea

Identify only those jobs that you can do.

If you do this diligently you will find there are very few things that only you can do in your business. Everything else you can get someone else to do. I am a huge fan of outsourcing as many aspects of what you do as possible. I do this in my own business and so it is not something I am recommending without genuine experience.

In a typical firm there is a long list of stuff that is done poorly or just never really done at all. For example, here are some off the top of my head.

You might want to give yourself a quick mental score out of 10 as to how well each of these are handled in your business.

• Creating role descriptions for each job within your business
• Hiring staff to those roles
• Doing staff performance reviews
• Conducting training in the skills essential for high performance from your staff
• Regular, targeted and high quality communications to clients
• PR
• Client events (educational seminars etc)
• Client focus groups
• Proper financial analysis (generating insight as to what is happening in your business and making better decisions as a result)
• Marketing, design and brand management
• Practice management (most firms don’t have an effective and skilled manager – the business owners do it in between client work and 50 other things)
• Effective business planning and ongoing management to the business plan
• Development of a robust and researched investment philosophy
• Ongoing review of latest investment research ideas
• Defendable & compliant ongoing investment research process (keeping the FSA off your back)

I am sure you can think of many more (or will be able to do so once you complete your strengths and weaknesses analysis).

The truth is that everything on that list can be done better by someone other than you. And even if you are a small team you can outsource all of these tasks to create a fantastic business that let’s you focus on what you are good at – seeing clients, asking great questions and delivering great technical solutions that allow them to live more fulfilling lives as a result.

Above all, focus on your priorities

I believe the key to time management is to get your priorities right. This can be extraordinarily difficult, so if you haven’t got this right, or continually lapse back off course don’t worry – we all do that.

The great time managers just keep returning to their real priorities and working on the stuff that really matters each day.

Have a read of this short and lovely piece that was sent to me recently.

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar……..and the beer

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “yes.”

The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed. “Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things–your family, your children, your health, your friends, your favorite passions–things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.”

“The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else–the small stuff.”

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house, and fix the disposal. “Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented.

The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of beers.”

Called MODEFP, this new way of doing is to be launched at the IFP Conference 3 to 5 October 2011. MODEFP is a service targeted directly at owner managers who face major barriers to business growth and struggle with the ‘management stuff’ surrounding them.

The ultimate aim is to get owner manager advisers back in front of their clients where they make money (and have more fun) and to lessen the management load.

MODEFP will provide expert help with:

• the whole client experience
• investment and practice management
• branding and marketing
• human resources and recruitment
• business structure
• personal mentoring
• paraplanning.

It will also provide the board level input needed to help break through the ceilings of complexity firms experience as they develop.

Commenting on the new partnership, Brett Davidson says

Most adviser-owners believe that what they do for their clients is a bit special. But very few of them feel like their business is performing as well as it could and far too many are plain stuck at a level of performance that is too low for such a high quality service.

MODEFP brings an experienced and highly credible team to help advisers and their businesses become all they are capable of being. The best advisers want to stretch themselves personally and professionally and to leave a legacy for the profession. That’s our goal too.

Tim Hale says

The firms I work with are all helping their clients to create a great lifestyle, but they don’t always achieve that for themselves. At MODEFP we want to help our partner firms to build a beautiful and valuable financial planning business that’s fun to work in, so they can enjoy what they’ve created while they work in it, not at some exit point in 15 years time.

Even more than that, we want to be part of businesses that believe in doing things right, with strong personal values and high quality advice.

Tracey Underwood adds

When you start to remove the barriers to growth in most firms, not only do they perform better financially, but everyone in the business starts to enjoy coming into work again.

By streamlining business processes and getting clarity around who does what on a daily basis you can really make a difference. Combining all that with Brett and Tim’s expertise gives us a proposition that we know will add massive value for our clients.

MODEFP wants to work with businesses that:

• know how to have strong conversations with clients about their life goals
• use cash flow modeling
• run a passive investment approach (or wish to do so)
• want to go from good to great.

MODEFP will form life-long partnerships with its client firms, providing all the support needed to improve top line revenues and profit margins, sustainably.

The adviser-owner will retain full control signing off all decision making within their business. However, they will be freed of all the management stuff so they can focus on the financial advising while MODEFP handles everything else.

Barriers to Growth in Financial Planning Firms a paper by MODEFP

Supermodel Linda Evangelista once said:

I wont get out of bed for less than $10,000 …

The same might be true for you.

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