December Week 4: Building your activities for January

As December winds down, now is the perfect time to reflect on what you might have done differently in your practice since the financial world began unraveling earlier this year.
The answer most likely is that you probably would have done few things differently. The severity and comprehensiveness of the current downturn came as a shock to most of the financial world.
That said, and while you and your clients are still adjusting to the new market realities, it’s time to focus on the year ahead and on those areas you can control, particularly how to align your time and resources so that you can focus on your best clients.
This week, review the steps from the past three weeks. Where is your practice today? Where would you like it to be at the end of 2009 and in five years? What are your top three personal or life goals?
Next, if you haven’t already done so, write down your top two or three goals for 2009. Maybe it’s increasing assets by 15%. Or perhaps it’s adding 20 high-net-worth clients. Or maybe it’s adding a junior partner.
After you’ve stated and written down your goals, list the possible steps necessary to reach them. Be specific. If you want to add 20 top clients, for instance, write down the number of educational events you’ll hold next year and mailings you’ll do in order to attract prospects.

Execute and measure your results

Once your goals and action steps are stated and committed to paper, you’ve got a plan. But here are the steps necessary to make those plans become reality:

 Review your progress during the last week of each quarter. Block out the time on your 2009 calendar right now.
 Review life goals along with business goals.
 Check what is working and what is not.
 Identify three things that need to happen to reach weekly, monthly and quarterly goals.
 Discuss roles and responsibilities — have job descriptions, goals and specific responsibilities for each team member. One adviser tied quarterly bonuses to each team member’s reaching the practice’s overall goals. The result was every member had ownership and excitement.
 Consider sharing your goals and vision with another adviser and acting as each other’s coach. Create a coaching checklist and meet or talk once a month. It is easy to see on paper if you are reaching your business goals, but much harder to evaluate what is working and what is not. It will be valuable to gain another professional’s viewpoint.
 Have clear revenue goals.

Once your plans are set, pick out an action step and get to work Jan. 5.

Coming in January: capturing the rollover bonanza