Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
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Dear Bev,
Our partners take marketing very seriously. They are focused on growing and want to create a sustainable business. We’re all very involved.
The problem is, it is too much.
We have to meet every week to discuss what we’re doing and whether it is working or not. We survey clients twice a year (and the clients are getting irritated about it) and we have “day jobs” so we’re being asked to do much of what we are doing in addition to everything else.
I know you promote marketing and this is your area of focus, but do you think there can be too much marketing? I don’t want to be downbeat about it. I hear from some of my friends (we’re all in our early 30s) that their firms don’t do anything. It seems like you can go overboard. Do you agree, or am I being too negative about this?
B.H.
Dear B.H.,
I applaud the end to your question where you are self-reflective and ask if you are being too negative. I receive questions about other people all day, every day and most of the time people believe it’s about the other person, not about themselves. Being self-reflective is the first important step to understanding other people well.
However, in your case, you are not being negative and you are definitely onto something we observe often. Yes, there can be too much of a good thing! Many advisors who do engage in marketing activities will run after the “shiny object.” They might hear about a great idea for social media, or learn about a direct marketing campaign, or buy a new workshop to deliver to their clients. It sounds great on the face of it – and maybe it is – but it’s important to think about context.
I make the analogy to my financial advisors as follows: If an investor came to you and asked you about the best new idea in investing, and wanted your opinion on whether they should jump in with two feet, would you say “yes!”? No, you’d likely ask them about their goals, their risk tolerance, their current investments, their asset allocation, and such. You’d want to investigate the security or offering, what’s the track record, who is offering it, where would it fit in a portfolio, and such. You’d never be so irresponsible as to have your client just jump into something that was completely out of context.
And yet, financial advisors do this often. They find a marketing tactic that sounds good and they follow through with it. They also don’t consider the investment, who, what, when, how to measure etc. It’s just a “let’s do it!” philosophy without much context around it.
First, create the strategic marketing plan:
- What do you want to gain from your marketing activities, how will you measure success?
- Who is your market and what do they care about?
- What have you done in the past that’s worked well, and what’s not worked?
- What activities are you engaging in now and how will new activities complement what you are doing?
- Who, on your team, will play a role and what role will they play?
- How much time will be allocated to these activities?
- How much money will be allocated?
- What would make you pull the plug on an initiative?
These are some of the questions to develop a plan. The plan should be socialized throughout the firm and everyone should know what the activities are, and how they support the overall strategies.
Ask your partners if the team could get together and work on this. Sometimes advisors have to try a few things and realize there is just too much happening, and then they can step back and consider how it all fits.
Dear Bev,
I cannot get better at time management. Every day I leave with a laundry list of things I haven’t done. I put things on my calendar and then a client calls and needs my attention and I want to give it to him or her. I have read every book, used every program and just can’t find a way to dig out and become unburdened from the piles of mess all around me. Are some people just prone to losing time and should I just find a way to live with myself? It causes me stress so I guess I need permission to be someone who leaves a lot undone.
T.P.
Dear T.P.,
Do you want my permission to be who you are? Granted!
I’m not sure who else you can be. On a serious note, if you are stressing yourself out over it, you’d best find a way to either get better at managing what you need to do (maybe you need to say “no” more often?) or you need to let it go and not be stressed by it.
For one week, do the following:
- Each day, before the day starts, choose three things you prioritize for that day, and that day only. Resolve to accomplish those three things (or make significant headway on them depending on the size of the priority)
- Put the rest of your list away – only take out the next series of to-do’s if and when you have accomplished the three things
- Block time on your calendar for nothing. Yes, that’s right – part of why most people are so time crunched is they have scheduled activities for every minute of the day. Leave open times deliberately and label them “think times”. These should be a minimum of total 2 hours of each day. You can do it in 15-, 30-, 45- or 60-minute increments, but assume you will need time for something you haven’t thought about for the day.
- At the end of the day, clean your desk. Even if you have a lot of papers, make neat piles. Leave your office with it looking like you got through most everything you needed to. Don’t walk out with a mess behind you.
This won’t solve everything for you, but do these things and you will make some progress.
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995. In 2008, she co-founded Advisors Trusted Advisor to offer dedicated practice management resources to advisors, planners and wealth managers. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate students Leadership & Social Responsibility. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).
She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.
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Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here. 
