Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
Dear Bev,
I run a successful advisory business in the Southeast. It’s only me and an associate, and we manage about $50 million in assets and I live a good life. I don’t want to give up my practice. But I have this gnawing desire to do more with my life.
I’m an excellent public speaker and find I can captivate an audience when I talk about the intersection of financial planning, health and wellness. People who have a clear plan, know where they want to go and don’t worry day-to-day about their money are happier, less stressed and generally more content than people who have not done the work to put a plan in place.
I can inspire people to action and get them excited about the possibilities to release their stress in making good financial decisions. Does it make sense for me to jettison the advisory business and go into speaking full-time, or start speaking part-time and see if I can make a business out of it? Or should I just keep doing what I am doing and having some fun (unpaid) on the side talking about a passion of mine?
T.C.
Dear T.C.,
The questions I receive often raise even more questions for me before I would be comfortable giving an affirmative answer one way or the other. Consider some of these questions first:
- Are you still enjoying your financial practice? You say you are living a good life, but you don’t say whether you are still enjoying the work? If you are, you will want to continue with it in some capacity if you are not?
- Do you want to sell or merge your advisory business or potentially bring in a successor? Would you have a way to do something like this to create bandwidth for yourself so you could spend more time on other endeavors?
- Are you sure what you are doing is saleable? I am fortunate to be able to get paid for public speaking. But it takes time and effort to get to a point where you are able to be paid. You want to make sure your topic and focus is received well in the market and that people are willing to pay you for what you have to say. You are combining the financial with the health/wellness piece, but can health/wellness stand on its own?
- What do you want your work life to look like next year, in five years or in 10 years? Do you have a vision for what you want to be doing and what’s most important to you? Perhaps taking the time to clarify your short and long-term goals could help you crystalize what’s most important to you.
- What are you willing to sacrifice and what risks are you willing to take to pursue any of the options available to you? Risks are not always financially oriented; it can be the risk of lost opportunities– you might miss out on something that is important to you by making one choice over the other.
This is an important life question. I have a favorite client who runs a very successful financial planning firm and decided to create a technology product for retirement-plan participants. He has invested a great deal of time and money in this second business. He has managed to keep the original business thriving and doing well, but it takes a lot of time and effort (and money) to run a successful second venture in parallel. It can be done, but just make sure it is what you want for your career.
Dear Bev,
We have been stuck at a certain level of profitability for several years. We increase our top line substantially every year, but our bottom line does not increase commensurately. When we review the numbers, we find that we are adding staff as we add clients. And we are rewarding our staff well when times are good so everyone benefits. How do I motivate my team to find efficiencies and make them part of solving for this?
V.M.
Dear V.M.,
This is a perfect example of where I use my trademarked S.H.I.F.T.(R) Model to help teams meet goals and make change happen. Have a team meeting to talk about this objective. Start with:
S – Specify the desired outcome. Be clear on quantitative and qualitative outcomes. Have the team set the objectives together so they all buy-in.
H – Highlight the obstacles and categorize them. What is getting in the way of reaching this desired outcome? What happens that you continue to do better at the top line but not at the bottom line? Be as specific as possible.
I – identify the human factor. See if you can get your team to consider how the current profit-sharing, and hiring model is working against getting to your outcome. What role can people play in the process? How can they team differently for better outcomes?
F – Find alternatives. Have your team brainstorm some options to lower expenses. Can you utilize technology differently? Is your client servicing process unwieldy? Can people take on different tasks or roles? There are probably a number of ways you could increase the bottom line, have your team brainstorm these by reviewing the “S” (where you want to go), the “H” (currently what’s in the way) and “I” the human element and see what they have for ideas.
T – Take disciplined action. Who, what, when, how and how much for each step you determine you should take. Who will do it, how will they be held accountable, what will they do, is there any investment? Have your team work together to create this.
This process is great for any situation where you are trying to transition a team into solving a problem or reaching a goal. You can learn more at our www.learntoshift.com site and get ideas about how to use the process with your team.
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995. The firm also founded and manages the Advisors Sales Academy. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate students Entrepreneurship. 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.
More Factor-Based Investing Topics >
Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here. 