When things are going right in your practice, there is an air of positivity that pervades every interaction with clients and employees.
For example, you take pride in seeing a client be able to retire successfully and travel the world or pursue their hobbies full time. It also brings you great joy when a staff member passes a difficult certification and the whole team gathers to celebrate.
But what about the atmosphere of your office when things are going wrong?
How do you feel when clients take their portfolio elsewhere and your team seems to have a revolving door of employees?
A toxic office can quickly enter a tailspin, as seen in our recent list of red flags that indicate your financial advisor practice is likely out of control.
Fortunately, even the most problematic practices can turn things around once they embrace the idea of getting help.
So, you know you need help and want to do a better job in 2019, but where do you turn?
That’s where a coach like Ironstone can step in to guide you on the way to to healing the wounds and plugging the gaps in your practice.
What it’s Like to Work with a Financial Advisor Coach
Many advisors are anxious about engaging with a coach because they don’t know what to expect. This brief overview of an engagement will help you understand how rewarding it is to have a guided, structured path to follow towards improvement. In fact, you’ll see it paying dividends almost immediately. When your team sees their leader trying to right the ship, they’ll appreciate your efforts to embrace effective change.
The most common engagement starts with a team survey. This allows everyone to anonymously share their perspective, describe their daily responsibilities as they understand them, and bring our team up to speed. Our goal is to collaboratively correct all critical areas of need while refining the successful areas of your practice. Think of a “triage” type of approach; let’s stop the bleeding!
Once we do a detailed analysis, we make an onsite visit and spend a couple of days engaging with you and your team, both individually and as a group. A set of priorities are outlined for your practice, and we share strategies on how we’re going to attack the initial areas of concern and begin measuring progress.
Development Days are a critically important time when you close the door to clients and focus internally on professional development and educational opportunities.
Everyone turns on their voicemail and out of office reply emails, because a successful Development Day requires no distractions. At a minimum they should be held quarterly, but a monthly meeting will always get things moving faster! We’ll often attend the first one to set the stage and provide some structure.
We’ll hop on a monthly strategic 60-minute session to make sure we’re seeing positive momentum, adjusting our strategies and focus as needed.
As we transition through all these implementation steps and get into healthier routines, we love seeing your anxiety levels go down while the internal collaboration, communication and implementation go up. There is a distinct point where you will feel the ship truly turning around which creates a peacefulness within your team as you begin achieving your goals.
We know when you and your team are “getting it” because you begin working more independently from Ironstone and become more self sufficient. That is the picture of success!
One Proven Way to Track Your Progress
Measuring progress towards your goals is critical, and it’s been said to never underestimate the power of the written word. Getting thoughts out of your head and onto paper also boosts the element of accountability. Your goals, promises and next steps will all be staring back at you.
As a gesture of good will at the outset of 2019, please enjoy our free Goal Tracking Poster. Whether you edit the fields and keep it digital, or print it out and place it on the wall, you’ve now got one of our tools to track your progress each quarter towards annual practice and revenue goals.
By simply printing and completing this poster, I promise you’ll hold yourself more accountable and increase the odds of accomplishing your goals! And boy does it feel good to check those items off the list.
In fact, here is a sample edition with placeholder data to help indicate the types of goals and numbers that you should be tracking.
Next Steps
No matter where your practice ranks on the Chaos vs. Calm scale, there is always room for improvement and we’re here to guide you to a healthier place.
Every journey begins with a single step, and your first one is to contact us and ask for help.
Cheers to a new year, and to your success!
